I G Patel As I Knew Him


l Four tributes to the eminent economist who passed away last month are offered here.
I G Patel As I Knew Him PARTHA DASGUPTA Ifirst met IG (or Patlu, as I came to call him subsequently) in the lobby of the International Monetary Fund, on a cold December day in 1950. I was eight. My parents, my sister, and I had only just arrived in Washington, DC, from Varanasi (Benares in those days), for my father had assumed the post of chief of South Asia Division in the Fund. Arriving as we did from Benares, my sister and I were dazzled, excited, and bewildered by the grandeur of the capital of the US. If we were apprehensive as well, it was masked by the fact that we felt frozen. IG had joined the World Bank some months earlier. On noticing us in the lobby, he came over to introduce himself and ask if he could help. To me he looked the ultimate sophisticate: he spoke and moved softly; he was tall, slim, handsome and, judging by the way my father took to him, terrifically clever as well.