Rajasthan varsity prof gets top French award

Updated on: Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Jaipur: Thinking that it was another Diwali greeting card, Dr Asha Pande didn’t immediately open the courier that reached her Gandhi Nagar residence on October 14. It was only in the evening that she did. Inside, was the biggest surprise of her life and the best Diwali gift she could ever have dreamt of: a letter from the French government conferring on her the country’s highest civilian award, Legion de Honor.

Pande is the head of the dramatics department at Rajasthan University (RU). She is also founder-director of the Master in European Studies at RU and heads the centre for French and Francophone studies at RU. The 55-year-old was in Jawaharlal Nehru University’s first batch (1976) to complete their masters in French language. She has been honoured for expansion of French language in Rajasthan and also for laying the foundation of Indo-Fench friendship events in both countries. “I was thrilled, absolutely on cloud nine,” Pande told TOI. Earlier, luminaries such as filmmaker Satyajit Ray, sitar maestro Pt Ravi Shankar, actor Amitabh Bachchan and environmentalist R K Pachauri had been conferred this honour.

“French embassy officials in India had taken my bio-data a few months back, but I never thought such a great thing was coming my way,” she said. “I immediately rang up my husband to give the great news but decided to inform the press only after Diwali.” Her husband, Ashok Pande, a 1973-batch IAS officer, is at present the state election commissioner of Rajasthan.

“Although the honour was great, I waited for RU V-C Furkan Qamar to return to the city as he was in Delhi for Diwali. Today, he returned and I informed the government about the award,” she said. Born and brought up in Almora, Uttarakhand, Pande moved to Jaipur in 1977 when her husband was posted as collector in Tonk. She virtually pioneered French language education after coming to Rajasthan. “I founded the Indo-French Cultural Society in 1982 and started teaching French to students but the number of French teaching institutions was zero at that point of time. A few certificate and diploma courses were launched later, accommodating 50-60 students. But my concerted efforts have delivered great results as hundreds of institutions in Rajasthan are teaching French at present,” she said.

She had been inviting French embassy officials to the annual functions at RU and “they were very impressed” with the students’ command over French. “The embassy officials once asked what help I wanted. I requested them to fund a few education programmes, which they could not. But what they have given is more than what I had expected.”

France’s secretary, foreign affairs, Alain Joyandet, had sent the award letter on September 28, which reached her on October 14 via French ambassador to India Jerome Bonnafont. “I am yet to know when the felicitation function will take place

Rajasthan varsity prof gets top French award

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