PREFACE

Why This Work?

It is my firm belief that the one who has a why can cope with any how in this unique once for all existence we call life. Meaning is at the_ root of all happiness. Life is a search for meaning. It is an exhilarating experience to discover that ones own life has a meaning. The perception of meaning adds colour and vigour, completeness and fulfillment. For me personally, this work though begun on account of the demands and requirements of attaining a Degree, has been even more, an arrival at and re-possession of the meaningfulness of a way of life I had chosen since some years. The central question, therefore, around which this whole work is situated is why should I be a Priest? My finite existence being the starting point of this Thesis, the purpose of this preface is to situate the immediate context, which is in other words, my own context.

Fr. Prof. George Thadathil SDB is Principal of Salesian College Sonada and Siliguri Extended Campus, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India. His area of specialization is Cross Cultural Social Philosophy. He has organized various research seminars engaging local scholarship with contemporary concerns of identity, language and ethnicity. He is the author of Vision from the Margin: Study of the Sri Narayana Guru Movement in the Literature of Nitya Chaitanya Yati (2007) and has edited and co-edited books like Communities and Identity Consciousness: South Indian Trajectories (2004), Cultural Identity in Nepali Language and Literature (2005), Subaltern Perspectives: Philosophizing in Context (2005), Cultural Linguistic Transitions in the Nepali Speech Community of Darjeeling (2009) besides contributing to a number of journals and edited volumes on Philosophy, Literature and Social Sciences. His publications are the outcome of an attempt to apply the research findings in South India (SNGM) onto the Language and Ethnicity based identity formations in Darjeeling District, North East India. He continues with his research interests in this field and is in the process of bringing out a volume on “Owning Locations: Transforming Small Worlds”. He is the Founder and Series editor of Salesian Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences in its tenth year as a biannual peer reviewed publication and the Founder Director of Salesian Publications.