An Ode to Interdisciplinarity

A poem to celebrate the significance of interdisciplinary teaching, learning and researching....

Not a soft alternative to rigor

But the vivacious labour

Not a given; the success or the failure

Processes that units and metrics don’t measure.

Oh! Particularity of purity,

Disciplines of speciality

Do you discipline the mind?

Do you discipline the mind to expand?

Do you discipline the stiffness to disband?

The humility to learn another understanding

The language studied well enough

To avoid superficial borrowing

The patience to translate without flattening,

And, oh! the courage to be out there, seeming to be

Incompetent and overbearing

Interdisciplinarity, you aren’t a luxury for the curious

For, otherwise the painted conditions of existence remain spurious.

Flowing conversations across the fields

We won’t lose the elasticity against the hollow shields

Ambedkar, Mahasweta Devi, Talpade, Rege- their lessons may we reprise

Or recommending Angelou’s Still I rise….

An ode to interdisciplinarity

For, the silos are comfortable

Slowly and conveniently making a brittle reality.