Dr. Vinny’s cabin rarely breathes. It’s always crammed with students from every walk of life drawn by urgent questions about life, its struggles and meaning. They spill on the floor of his small office, on the spare table cluttered with books, on a few rotten chairs and a big comfortable sofa. If there is no space, they just stand. Everybody wants a crumb of his insight on almost every damn thing in the world—- politics, philosophy, poetry, writing, language. When I entered University for the first time less than two years ago for my graduate studies, I would feel uneasy and disgruntled about the prospect of attending a University in Kashmir after having failed at moving out. In those turbulent days (or even today), Dr. Vinny’s cabin became my saviour. “The world is your oyster,” Vinny would greet me. “Life is a quest. You don’t get everything you want at once. You need to strive to prove your conviction and love for your goal and purpose,” Vinny would console me for consistently hitting roadblocks in my hunt for academic upliftment. Right behind his........

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