C L Max Nikias is not an Indian. But Nikias is as excited as any Indian about two things: Cricket and Bollywood! As the president of the University of Southern California(USC), Nikias is leading a high power delegation on a week-long visit to India at the invitation of Ratan Tata, who is a USC trustee.
When Financial Chronicle asked Nikias about the importance of the visit, even before saying “a strong relationship with India is very beneficial to our students in America and view the relationship as a strategic priority for USC’s international relations”, he gave a historical perspective from a personal front.
Nikias traces a few historical India connections with Cyprus, where he was born and raised. “Cyprus used to be a British colony like India and India was a big brother to Cyprus. Jawaharlal Nehru was a very close friend of Cyprus’ first president, Archbishop Makarios. Indira Gandhi visited the island when she was the prime minister. And most importantly it was in 1960s when I had a chance to see a number of Hindi movies that were shown in theatres with Greek subtitles,” he said.
While Nikias’ early years in Cyprus exposed him to the Bollywood extravaganza the strong Indian student community at USC (close to 1,700 now) bowled him over to the cricket pitch. With more than two decades at USC as faculty, dean of USC Viterbi School of Engineering and now president, Nikias says his cricket team is playing the national final in Florida next month.
Though specialised in electrical and chemical engineering Nikias has put special focus on arts and humanities in USC. “USC also have unprecedented strength in the area of arts,” he said. This is also reflected in the people accompanying him in the delegation. The delegation is organising special lectures series and workshops from digital technology in motion pictures to brain research in 21st century, to the science of dealing with counter terrorism in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore by USC’s top research faculty.
Debevec, who leads the Graphics Laboratory at the USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies and led the development of several Light Stage systems that capture and simulate how people and objects appear under real-world illumination, did a workshop for the special effects and 3-D professionals working in Indian film industry in Mumbai. In fact, Debevec has been associated with movies like Spider Man 2, King Kong, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Avatar and the recent Rajnikant movie Enthiran (The Robot).
“We are planning to market the school more here, considering the popularity of Indian movies around the world and the number of movies produced in India. Our aim is also to set up partnership with Indian institutes and brilliant artists from India,” Nikias said.
In fact, USC will honour Indian playwright Girish Karnard, who Nikias refers as the “Sophocles (Greek playwright) of India”, with a honorary doctorate later this week in Bangalore.
Nikias is expecting a big turn out for a special lecture on “science as the ultimate weapon in the war on terror” in Delhi on Thursday (February 24) by Stephen Hora, research professor and director, USC Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events. According to Nikias, Ratan Tata, who is the host for the delegation, has been assisting them with setting up meeting with government officials. Nikias along with Tata and Edward P. Roski, the chairman of the USC Board of Trustees, met prime minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday (February 23).
“One of the things that I would like to hear from the prime minister is his views on higher education and the plans his government has for India in the context of FDI in higher education. Also want to learn from him the government’s plan for elementary high school education in India,” Nikias told FC before his meeting with the PM.
In Mumbai, Mukesh and Nita Ambani hosted a special dinner at Antilia for the delegation. He held discussion with the Ambanis on their plan to set up a university in Mumbai. “This is something that we are going to follow up with him (Ambani) directly in the future,” said Nikias.
Ambanis party for the USC delegation featured a remarkable classical Indian dance performance featuring Bharat Natyam, Kathak and Odissi dancers. Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Madhuri Dixit and Rahul Bose were also present at the glitzy Antilia dinner.
0 comments:
Post a Comment