In 1893, Swami Vivekananda travelled to Chicago to attend the Parliament of

World Religions. There, amidst representatives of the various religions of the

world, Vivekananda-who grew up in an affluent Bengali household in Calcutta,

studied to be a lawyer, only to give it up to become a wandering monk-spoke

of Universal Religion-'a religion which will have no place for persecution

or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize the divinity in every man and

woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be created in aiding

humanity to realize its own true divine nature'. Although a devout Hindu, he had

always been someone who felt a deep sense of belonging to the plural heritage of

the Indian sub-continent. Through his learnings and travels he sought to galvanize

society on the basis of love.

Comprising three insightful essays, Vivekananda and Our Times situates the

Swami in today's world. Rajni Bakshi's endeavour-which began a century

after the Chicago address, when the country was reeling from the shock

of the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign and the consequent demolition of the

Babri Masjid-attempts to seek a space for reflection and shows us, through

Vivekananda's ideologies, the need to reconcile with the 'other' in a 'shared quest

for freedom from fear'.