Jana Pathe Ajana Prantare: An Odyssey of Self-exploration and Academic Awakening

Learning does not always take place within the four walls of a classroom. Encounters with new people, ideas, institutions and academic communities can often teach us as much as formal instruction. Pranab Kanti Deb’s Jana Pathe Ajana Prantare, an academic travelogue based on his participation in seminars, conferences and other academic events, explores this broader understanding of learning. The book is not simply a record of places visited; it is an account of how academic journeys shape a teacher’s intellectual identity, confidence and understanding of education. The book can also be characterized as an odyssey of self-exploration and academic awakening: a journey from diffidence to confidence. 
The title, Jana Pathe Ajana Prantare (if I may translate it as “On Known Paths Across Unexplored Plains”), is particularly suggestive. It captures the paradox at the heart of the book: the traveler moves through familiar academic purposes – teaching, research, presenting papers and attending conferences – while continually encountering unfamiliar intellectual landscapes. The nine chapters, preceded by a preface and followed by the author’s reflections on his idea of a university, trace this movement across Nepal, India, the United Kingdom and the United States.
One of the book’s principal strengths is its clear sense of purpose. Deb does not present international academic travel simply as professional achievement or personal adventure. For him, education is a continuing intellectual and moral responsibility. He sees teaching as a “sacred duty” and insists that the journey of a genuine teacher cannot come to a standstill. This conviction gives the book coherence and prevents it from becoming merely a collection of conference reports.
The author captures the value of learning beyond the classroom through a striking image:

  
The “open sky” is an effective metaphor for the intellectual freedom that academic participation can provide. Conferences expose the author to unfamiliar ideas, scholars and approaches, and these encounters eventually return with him to the classroom. In this sense, the book makes a persuasive case for viewing academic mobility as an extension of teaching rather than an activity separate from it.
Perhaps more revealing is the author’s observation that   

This is more than a comment on conferences. It points to the process through which a researcher gradually discovers an intellectual identity. The book’s movement from uncertainty towards confidence is therefore one of its most engaging dimensions. The discussion of TESOL and IATEFL is especially valuable because it brings out the less glamorous side of academic life. The author writes:

  
These lines make the research process tangible. Academic success is shown not as a smooth progression but as a process of uncertainty, revision and persistence. For younger researchers, this may be one of the book’s most useful lessons. The author also argues that conferences enlarge the intellectual horizon:

There is much truth in this observation, although the book’s treatment of academic conferences is, at times, more celebratory than critical. Conferences can certainly broaden intellectual horizons, but they can also reproduce academic hierarchies, institutional inequalities and established modes of thinking. A deeper interrogation of these tensions might have made the book more intellectually complex. Similarly, the experiences of travelling abroad and participating in international academic networks could have been used more extensively to examine the differences between academic cultures, institutions and research practices. These are not flaws that undermine the book, but they mark areas where its critical engagement could have been developed further.
Another strength is the author’s understanding of knowledge as something that must be shared. He writes:

  
This philosophy gives the journeys their ultimate purpose. The value of travelling to conferences lies not in the journey itself but in what the traveler brings back to students and colleagues. The book therefore connects research, professional development and teaching in a meaningful way.
At the same time, the book’s strongest feature can also be seen as its limitation. Because the narrative is deeply personal and inspirational, some experiences are approached primarily through wonder and reflection rather than sustained critical analysis. The reader occasionally wishes for more detailed engagement with the research papers, academic debates and intellectual disagreements encountered during these journeys. Such engagement would have moved the book further from an inspiring academic memoir towards a more searching account of contemporary academic culture.
Nevertheless, the book succeeds in presenting an important and often neglected dimension of a teacher’s life: the teacher as a continuing learner. Deb writes:

   
This idea provides the book with its intellectual centre. The journeys are ultimately journeys of becoming—a teacher becoming a researcher, a researcher becoming more confident, and an individual continually redefining what it means to teach.
The concluding section presents Deb’s vision of a true university, shaped by his experiences at international seminars and academic institutions. Drawing on Wilhelm von Humboldt, John Henry Newman, and Rabindranath Tagore, he advocates a broader philosophy of higher education. His thinking particularly reflects Newman’s concept of liberal education, which seeks to cultivate the mind, free thought, and character rather than merely provide degrees or vocational skills. His academic experiences abroad lead him to argue that universities must move beyond narrow, utilitarian goals and become open centres of knowledge, inquiry, and intellectual growth.
Jana Pathe Ajana Prantare will be especially relevant to young teachers, students and emerging researchers. Its greatest contribution is perhaps its insistence that academic life should not become confined to routine classroom practice. It encourages readers to participate, question, exchange ideas and remain open to intellectual discovery. More importantly, it reminds us that academic travel is meaningful only when it changes the way we think and teach.
The book may not always push its critical reflections as far as it could, particularly in examining the structures and inequalities of the international academic world. Yet its sincerity, intellectual curiosity and faith in teaching give it considerable value. Jana Pathe Ajana Prantare ultimately presents learning as an unfinished journey—one that begins in the classroom, moves through the wider world, and returns to the classroom enriched by new questions, experiences and possibilities.
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The writer is the Dean, School of Humanities, Sylhet International University