A speech by Dr Ravi Gupta, Board of Governor's Dinner, Oxford Town Hall, 23rd June 2006
Ladies and gentlemen, good evening! It is a great pleasure to be present in such a distinguished gathering of individuals. This is a homecoming of sorts for me—I studied at Oxford for six years and then went off into the real world, as they say. Now, after a year of full time teaching at the University of Florida, it is great to be back with friends at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.
My first year teaching in the United States brought many surprises, but one of the most interesting was the experience of teaching young Hindus about Hinduism. When I walked into class on the first day, I was surprised to find that nearly one third of my class were second generation Hindus—children of Indian immigrants who have lived their lives so far in the United States. Now they were sitting in class at the University of Florida hoping to learn more about a religious heritage which they claim as their own but perhaps are not entirely comfortable with.
