Sudhir Kakar Age, Death, Wife, Family, Biography

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Wife: Katharina Poggendorf-Kakar

Age: 85 Years

Death Cause: Throat Cancer

Bio/Wiki
Profession(s)	• Psychoanalyst • Novelist • Author
Physical Stats & More
Height (approx.)	5' 8" (173 cm)
Eye Colour	Black
Hair Colour	Salt & Pepper
Career
Non-fictional works	• Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern World • Inner World: A Psycho-Analytic Study of Childhood and Society in India • Shamans, Mystics, And Doctors • Tales Of Love, Sex And Danger • Intimate Relations • The Colors Of Violence • The Indians Die Inder. Porträt einer Gesellschaft (2006) • Kamasutra • Frederick Taylor • Understanding Organizational Behavior • Conflict And Choice • Identity And Adulthood • The Analyst And The Mystic • La Folle Et Le Saint • Culture And Psyche • The Indian Psyche • The Essential Writings Of Sudhir Kakar • A Book of Memory
Fictional works	• The Ascetic Of Desire (1998) • Indian Love Stories (1999) • Ecstasy (2001) • Mira And The Mahatma (2004) • The Crimson Throne (2010) • The Devil Take Love (2015) • The Kipling File (2018)
Awards, Honours, Achievements	• Lotte Koehler Prize for Psychoanalytic Developmental, Social and Cultural Psychology (2021) • Merck Tagore Award (2016) • Order of Merit, Federal Republic of Germany (2012) • Homi Bhabha Senior Fellow (2012-14) • Fellow, Centre for Advanced Study in Humanities, University of Cologne (2011-2014) • Distinguished Service Award of Indo-American Psychiatric Association (2007) • Elected Fellow of National Academy of Psychology (2007) • Member, Academie Universelle des Cultures, France (2003) • Abraham Kardiner Award, Columbia University (2002) • Rockefeller Residency, Bellagio (1999) • Goethe Medal of Goethe Institut, Germany (1998) • Watumull Distinguished Scholar, University of Hawaii, Spring Semester (1998) • Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study, Berlin (1994-95) • National Fellow in Psychology, Indian Council of Social Science Research (1992-94) • MacArthur Research Fellowship (1993-94) • Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology, American Anthropological Association (1987) • Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow (1986-88) • Member, School of Social Sciences, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton (1983-84) • German Academic Exchange Fellowship (1983) • Visiting Fellow, University of Melbourne, Winter Semester (1981) • Homi Bhabha Fellow (1979-80) • Senior Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research (1975-76) • Karolyi Foundation Award for Young Writers (1963)
Personal Life
Date of Birth	25 July 1938 (Monday)
Birthplace	Nainital, Uttarakhand
Date of Death	22 April 2024
Age (at the time of death)	85 Years
Death Cause	Throat Cancer
Zodiac sign	Leo
Nationality	Indian
Hometown	Goa
School(s)	• Modern School, New Delhi • St. Edward's School, Shimla
College/University	• Maharaja's College (now University Maharaja College), Jaipur • Gujarat University, Ahmedabad • University of Mannheim, Germany • University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria • Sigmund Freud Institute, Frankfurt
Educational Qualification(s)	• Intermediate Studies from Maharaja's College, Jaipur (1953) • B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Gujarat University, Ahmedabad (1955-1958) • Master's Degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) from the University of Mannheim, Germany (1960-1964) • Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria (1965-1967) • Post-doctoral psychoanalytic training as a candidate of the German Psychoanalytical Society from The Sigmund Freud Institute, Frankfurt (1971-1975)
Controversy	He was once caught in controversy after a symposium held in 2018 regarding the Death Penalty for Child Rape during which he advocated leniency towards perpetrators of child rape. He also suggested prioritizing the protection of family reputation and bonds over the child's safety.
Relationships & More
Marital Status (at the time of death)	Married
Family
Wife/Spouse	Second Wife: Katharina Poggendorf-Kakar (scholar of comparative religion and visual artist)
Children	Son- Rahul (works in financial services) Daughter- Shveta Kakar (lawyer) Note: Both his children are from his first wife.
Parents	His father was an additional district magistrate.
Siblings	Sister- Suleena Sapra

Some Lesser Known Facts About Sudhir Kakar

Sudhir Kakar spent his early childhood near Sargodha (now in Pakistan) and Rohtak, Haryana.
During the partition of India and Pakistan, his family had to relocate from city to city because of his father’s posting.
He served as an assistant to Professor Erik Homburger Erikson and taught in his course “The Human Life Cycle” for one year (1966-67) at Harvard University.
In 1967, he started working as a research fellow in the Program for Applied Psychoanalysis at Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration.
In 1968, he started working as an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In 1971, he was promoted to Professor of Organizational Behavior.
After completing his post-doctoral training in Frankfurt, he returned to India in 1975 and started living with his aunt Kamla Chowdhry in Delhi, where he started practising as a psychoanalyst.
In 1976, he joined the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences as a Professor and Chairman at the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.
He was also an adjunct professor at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France.
He had been a Senior Fellow for almost a decade (1980-90) at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi.
In 2001, he started working as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University.
He had given lectures as a visiting professor at several universities across the world including the Sigmund Freud Institute of Psychoanalytic Training and Research, Frankfurt (1972), University of Economics, Vienna (1974-75), University of Chicago (1989-93), and Goa University (2013).

Sudhir Kakar during a seminar
In 2003, he moved to Goa, where he lived till his death.
In 2014, he joined GITAM, Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh as an honorary professor.
He has been listed on the list of ’25 Major Thinkers of the World’ by French magazine ‘Le Nouvel Observateur.’
He has also been described as one of the 21 important thinkers of the 21st century by the German weekly Die Zeit.
He is mainly known for his research work on the post-Independence Indian psyche.
One of his most notable books “The Essential Sudhir Kakar” (2011) is a collection of 15 essays on psychoanalysis, culture and religion, and their confluence in his work.

Cover of the book ‘The Essential Sudhir Kakar’
In his translation of the ancient Indian text ‘Kamasutra,’ which he did jointly with Wendy Doniger, Kakar recovers and reconstructs the persistence of the text on the essentiality of the balance between the erotic and the spiritual.
He had done the analysis of various famous personalities including Swami Vivekananda in “The Inner World” (1978), Mahatma Gandhi in “Intimate Relations” (1989), and Ramakrishna in “The Analyst and the Mystic” (1991).

Cover of the book ‘Intimate Relations’ (1989)
His second novel ‘Ecstasy’ (2003) was “written exclusively for the senses of the sceptic and the mind of the mystic.”
Most of his novels including “The Seeker” (1995) and “A Book of Memory” (2016) are based on the themes of identity, family relationships, and the complexities of modern Indian life.
His works have been translated into more than 20 languages.
He was often spotted smoking cigars on various occasions.

Sudhir Kakar holding a cigar
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