OWEN M. LYNCH

Owen was the kindest most generous mentor.

Owen! I am so glad I was part of your world, you will be missed (and so will those Christmas cards I got from you each year). Like so many others whose path you have crossed,you have touched my heart with your generousity and kindness. RIP

A great loss for academic community in general and Dalit (ex-unotuchable)community in particular.
Personally I have lost my academic Guru. He was the only academician who patiently read my M.Phil. dissertation and wrote comments as well. He was visiting Agra at that time. It was 1994.
Those words gave me confidence and self-belief that I can also do something in academic field. Since then I always got his blessings and advise since then. In 2011 he wrote my recommendation for my...

On College Walk as I was struggling with my stalled dissertation, Owen said, "[The]argument emerges from writing." That broke a log jam. Owen visited my fieldwork site, a shantytown in Hong Kong and was an "outside" member of my Ph.D. dissertation committee. As neighbors on Morningside Hts, we would frequently bump into each other, usually along Amsterdam outside the Cathedral of St. John, he on his constitutional, me walking my dog. These bumps would lead to rich conversations about...

Owen was a generous mentor to me. He was the first to reach out and encourage me to engage with our professional organization and he was always willing to support my work and the work of his younger colleagues. He guided me through many phases of my research and had very meaningful advice to give at every stage. He was a true soul and deeply loved within anthropology and in India by the people with whom he worked. Thank you so much for your love and insight, Owen.

Owen seemed to have the knack of reaching out to people and making them feel wanted and comfortable. One was really fortunate to have a fellow-anthropologist go beyond the discipline and connect with people effortlessly; a marvelous trait for an active fieldworker who was so successful in settling down and living with the downtrodden and discriminated in India.

Owen is already profoundly missed among his large circle of friends in New York, across the U.S. and in India. Gentleness, humor and profound generosity combined with a sharp intellect to make him a unique person. Our hearts are with his loving family in mourning his loss.

We remember Owen with deepest affection and join his family in mourning his loss. We sometimes called him Omji, our guru in Indian studies, and loved him for his thoughtfulness and gentle sensibilities. He will be in our hearts forever.