Rhythms of Existence: From Cosmos to Human Experience

This book is a multidisciplinary exploration of the concept of rhythm in diverse fields that are closely connected with our life and felt experience, namely, spirituality, language and literature, ecology, socio-cultural contexts, music, visual arts, and well-being. Bringing together a collection of 24 essays by both eminent and young scholars which cover these diverse fields, its uniqueness lies in the way that each essay provides insight into the concept of rhythm and also links itself to other related disciplines. A book bridges the divide between humanities, social, and behavioral sciences, and it is a must read book for anyone who is interested either in the concepts of rhythm, cycle, harmony, and their ubiquitous presence in all fields of knowledge.

Dr. Priyadarshi Patnaik is Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and Former Head, HSS, and Former Chairman, Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness, IIT Kharagpur. He is also a part of the Academy of Classical and Folk Arts, IIT Kharagpur. His areas of research include relationship and well-being, visual communication, music and emotion, communication and culture, media communication, translation, and digital humanities. He has authored and edited more than 14 volumes of text, reference books, and creative work. He has around 85 peer-reviewed research papers in journals, edited volumes, and conference proceedings. Many of his translations, poems, short stories, illustrations, and photographs have been published in national and international journals. His interests include poetry, visual arts, and music.

Prof. Tanusree Dutta has been working as Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ranchi.  Prior to this she has been working in other prestigious institutes like the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Rajasthan, Banaras Hindu University, etc. Dr. Dutta had obtained her postgraduate and doctorate degree from Banaras Hindu University and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 2000 and 2004, respectively. She has research publications in peer-reviewed national and international journals, which have been cited in manuscripts and books of national and international repute. She also has to her credit an edited book entitled ‘Bias in Human Behaviour’ and a book on ‘Neuromarketing in India: Understanding the Indian Consumer’. Apart from academics, she has also been actively involved in conducting various training programs and consultancy assignments for different companies.

Dr. Archi Banerjee, a student of Physics and Music, is currently working as an Assistant Professor (Grade - I) at Indian Knowledge System and Mental Health Applications Centre, IIT Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India. Her primary area of research and teaching is neuro-cognition of Indian music and arts, and their mental health applications. Previously she has worked as a "Consultant - Mind Lab Research and Implementation" at the Rekhi Foundation, USA, where she was taking classes and conducting workshops at various colleges and universities across India on the applications of modern technologies and neuro-bio sensors in the premises of happiness and wellbeing research. After completing her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Physics, she completed her Ph.D. in Neuro-cognitive Physics from Jadavpur University, Kolkata in 2018 and pursued her post-doctoral research (2019-2025) at IIT Kharagpur, India, in the field of Indian classical music and spiritual music cognition, visual arts cognition, emotion, and aesthetics. She has been awarded the prestigious INSPIRE Fellowship by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. She has authored the book “Musicality of Human Brain through Fractal Analytics” (2018) and has published several high-quality papers in peer-reviewed International Journals and Conferences in the domain of music signal processing and cognitive neuroscience. She is also a student of vocal music for the past 23 years at Shrutinandan school of Music under the patronage of her Guru, Padma Bhushan Awardee Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty and has performed in several academic and musical conferences, university fests and other cultural gatherings across different parts of India.

Dr. Shankha Sanyal holds a Ph.D. in the field of cognitive neurophysics from Sir C.V. Raman Centre for Physics and Music, Jadavpur University. He completed graduation and post-graduation in physics from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He is currently Research Associate in the School of Languages and Linguistics, Jadavpur University. His primary research interest currently revolves around studying the acoustical and neural manifestations of speech and music signals using state-of-the-art signal processing algorithms. He has been actively involved in different theater performances as well as science popularization campaigns. He is Member of the Acoustical Society of America and The Asiatic Society, Kolkata. He has more than 25 publications in international journals and two books in the subject.