Cambridge vice-chancellor Alison Richard. (Above) The sense of humour at Cambridge has not changed in 800 years, as illustrated by this example of Christmas cheer on a statue above one of the entrances to Gonville & Caius College

London, Dec. 14: Cambridge University vice-chancellor Alison Richard will visit India next month, exactly a year after her last trip, but Calcutta will be her starting point this time.

“She was much taken with Calcutta — she wants to go back,” her spokesman said.

The confirmation of the 10-day trip came hard on the heels of the unveiling of Jagadish Chandra Bose’s bust at Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Next year is a big year in the life of the university as 2009 marks the 800th year of its founding when “a group of scholars fled Oxford after some unrest and settled in Cambridge”, the spokesperson explained. “And we have been rivals ever since.”

On January 17, Richard will be in India when all the church bells in Cambridge ring out in unison, followed later that day by a light display on the Senate, the Old Schools and other ancient buildings.

During the year, the vice-chancellor “will go to Singapore, China, Hong Kong and twice to the US but India is important, which is why her first overseas visit in Cambridge’s 800th year will be to India”.

Richard will be renewing links already established with alumni and industry but over the past 12 months, she has got down to the nitty-gritty of taking the Cambridge-India Partnership to a new level.

“There is now a dedicated website (www.cambridge-India.org) that charts the movements of Indian academics to Cambridge and vice versa,” the spokesperson added. There is a great deal of fascinating gossip and chit chat on the website — all it needs is a section dealing with who is romancing whom for Cambridge is a place that inspires not only cutting-edge academic research but also affairs of the heart.

In the 1950s, for example, a Sardar was literally pulled off the street in Cambridge to be a last-minute witness when one Swaranjit Singh, a student at Christ’s and contemporary of Yusuf Hamied, now Cipla chairman, married a German girl. Richard finds it convenient that the said Sardar now happens to be the Prime Minister of India.

In fact, two more Manmohan Singh Scholarships have just been announced at St John’s, the Prime Minister’s old College, to add to the first three given earlier this year.

When Richard was in Calcutta last January, she met Cambridge and Oxford alumni at the Bengal Club. But next month’s meeting will be at the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, an institution established in 1853.

Malabika Sarkar, president of the Cambridge and Oxford Society, said: “Because the meeting is being held at the Bengal Chamber, there will be much more corporate involvement on this occasion.”

The vice-chancellor will not have too much time for sightseeing but she is keen to have a guided tour of the Victoria Memorial. “The curator there, Dr Chitta Panda, is one of our members,” Sarkar said.

As the first full-time woman vice-chancellor in Cambridge in 800 years, Richard could easily command a chauffeur-driven limousine to take her to work. Instead, she cycles every morning and is inspired “to see the mist rising from the Fens”.