From his beginnings in a poor neighbourhood in Kolkata and the idyllic days in Santiniketan, from being home-schooled by his father followed by a vigorous student life at Presidency College, Kolkata and in Cambridge, England, Bardhan rose to being among the foremost development economists in the world. After serving on the faculty of MIT, Indian Statistical Institute and Delhi School of Economics, he finally settled at the University of California, Berkeley. In the process he interacted closely interacted with the likes of James Meade, Joan Robinson, Paul Samuelson, Robert Solow, James Mirrlees, Joseph Stiglitz, George Akerlof, Jerry Cohen, Jon Elster, Amartya Sen, T.N. Srinivasan.