After spending two decades inspiring students to explore the field of philosophy, Professor Anand Jayprakash Vaidya died at 48 in October, leaving behind his wife, brother and many beloved colleagues in the Philosophy Department.
His wife and his colleagues held a memorial service for him at the SpartanRose Garden on April 15 during the afternoon and evening.
Noah Friedman-Biglin, an assistant professor in philosophy at San José State, was one of Vaidya’s former students who attended the service.
“He was my teacher, a mentor, a role model, and most of all, he was my friend. I will always miss him,” Friedman-Biglin wrote in a speech for his colleague and former professor.
Friedman-Biglin said he remembered meeting Vaidya for the first time when he was a student.
Vaidya taught logical theory, ethical theory, philosophy of economics and justice, early and late modern philosophy, and asian philosophy, according to his SJSU biography.
“He talked so fast. Every sentence had 15 ideas that we'd never heard before,” Friedman-Biglin said. “It was just like a fire hose of a philosophy when you talk to him. But again, it was something that we (students) desperately wanted. And it was like, ‘Oh, this is why we're here. This is why we came.’”
Vaidya was born in Chicago, but spent most of his childhood years in Saudi Arabia, according to his webpage.
He lived in a gated community with his older brother and his parents during the First Intifada and during the Gulf War.
Between the 1980s and the 2000s, there were two intifadas, also known as “uprisings” in Arabic, according to a March 22 PBS article.
In 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein started the Gulf War over a conflict on whether or not Iraq owed multiple countries known as the “Gulf states” $37 billion in loans related to previous war efforts, according to a webpage from the U.S. Office of the Historian.
Tony Vaidya, who was older than Anand Jayprakash Vaidya by two and a half years, had a close relationship with his brother.
“He’s my best friend. I used to talk to him all the time,” Tony Vaidya said.
During Anand Jayprakash Vaidya’s teenage years, his interest in discipline almost led him to consider joining the military before his uncle reminded him that there is more than one type of structure in life.
“He was convinced by (our) uncle, that, ‘Hey, there’s more than one type of structure and discipline. You can have structure and discipline of the mind.’ And got him involved in thinking about higher education,” Tony Vaidya said.
Tony Vaidya said he has fond memories of his brother playing guitar for his 10-year-old daughter.
Andrew Delunas, a senior lecturer in philosophy, has an office located down the hall from Anand Jayprakash Vaidya’s empty office.
On the second floor of the Faculty Office Building, Anand Jayprakash Vaidya’s office still has his name plate attached to the door.
“He would always show me pictures of his guitar, and (he’d say), ‘We need to get together and jam,’ because I play bass,” Delunas said. “One of my big regrets is that we never got to play music together.”
Delunas said Anand Jayprakash Vaidya was recently preparing to become the new department chair.
Janet Stemwedel, the current interim chair of the philosophy department, was preparing to pass down her position to him for the Spring 2025 semester before he died.
“Last year was supposed to be me just keeping the seat warm for him, with the plan that he was going to start being chair this year,” Stemwedel said.
Anand Jayprakash Vaidya studied both philosophy and Asian philosophy, according to his SJSU biography.
Karin Brown, a philosophy professor, sits in the office across the hall from Anand Jayprakash Vaidya’s office.
“I used to call him ‘problem solver,’” Brown said. “He loved that because that’s part of the reason people love to have a conversation with him and talk to him. We'd always like to find solutions.”
She said he continued to work for months before his death even though he had peripheral neuropathy in his fingers, which made typing painful for him.
Peripheral neuropathy is when the nerve located outside of the brain and spinal cord are damaged. Common symptoms from this condition include numbness, weakness and pain in a person’s hands or feet, according to a Mayo Clinic webpage.
“He worked till he was in the ICU, until the very end, even though he was in pain,” Brown said. “Now his wife is making sure that the last pieces (articles) that he wrote are going to be published.”
Tony Vaidya said he wasn’t expecting his brother to pass so soon.
“(His death) was a huge hole in our family,” Tony Vaidya said.
