Untitled September 7, 2007

  

I am sorry; I don’t seem to have a title to this piece. First, my brain is just so messed up with the whirlwind of exams gone by, that I have temporary lost some of my creative skills. Secondly, all the unique things mentioned below cannot be summarized with a single phrase since I suspect they are just random things which utterly jobless people do to remain utterly jobless.

• 1. It began in the last day of the examination. While writing, I seemed to think that today would be an end. An end, to the wonderful term I had, sitting and attending classes and to marvel at the eccentricities of human kind. I felt sad and disturbed. It was momentarily removed by the professor (mentioned here) who seemed to stand in the corridor with a cellphone in his hand, and using it like a walky talky and trying to pass on the message and then dolefully looking at the device because while using it in the walky-talky mode it didn’t seem to give him a worthwhile feedback. I smiled. Life was good.

                  Then it came back. The realization, that these distinguished gentlemen would become a thing of the past in the coming few weeks and we all would have to adjust to some new professors. Who knows, whether they would live up to the earlier professors who have instilled in us the belief, Eccentricity is infinite. Then while thinking this, a voice seemed to float about. Another professor (mentioned here) earnestly talking on the phone,”…listen I would be coming tomorrow. And I would be bringing with me, two senior citizens, two adults and two children.” And I sighed. This could mean that our professor was planning a holiday or a get-together. On the flip side, it could also mean that when he is not teaching, he likes to be Hannibal Lecter.

2.  The next day, we decided that to relieve ourselves from this ultimate depression we had to watch a good hindi film, because most good hindi films don’t require usage of brains. Chak De India, seemed to be a good bet. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, that Yash Raj Films seem to have some problem going on with the multiplexes, so the film is not running in the city’s multiplexes (except for Fame which is quite far away from my house). It has been eons since I went to a single screen theatre until last Tuesday. And it was fun.

 Single screen theatres are fun because of the people in it. There are enough things going on around you to get your mind away from bad seats or the lousy air conditioner. Like for example, the couple sitting beside me; the man seems to have watched the film before and thus recounts every scene to his female friend, dialogue by dialogue. Or the people who are so blinded by the camera work, that they keep on cheering every goal and every save as if it is a real game. Or like the man sitting beside me predicts the outcome of the penalty shootout before it happens and the women beside him groans and says,”Stop! Don’t say anything, can’t you see they aren’t scoring any goals?”

Single screen theatres are also fun because after the end of the film you can find out that a man has been sleeping throughout the entire film and is still sleeping even after the show has ended. He is still sleeping when people notice this and come towards him to snap pictures from their camera phones (to be used as souvenirs). He still takes a while to wake up, when the theatre staff comes up to him and nudges him so that he can leave the theatre.

• 3. Outside the theatre, there were around 20 people sitting on a fence. Actually, there were 10 people sitting on the right, and 10 people sitting on the left and in between them there was this huge white board with capital letters which read “SITTING ON A FENCE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED”

We also noticed that there is not a dustbin in sight for about 2kms and that too in such a centrally located area in the city. So, we walked back for about 2 kms again to the theatre and thankfully found a dustbin.  Readers should note that “2 kms” may or may not be accurate, it may be more.

            My statistics knowledge tells me, that for every 4 good citizens, there are atleast 100 bad citizens. (This number is again not accurate, it may be more). So there are 100 bad citizens who don’t think twice to throw stuff in the roads, and about 400 citizens who would give up after not finding a dustbin within a proximity of 10 metres and throw it anyway. Now, the logic is, if the government cannot help to keep the city clean and put up dustbins, can it actually help in trying to reprogram the city’s bus drivers? They seem to think that people crossing the roads are for squashing, especially if an adequate number of mosquitoes couldn’t be squashed last night for unforeseen circumstances.

• 4. Never judge a book by its cover. You may have heard this proverb. But it is time to change it. The new motto should be, Never judge a book by its title.

         A quick visit to the library next day, helped me realized this, when I chanced upon the name of a book. It read A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Gulu. When I recounted the name of a book to a friend, she found the name Xiaolu Gulu very funny. May be she was expecting a Chinese born author’s name to be slightly different than this.

Readers are requested to give their opinions regarding whether they find anything remotely amusing regarding the title or the author and explain why. They are also requested to state if they don’t find this funny at all.

Now, I am a simple girl. First thing that came to my mind, is that this book was specifically for those who have a Chinese boyfriend or a Chinese girlfriend and want to impress him/her. In fact, some interpretations from friends suggest that “lovers” may not signify love interest, but love for the language in general, although I abide by my former interpretation. Interesting, you might say, and an absolute indicator of cross-cultural bonding.

Anyway, the thing is that I could end my post here and you could google the name to find out more (since you have a Chinese boyfriend or a girlfriend), or you may not, taking what I said was true. But since you have stuck with this post for so long, the least I can do is spill the beans for you.

People who have Chinese love interests would not find the book suitable, since it is not a dictionary (it is not “d” of the word dictionary). It is a work of fiction. A Chinese girl leaving her country and going to London, falling in love with an Englishman, and having her own dilemmas about her attitudes as well as others. And the book is written in bad English, deliberately.

I have never been so dumbfounded in my life, reading the first page of a book and now I have been dumbfounded, thanks to marketing.

So, moral of the story, Never judge a book by its title. And Never underestimate Marketing in any sphere of this world, even literary compositions.

I guess, this is Freakonomics? March 29, 2007

Our Macro Economics professor is quite unique. On the first meeting one may find him as a lean, old gentleman who looks like just another university professor. But only students like me have had the displeasure to go through his 1 hour lecture never stopping to wonder for a second whether he is mentally sound or not.

One of the first rumours that I heard about him was that he got hit by a bull in a market place, but I refused to believe it.  But when he admitted in class that he did get attacked by a bull, I felt sorry. If the bull had any slightest amount of consciousness then he would have resisted to such an activity and would have had a longer life. But somethings aren’t meant to be.

The next rumour was that all his teeth are fake, and that is the reason why he keeps flashing them in class. I haven’t really had the opportunity to find the truth in it, and I don’t want to meet the same fate as that of the bull – so that’s that.

The third thing about him is that he dislikes Cell phones, thinks they are a waste of time, money and energy. A mobile phone according to him is a good for nothing device and it does not serve any purpose. Even though he reserves such an opinion he has a cell phone which was actually gifted to him by one of his students. In his own words, ‘I neither know how to call people or receive calls from others, I also do not know how to read messages or send them. But I still carry the phone, and you half-wits will never understand what purpose the cell phone serves me, because you just do not have the IQ to find out the reason’.

Every week the professor presents himself in class and his voice is practically so inaudible to the human ear, that I have been forced to think that perhaps our Head of the Department should organize a course for lip-reading. Yet, if someone dares to ask him to repeat he goes on to this whole talk about “I never repeat what I say, my pronunciation is very good and I know better English than you do.”

He has of course an obsessive compulsive disorder of closing all the doors and windows of the class. He will make one student come up from the last bench to close both doors tightly and also the windows as well. If you cannot close the doors and windows “properly”, then he will continue to make you close the door until you “properly” close it or else he won’t begin the class.

Then the professor’s chair has to be shifted to a “suitable” location by the student. Which location is suitable has to be decided by the student. If the student’s location does not match with the professor’s location, then of course the professor will never tell him what actually the location is where the student has to shift the chair. If he is incapable of finding the professor’s preferred location for the chair, he is termed as a half-wit and an incompetent individual who does not deserve to sit in class. 

If we are lucky to have a lecture after this, the professor will continue to occasionally shift to topics which bear no context with the lecture’s subject and are only aimed to establish the professor’s superiority amongst us. He never hides the fact that his writings and models are published in journals overseas, that he spent 6 days with Robert Solow in MIT and had occasionally exchanged emails with him. Although that mode of communication was now no more, he never replied to Robert Solow and Mr. Solow never replied to him and its been many years since their last email correspondence. Of course, we, his students are absolutely incompetent and we will never be able to visit places like that in our entire lifetime.

Sometimes he goes into this mode of smiling so fervently, yet we never find the reason of what is so funny. Like the other day, when he kept talking about the fact that he visited that place in London where the Apple hit Newton’s head, and he formulated the Law of Gravitation. The tree is not there anymore.  He found that story so amusing that he kept on expressing his surprise by smiling and flashing his perfect teeth and speaking some inaudible words which we never deciphered.

I am not sure about the reason of his hatred for us, yet he chooses to come to class and teach us every week and ridicule and condemn us so blatantly. And some students are so dumb that they just walk right in to trap. For example:

Professor: I don’t think anyone has heard about Big Bang Theory. I don’t think anyone has heard about Stephen Hawking here

To the boy in the first bench: Do you know who is Stephen Hawking?   

Boy: Yes sir, he first proposed the Big Bang theory. 

Anyway, he did ask us to buy Brief History of Time from the bookstore after that. Not sure about what the professor thought about the first bench boy.

Sir, excuse us for not laughing. November 15, 2006

I once met humour on my way. I seemed to have noticed him from a distance, but I just passed by without a word. And after the passage of considerable time and distance, I turned and saw the figure had diminished to a mere point. As if, he had been stationary all this while. May be he had met with an accident.

The Big White building which I visit quite often these days, seems quite hostile and indifferent. Probably unwilling to let me enter since it considers me as an unwanted intruder. But I still come here to keep my mind off some things, things which ought to be disposed off, for the time being atleast.

But I never knew that I would meet this old friend of mine – since these days I find him mainly in books and television. I find him being marketed; he has become an essential commodity in the lives of urban public. Too busy to be imparted without any consideration.

You could probably excuse me to write off his presence atleast in the Big White Building, where my day begins with climbing 8 sets of stairs. Thats okay, its a part of the game, I hear telling myself when I gasp for breath after reaching the summit.

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to register his dynamic presence when I chance upon this

‘**** (name of a political student group) sends you revolutionary greetings’

I find myself hardly the time to muse upon the word ‘revolutionary’ and its context in the above line. As I have said earlier, I get on with the game.

Then, all of a sudden you realise, he doesn’t reside here because he chooses not to. He gets disappointed because people here aren’t worthy enough to recognise him. Yet sometimes he makes a re-entry in search of the group which can identify him, but the result is always unsatisfactory. So he decides to leave, again.

Professor: Can anyone tell me the meaning of the term portfolio?

Student: Sir, its a collection of investments.

Professor: ’You are correct but thats again in the context of finance. Portfolio – a very general meaning would be a collection of heterogeneous items…….*continues to explain*

For example, portfolio may also be a Man’s briefcase or bag. Therein, a man carries a pen, files, documents….calculator, or may be a comb.

A soft murmur in the class occurs, since the Professor exhibits a furtive smile on his face when he utters the last word.

Professor (smiling): Yes, apparently, carrying combs in briefcases have become quite necessary these days.

The girls in the first bench start giggling, and it spreads quite contagiously to the other remote parts of the classroom. The expression of mirth , however seemed to be at its peak at the first bench.

Professor(his eyes on the first bench): Please don’t laugh.

I look up. The voice was quite dissimilar to the earlier one, which had been echoing for quite a while. It was solemn, almost rigid and had a stern tone along with it.

The Professor seemed to have lost his smile now. He was looking at the first bench quite intently, trying to assert that this was a grave situation which needed to be addressed.

Professor (at the first bench) : You really shouldn’t be laughing. 

The laughter died. Silence descended, with all the students looking  at the Professor, trying to decipher the reason behind the sudden change in the Professor’s demeanour. What exactly was he driving at? Inviting humour himself and then asking us to show him the door? What could be the reason?

Professor (at the first bench): Because these are men’s bags we are talking about. We aren’t discussing Ladies’ bags here. Not yet.

Probably he had expected the class’ reaction to be much more informal. May be he didn’t expect us to roll out of our seats. But he never expected this bit of reaction, either. There occured a ghastly silence as of mourners on death bed in the classroom. The girls kept on staring at him, trying to remind themselves how guilty they were laughing at the earlier comment. The class became unnaturally quiet, because the Professor had ‘supposedly’ tried to convey how he never advocated ‘laughing’. Some tried to figure out the positive response to this, by looking out of the window.

 The professor who seemed delirious by now, since he did not meet a positive response from the class, waited, and tried again.

Professor (smiling now): So, please don’t laugh. 

 No, that still did not get him the positive response.