Knowledge as a Liability!

Bliss was it when I was a 404 man. Could easily dodge the mouse. But since turning literate, it's been difficult to ignore without intervening in the intellectually-bankrupts'assays. Earlier the ignorance was blissful as I was a Persona-non-Grata in the elite laptop flaunting circle. But one can't feign ignorance and tolerate idiotic work for long. one has to stand up and be counted. Knowledge here becomes a liability-not power. The more you see crap around you, the more you get involved in areas that could hitherto be avoided. Tolerance is indeed a virtue! For without this trait you are forced to squeeze time out to enlighten people on a plethora of issues, besides working yourself in the grave yard shift.

PUNJABI WEDDING!

Remember Sports Minister, M.S Gill's reaction to the media reaction to Delhi's unpreparedness prior to CWG, 2010? He said, everything would be fine in time like a Punjabi Wedding! And, abracadabra! everything was indeed fine at the eleventh hour. The media led by our own Arnab made a volte face. They started praising the 'show'.
Another Punjabi Wedding is on the cards. The last couple of days we have been witness to painters on roof top trying to spruce up the College just prior to the NAAC Peer team's visit. In fact, we are all behaving like cats on a hot tin roof. The bride's to arrive on the 14th. We have been sitting on our laurels for the last five years, and now the groom's close. The bride's to be decked up. A winter wedding is on the offing.
Forget the seven criteria, this last minute doing-up will do the trick. Perhaps, this is how things click in our country! The inspectors are coming. We need to train our pupils in spelling, perhaps of words like 'KETTLE' ( remember, M.K Gandhi at school)

Living in Glass Houses

Teachers always seem to take the high moral ground when the issue of student absenteeism crops up. They suggest fines,detention etc as remedies. But teaching a class comprising of a 'captive audience' is simply not done, to me.
But those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others, goes the age old saying. The modern version,of course, goes thus: "those who live in glass houses should change in the basement" Student absenteeism is not the headache of the powers-that-be-teacher absenteeism is.Rightly so. That explains the punching card issue recently in the news to monitor teacher attendance.
The moral of the story is that the teachers should first get their act together before taking the high moral ground. After all, it's difficult to say with a straight face to your students: " Do as I say, not as I do."
.

My tryst with Word-making!

Word formation is one of my favorite areas of study. It gets more and more interesting as one gets into it. Blending, Clipping, Duplication, Back-formation, Folk etymology etc are real fun. ‘Manufacturing’ words is better perhaps. It’s really exciting, for instance, to know about the new words like ‘bangalored’ or ‘plutoed.’ New words that come up or existing words that gain currency at a certain time do give a picture of the times. Like the interesting word ‘bangalored’ directly holding a mirror up to the out-sourcing that is part and parcel of this era of Liberalisation, Globalisation and Privatisation. Or for that matter words like ‘thumbing,’ ‘slip of the thumb,’ ‘post modem depression,’ ‘textual satisfaction’ giving a glimpse of the internet and sms savvy generation.
This interest in word formation has perhaps given me the impetus to ‘invent’ a few words of my own! My professional life as a College teacher has given me ample opportunity to coin words and phrases, however bizarre they may be, and how ever adventurous I may seem to be. A few of the words and phrases that I have ‘invented’ in different moments of madness (such moments occurring rather frequently!) are ‘ex-voto syndrome’, ‘class-less society’, ‘Much ado about NAACthing’, ‘Seminary’, and ‘cats, dogs and horses.’ Some of these words and phrases are ‘brand new’, and others are already existing ones with new meanings. These words will without doubt revolve around my professional life and will perhaps hold a mirror up to my professional life.
Teaching English-or for that matter, any subject- has its own hazards. It requires preparation even for a lesson that you are doing not for the first time. So I am usually extra cautious not to start any chapter impromptu. But if anything can go wrong, it will-Murphy’s Law! So one such occasion was when I had to start the chapter How to Buy a House by Durrell. It was a cautious start- not of the T20 kind where caution is thrown to the wind. A sedate Test match like start where you first try to get used to the pitch and the swing! Here the fear was that of a monster word that might come up suddenly for I had not read the chapter earlier. It was a sort of an extempore performance. So I was grinding my way, trying not to stumble upon such a word which I shall not be able to explain to my students. I could not bank on the fact that students usually don’t ask many questions which make our task a cruise! You never know, Murphy’s Law could play the spoil-sport. So I could not take a cavalier attitude. I had to employ my peripheral vision to the limit to go on explaining the lines while looking for that devilish word a few lines hence so that I could fool the students by stopping the class much before that dreaded word comes up. Or I had to slow things up as I the middle overs of an ODI just to preserve my wicket. After all I was on a sticky wicket! And then, the scary word did appear-‘ex voto.’ I had no idea as to what this word meant. At the same time I could not cut a sorry figure in front of my students. After all, I am a teacher- I cannot be seen to be helpless! So what I did was predictable- slowed things up to such an extent that no way I could reach that word before the bell rang. The next day I could come back with a vengeance after looking up all the obstinate words in the lexicon. Since that dreadful day I have started calling the fear of starting a new lesson the ‘ex-voto syndrome.’
Then the College academic season has given a twist to the meaning of ‘class-less society.’(My apologies to Karl Marx). NAAC or no NAAC, from December to April with the Board and University exams in between, it’s virtually a class-less society in the Colleges. After the gala ‘Form fill-up’ (or should it be Form fill-in) there’s hardly any classes in the College. The Terminal examination answer scripts attract no student. For, who cares for marks (read Marx) in a ‘class-less society’!
The NAAC experience with institutions -even bringing up overnight gardens to impress the ‘peerless’ Peer Teams- has made me temper with the title of one of the Bard’s play “Much Ado About NAACthing.”
The NAAC phenomenon of course brought about certain activities on the College Campus with a renewed vigor. There was a time around the first visit of the Peer Team that witnessed a hectic holding of Seminars. We had to take things in our stride as these Seminars varied from the good to the utterly boring! But the sword of NAAC was hanging over us! We had to bear with those. But it was a barrage of Seminars and I felt it was my bounden duty to find a word that signifies a place where a lot many Seminars are held. The moment of madness came up with a gem of an answer- ‘Seminary’!
Then, raining ‘cats and dogs’ is commonplace, but I teach ‘cats, dogs and horses’! Being one who teaches Linguistics, I very much have to deal with Morphology much of which is dominated by these cats, dogs and horses! Morphology studies, in addition to other things, how words change their grammatical states like the formation of the plural. Here one can’t evade these cats, dogs, and horses! Not only for plural, but also for the genitive and the third person singular form of the verb. The rule is that when a singular noun ends in a voiceless sound excepting the sibilants, the final sound of the plural form will be /s/ as in ‘cats’. When it ends in a voiced sound excepting the sibilants, the plural form will end in /z/ as in ‘dogs’, and if the singular noun ends in a sibilant, the plural morpheme will be /iz/. Same is the rule for the genitive formation and the third person singular form of the verb. In a word, I can’t escape these cats, dogs and horses which are the most suitable examples for driving home the rules of inflectional morphology in these cases. A lion’s share of my teaching-plan is taken by these quadrupeds. So, it would not be wrong to say that I teach ‘cats, dogs and horses’!
And then, there’s ‘white tapism’-a play on the familiar ‘red-tapism’. But this one delays the evaluation of scripts. Script evaluation is one pain in the neck of teachers especially for those who teach subjects with a humungous enrollment. The scripts assume deadlier proportions if they are ‘white taped’ for those would invariably contain more pages, and, consequently, would eat up more time. So ‘white tapism’ is the monster to deal with during evaluation time!

Doing the Right thing for the Wrong reasons a la Undershaft of Major Barbara

Mr. Undershaft of Major Barbara has been one of my favourites for his knack of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
These days I save the mobile numbers of sundry investment solicitors, Unsolicited counselors, and downright bores not to respond to their calls but to ignore their calls. once bitten twice shy!

Not In My Backyard(NIBY) syndrome

Finished reading Absolute Khuswant this instant. The following lines from the Chapter My Biggest Worry : Intolerance:

"We allowed fascism to dig its heels in our courtyard. We let them get away with every step they took and never raised a howl of protest. today they burn books they do not like; they beat up journalists who write against them; they attack cinema houses showing films they do not approve of; they vandalize the paintings of India's leading artist; they pervert texts from history books to make them conform to their ideas; they foul mouth everyone who disagrees with them.We fail to hit back because we have never been a united force and do not realize the perils of allowing our country to fall into their hands," remind of those great lines from Martin Niemoller:

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Free Will

The controversy surrounding Dr.Bhupen Hazarika, Star Cement, Kalpana Lajmi and his die hard fans has to be dealt with by asking the tough questions. one such question is-" Does the maestro have free will or is he a captive in the hands of lajmi?" if he has it, I think it's nobody's business to make a hue and cry about his endorsements.

Where are the holy cows?

The tiger's not burning bright either in the forest of the night or in the PGA circuit. Westwood has taken over Woods in the PGA, and there are only 1400 or so in the Indian jungles.Sad state of affairs, indeed. But Woods can make a come back- now that he has undergone the sex rehab, and there are success stories in wild life conservation in our part of the world. so the big cat has a chance, after all!
But what of the 'holy cows' of our society. The species is extinct- the parliament never was a holy cow- cash for query, the wads of notes during the nuclear deal debate etc prove so beyond doubt. Caesar's wife has to be above suspicion but here the President's hubby has been accused of land grab!! Governors have been found with their pants down!The judiciary was thought to be impeccable but the Dinakaran episode tells otherwise. the army was the last bastion. Pity, they too have succumbed to corruption and nepotisim, that too at the cost of their own brethren who laid down their lives at Kargil! the "ADARSH" they have shown in the Mumbai apartment scam is far from exemplary, to put it mildly.

The Gift of the Jab

The ruckus in the Karnataka Assembly is neither surprising nor shocking. It's become routine today be it in Bihar or U.P, or even the LokSabha (remember the wads of notes bandied around during the Nuclear Deal!)
There was, indeed, a time when the assemblies were inhabited by people with the gift of the gab. But today, it seems, these assemblies are manned by people with little or no gift of the gab, but with a great gift of the 'jab!' They can very well pack a punch or two when needed.
Democracy is just a way of forming a Government. It has nothing to do with people's behaviour. Let's have no illusions about it.

Assam's Somdev!

The News Live ticker says, Assam's Somdev wins gold at CWG. From all accounts Somdev is from Tripura. The connection seems to be far-fetched at best. May be it's in keeping with the age old maxim 'sucess has many fathers, but failure is an orphan!'
But the 'Success' itself is suspect. No Leyton Hewitt or Andy Murray, perhaps in these games, though they belong to the Common Wealth.

Much Ado about 'NAACthing!'

Times of India, Oct 08, 2010, carried a 'scary' news item-'now Naac Will grade teachers too.' It's the brain child of the V.C, University of Rajasthan.
Teachers will be graded on a plethora of aspects like research, impact of research, contribution to forming curriculum, conducting examination and attending conferences etc.
Great idea! But where are the classes in this scheme of things? The more things change, the more they are the same. it will still remain a 'class less society' under the weight of vacations, examinations, bandhs, tuitions,and, not to mention, truant teachers.Things will go from bad to worse as now there will be a madder rush for attending conferences, extension activities etc leaving the students in the lurch or at the mercy of the tutors!
'NAAC garden' has become a cliche in our part of the world with flower gardens coming up on campus overnight to impress the NAAC 'peers'!
God knows what's in store if the teacher grading materialises.