My college days ended 57 years ago, but when the rewind unrolls, sepia-tinted pages and occasions relished—some directly and the others vicariously—flicker and fade producing a chuckle.
As students of the three-year B.A. (Honours) course, we were a privileged category, luxuriating in the freedom to choose or skip the lecture classes, subject to stipulations on minimum attendance. Forced to choose, in circumstances beyond my control, Economics, my pet aversion till this day, I made full use of “Tutorial Hours”, cocooned in the General Library and reading fiction and light essays.
As I rarely appeared in the classes, the name Mahabali (after the legendary Kerala king who visited his subjects once a year) stuck to me like glue. I never even saw some of the lecturers (The pleasure was mutual!).
Once during my bid to weasel out of a class before the next lecturer’s turn, he “caught” me just at the exit. Asked about my intentions, I was frank, “ I feel terribly sleepy, sir, and must have a strong tea.”
From the fact that I did not return, he would have concluded the chaiwallah had to run around procuring tea leaves, milk, water, sugar and firewood to give me tea of the requisite kick.
Now the vicarious angle. While on the subject of soporific orations, a professor is defined as one who talks in another’s sleep. When one don warned a student saying he could not sleep in the class, the victim confessed he would try if the speaker lowered his volume slightly.
Then there was this worthy, a Chemistry professor, who was, or so he thought, strong on his Shakespeare. Once when he entered the class, there was pandemonium. Taking his chair, he shouted these lines from the Tempest, “Hell is empty and all the devils are here”.
A polite addition from the last row came, “And the Satan is on the throne.” Once this professor asked the most intelligent student in the class, “What is the greatest important factor about nitrates?” only to receive the reply, “They are lower than day rates.”
Heckled frequently by a nuisance element, one lecturer asked him, “Look young fellow, now that I am here, are you trying to instruct the class?” The guy assured him, “No, sir”. “Then, don’t talk like an idiot”. A smug smile played on his face, pleased that the boy had been shown his place.
Teachers consider themselves the smarter lot, but there are occasions when they are outwitted by their pupils. Which these ones are!