I went to meet and pay respect to my higher secondary school teacher in economics. He congratulated me for securing a Masters degree in Economics ad then sked if I would like to take a part-time evening lecturership immediately. Since I was still thinking about a research scholarship or a full-time commercial employment, I wasn't sure. Yet, I told him I am interested because his eyes told me to agree. He asked me to meet him at the school an hour before the school begins next morning. I met him again and he took me a gentleman's residence nearby. The elderly gentleman talked to me for a few minutes, said he probably knew my father as one of first set of residenents in South Dum Dum. Then, he told me to collect my appointment letter from the evening college nearby next day. He was the secretary of the college and had earlier offered the job to my teacher who thought he would be proud to let me take up the assignment. I began teaching micro-economics and macro-economics to undergraduate commerce students thrice a week for a compensation of Rupees one hundred and fifty (roughly about Rs15 per hour). That was great money. A packet of 10 plain Wills Navy Cut Cigarettes cost 80 paise and a multi-purpose antisepeptic moisturizer cream called Boroline cost about 65 paise. A chicken curry dinner cost about Rs Two. Overnight I felt rich. I would soon become much richer.
Teaching was fun. Commerce students in an evening college were mostly those who worked as assistents in various firms during the day (and generally elder to me in age) or did not find a seat in the day college. The quality in general were poor, though a few were serious students. One of them still has contact with me. Teaching a gathering of 100 such students was both strenuous and fun. A half of the students di not ant the classes to be held after the roll-call attendance. A quarter of the students would be natural noise or disturbance creating elements while the class was in progress. Very few could recall what they had learnt about graphs they were taught in the high school. Understnding of logic was of the sports-fan variety or leftist political consciousness variety. most did not understand lecture delivered in English. Some were just simply naughty and aimed at upsetting the teachers. I had to learn teaching economics in Bengali along with drawing simple graphs. I had to learn binding them to logic to stop them from bringing to the class-room their storm-over-a-tea-cup ideological emotions. For the college's magazine I contributed an article on reasoing and logic for testing Truth including illustration of such axioms as ' thusand examoles do not prove a proposition, but a single counter-example can disprove a proposition' - a sentence I had picked up from my teacher at the university who later would become the Finance Minister of Wet Bengal.
Dealing with a class of 100 students, most of whom were not particularly interested in lectures or not equipped to study economics was rather tough task. I had to learn to walk up and down the aisles of the seating gallery to keep a close watch on various rows to prevent potential disturbing elements from attempting to create noise and at the same time write on the black board and explain. I had to learn throwing questions to carefully selected student at different corners to keep them attentive and busy before they could think of creating mischef. And, I had to cultivate some students - both elderly and young to be my fans(one of them, Ranjit, came again in contact with me in the next millenium). I set some ground rules: the entrance doors would be closed during the class, anyone not finding interest in my class could leave the classroom as soon as the attendance roll call was over and without noise, everyone attending the class will be vurnerable to face my questions on what I would say or write on the black board during the class and answer correctly to avoid my comments that would embarrassment for poor response. Things worked out perfectly after a few initiall class sessions. It was a great learning experience on controlling crowds, keeping audience captive and attentive, exchanging entertaining interactions and developing a friendly teacher-student relationship while ensuring that most students understand even partially what they were exposed to in a particular topic during the class (either one understood or chose not be in the class). A very fun-filled experience that I used to look forward to every evening that I went to that college.
But another fun-filled experience was awaiting me. I had applied for admission to the newly introduced research course leading to Phd of the Indian Statistical Institute. What attracted me is the program's requirement for three-semester course work in statistics, mathematics (mainly Real Analysis) and Advanced Economics topics wth qualifier exams. ad most importantly selection of the dissertation topic in the during the 19th to 24th month after which one could complete the dissertation without being in the campus and working elsewhere. But to get into the program I had t cross the barrier of an objective type of selection test and a selection interview. I reckoned my chance to get selected as very high: the Institute would find it difficult to prefer some one else over me given my past record in course work and clearing examinations and given that not many who would apply would be as strong in mathematics and statistics. But i did not want to take the exam. without knowing what it was all about. I talked to Punuda, my cousin in the neighborhood who after his Masters in Physics had dome a Statistician's diploma course from the Institute (before getting his Phd and joining the Meterological Department of the Government of India). He explained to me that these were called aptitude and reasoning tests and generally very easy: he gave me some examples and told me not to worry.
But I thought I should another person whom I had developed acquaintance with about a year and half-go. He was a neighbour of one of the magic medical doctors I have had attention from. This doctor was my maternal uncle's sister in-law's son who remained bachelor throughout and was senior to me in age by at least 10 years. He used to visit us when my maternal uncle and aunt stayed with us at our residence for about four/ five months. Around 75 at that time, my uncle had taken considerable interest in my health and food habits. Given my thin body and probably reluctance to do physical work, he suspected that I might have some terrble disease which was yet to surface. He requested this doctor, Jhanti-da, to have a thourough examination of my body and treat me. Jhantui-da told me to come to his residence near Girish Park on the Central or Chittarnjan Avenue one morning and he took me to the Medical Research Centre and Hospital in Chetla where he worked. It took several hours to go throup various examinations at the hospital. After a few days, he called me again to his residence. He gave me the reports and said there was no problem suggested by them. I cam back home and showed all reports and papers to my uncle. He was disappointed and sad that the examinations could not identify the terrible disease he suspected me to have been sufferring from. Jhinti-da on his next visit convinced my uncle that there was indeed no cause of worry and he prescribed me a tablet (called Penta-something) to be taken daily for three weeks and a squeezed lemon jouice drink in the morning daily again for three weeks. It worked miracle: I had no further attack of cough, cold and acute voice-eroding sore throat pain that I used to suffer from once every 45 days and had to take a penicillin shot from my family doctor to recover from each such attack. I became a fan of Jhanti-da. It was he who introduced me to Dipankar-da, his neighbour and another fan. Dipankar at that time had already obtained his Masters degree in Economics from the my University and after doing some special course in Statistics was a Research Scholar at the Indian Statistical Institute. We had met at Jhinti-da's place a couple of times.
So, I telephoned Dipankar-da, an inetersting person who demonstrated to me many things including the use of "C' inplace of "K" and use of "OO" instead of "U" in the surname. He told me to meet me at the Institute when I would come there to submit my application form for admission to the Research Course. When I met him he gave me a bok on Apptitude Tests that he borrowed from the Institute Library and advisde me to practice. I did not find the book very interesting and thought that these test were boring except for school students. Nevertheless, I practised for a few days and went for the exam. I did not think that I did good at the exam. ticking away boxes. But I got the letter from the Institute for the selection interview. I suspected the Institute was preparing to select me: they may not have got better research candiates. I went for the interview even more casually. It went for 15 to 20 minutes. I think the interviewrs were seeking justifications for their selecting me and I was the most reluctant. But they might have found to of my responses somehat interesting. A professor (whom I found a great, insightful teacher later on when I attended his classes) asked me as to why Arithmatic Mean was used so much in Statistics despite its limitations to which my reply was that this was because the concept was easy to understand fom childhood, easy to compute from collected data and highly amenable to mathematical operations in the statistics text book chapters following the chapter on central tendency from correlation and regression to probability and inference. He probably did not get the answer he ha expected but seemed to enjoy getting my answer. Another interviwere, one of my former teachers at the undergradte economics college, was interested in my interest in data collection from proper sources. When I said I did not know the current trends in India's industrial production growth rate, he asked me to guess. I guessed a range too broad 5%-8%. He smiled and asked me if I had gone to the Library, how quickly I could find out more precise estimate of the industrial production growth rate? I said look for the Chapter on Industry or latest five year plan in the latest edition of the textbook on Indian economics authored by another of my professors at the University. He did not get the answer he wished and desereved, but probably enjoyed my reluctnce to think hard. I got selected: they must have found me a bet worth taking.
The research course was rather light. Examinations went off fine except that I had very little interest in using the Facit machines (those days PCs were not there and electronic calculators had not yet become cheap enough) for hours to work out the practical statistical computation sums Professor Adikary wanted us to do. More time was spent on intellectual debates with reseacher friends at the Institute, reading books and journl in the Library on a random basis and based on them writing out small notes that could help identify potential research topics for my dissertation, ad consuting my Professor guide on the subject.
Bulk of the time however went for idle gossiping and brain storming tat were pure fu.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Beyond Masters:My Unfloding Voyage 48
Towards the end of the Masters degree program, the youngest professor made it compulsory for some of us to present in a class seminar to be presided by him on an economics related issue of our own choice. One day, it was my turn and I had about seven days' notice to write out the paper and present. There was a requirement that one has to complete his presentation of paper in 30 minutes so that there could be a question and answer session. Those days we did not have in the Department the facility of slide presentation using projector, PC/ laptop or Microsoft Power Point: we had to learn these in the management development programs at employers' staff training colleges or Institutes of Management. Presentation was basically reading out from the manuscript of the paper one has prepared. I do not exactly remember the issue that I had dealt with in my paper. But I had carefully chosen a topic on which the probabilty of classmates asking a relevant question was very low (no one would take the risk of getting embarrased in the class by asking irrelevant or inadequately framed question on a subject on which one had not read adequately). The topic was related to Indian planning and efficiency of resource allocation, and was in a sense arguing for proper use of market mechanism. These topics were not taught in the class: planning models and techniques were taught, general equilibrium models were taught, growth and development economics were taught, failure of market mechanism was taught and social choice problems was taught. But failures of national economic planning was not taught in the classroom. India had by that time experienced nearly two decades of State-dictated economic planning: national economic had become an addiction for Indian economists. But there were literature available on indicative planning in France, failures of economic planning in India and other countries, and gross non-performance of public sector companies. There were some champions of free enterprise still left in India. They gave sppeches and wrote articles on the serious adverse effect of economic planning on allocation of resources, on inefficiency of public enterprises, on wastage of national resources by the State, on deletorious effect of high taxes on economic growth, social justice and entreprenerial innovation. The failure of agriculture and industry to grow adequately despite planning was so evident. We were in the midst of an industrial recession: growing unemployment and high inflation were two bu-bears of Indian economic performance. So, I had chosen these issues as the subject, write and rewriting the article in a manner that I could read out the article in 30 minutes, skipping certain portions of the article that I had marked to adhere to the time limit. I had been a natural fast reader and speaker. This would create problems for me later and I had to change. But at that time I had to use this natural property to my advantage: most of the class would have difficulty in following the meaning of English sentences spoken loudly at a fast pace that would make them appreciative of my ability but prevent questions from arising in their minds. I had also planned the questions that I would like a logical listner to ask. After I had presented my paper, no student asked any question as I had anticipated. So, the Professor asked two questions that I had planned for. I had ready answers and read out from the unread portions of my paper. I had deliberately skipped these small paragraphs in my article that were in the form of defence of propositions/ statements mentioned in the last sentence of the immediately precceding paragraphs. By skipping reading these paras (of two sentences or three), I had deliberately caused a few logical gaps that would invite the attention of a careful listner. As anticipated, my professor got trapped into those gaps and asked the logically relevant questions that I could easily plant in his mind through my presentation. The seminar came to an end with an appreciation from the professor. But in the process I had learned to use some tricks for future application.
But soon thereafter I had trouble in filling logical gaps. In the MA examination, while attempting one question in one of the mathematically oriented papers, I got stuck just about six steps to the end of the proof of a theorem. I was unable to recall the particular mathematical transformation that I needed to use to proceed the next step. A classmate sitting behind had observed my discomfort and inquired if I had a proble. I whispered to her that I was stuck with question number x. She whispered back requesting me turn back to have a look at her answer to the question in her answerscript that she had kept open. I thanked her but could not make use of her offer: I could not see from that distance, nor was I inclined to copy. I therefore tried alternative of my own. I wrote down the last step by leaving some space and then worked backwards to the previous step and then the previous one. But the sixth step from the bottom still failed my memory. I had to leave it at that hoping that the evalator of the answercript might miss the logical gap of a step in my answer.
The MA examinations got over rather smoothly. Though after the examination of the first paper I had run high fever and apprehended that I might have to dropout. Fortunately the next day there was no examination and I had recovered enough in 24 hours to be ready to go through the rest of the examination. Some of my clasmates however dropped out of the examinations for reasons of illness or insufficent preparation or apprehension of not being able to achieve targetted marks.
With the examinations over, there was lot of time for fun. Our local friends' club, Kishore Sangha (Adoloscence's Group) formed when we were in the sixth grade or so, now had young men as members. We had by then playing cricket, football or hockey and shifted to cards. We had stopped organising Saraswati worship and shifted to worshipping Goddess Kali. We started organizing Annual Cultural Functions with music, mostly vocal, performed by artistes - some would much later become famous singers in Kolkata, dance performance from young girls in the locality and drama performance by members of the club.
This year members wanted a upgrade their drama: they selected a suspense thriller. The problem with that selection was that we needed an actress as well. Those days it was difficult to get hold of a girl to act along with the boys. However, we managed to convince one girl who had shown a signs of seeking love with one of our members. This member was not an actor but like me would normally be present during the evening rehearsals. So, there was some scope for testing romance. We could convince one elderly person to give us two rroms lying vacant in the first floor of his two storied building for our use for rehearsals. The main actor was our director. He directed very little but also responsible for organising everything else for the performance on the stage. I acted as the prompter and found that I could exert influence on the way some of the actors and the actress would deliver their script.
But soon a problem would arise. The girl cam to me one afternoon and said in tearful eyes that she had been commanded to withdraw from the drama by his elder sister's husband. This person was the General Secretary of the bigger club of the local residents. We were also members of that general club and thought our exclusive club as an affiliate. I shared the sudden priblem with my friends and they agreed that as the General Secretary of our exclusibe club, it was my responsibility to find a solution. They were all agitated and felt that the general club was unfairly and unethically intruding in to our group activity. I had several rounds of discussions with the President of the general club , a medical doctor and the General Secretary. What I succeeded in getting from them is this: there was a general objection to boys and girls of the locality doing rehearsals without the supervision of seniors, the genral club felt organising annual cultural function by age-specfic exclusive clubs as a threat to the general club and they could not tolerate this. I explanied to them that while we could take care of the sentiments of the elderly citizens' objection to girls and boys participating in rehearsals, the general club cannot threaten freedom of the members to have exclusin\ve club's own activities. We requested the elder sister of the girl to be present during the rehearsals and went ahead with the program with adequate publicity among the residents of the locality to support and participate in our Annual function. We quietly met the local police station officers and requested their presence during our program. Everything went off well. My friend appreciated my role as their leader in overconing the crisis and I complimented for showing solidarity and extending support.The girl did show signs of getting interested in me. After sharing a few romantic glances and innocous conversations for a few days, I went away to from Kolkata for three weeks.
It was time to ponder over on what to do after getting the Master degree. I planned to keep open all available options: jobs- academic and non-academic, getting into research and doing Ph.d. I was sure that I would not be getting into teaching at the University striagt away even I had topped the examination results and I was also sure that there was no way the University could get me into a third position. I sent applications for jobs to a multinational company, a public sector bank, a public sector fertilizer company a foreign banl and some colleges for lecturership as also for admission to the Indian Statistical Institiute's program for Research Course leading to Ph.d. My elder brother also asked me if I would be interested in joing as an accounts officer in his company, though he advised that it would be better if I had pusued a Ph d program. I was not still sure what would be better.
But soon thereafter I had trouble in filling logical gaps. In the MA examination, while attempting one question in one of the mathematically oriented papers, I got stuck just about six steps to the end of the proof of a theorem. I was unable to recall the particular mathematical transformation that I needed to use to proceed the next step. A classmate sitting behind had observed my discomfort and inquired if I had a proble. I whispered to her that I was stuck with question number x. She whispered back requesting me turn back to have a look at her answer to the question in her answerscript that she had kept open. I thanked her but could not make use of her offer: I could not see from that distance, nor was I inclined to copy. I therefore tried alternative of my own. I wrote down the last step by leaving some space and then worked backwards to the previous step and then the previous one. But the sixth step from the bottom still failed my memory. I had to leave it at that hoping that the evalator of the answercript might miss the logical gap of a step in my answer.
The MA examinations got over rather smoothly. Though after the examination of the first paper I had run high fever and apprehended that I might have to dropout. Fortunately the next day there was no examination and I had recovered enough in 24 hours to be ready to go through the rest of the examination. Some of my clasmates however dropped out of the examinations for reasons of illness or insufficent preparation or apprehension of not being able to achieve targetted marks.
With the examinations over, there was lot of time for fun. Our local friends' club, Kishore Sangha (Adoloscence's Group) formed when we were in the sixth grade or so, now had young men as members. We had by then playing cricket, football or hockey and shifted to cards. We had stopped organising Saraswati worship and shifted to worshipping Goddess Kali. We started organizing Annual Cultural Functions with music, mostly vocal, performed by artistes - some would much later become famous singers in Kolkata, dance performance from young girls in the locality and drama performance by members of the club.
This year members wanted a upgrade their drama: they selected a suspense thriller. The problem with that selection was that we needed an actress as well. Those days it was difficult to get hold of a girl to act along with the boys. However, we managed to convince one girl who had shown a signs of seeking love with one of our members. This member was not an actor but like me would normally be present during the evening rehearsals. So, there was some scope for testing romance. We could convince one elderly person to give us two rroms lying vacant in the first floor of his two storied building for our use for rehearsals. The main actor was our director. He directed very little but also responsible for organising everything else for the performance on the stage. I acted as the prompter and found that I could exert influence on the way some of the actors and the actress would deliver their script.
But soon a problem would arise. The girl cam to me one afternoon and said in tearful eyes that she had been commanded to withdraw from the drama by his elder sister's husband. This person was the General Secretary of the bigger club of the local residents. We were also members of that general club and thought our exclusive club as an affiliate. I shared the sudden priblem with my friends and they agreed that as the General Secretary of our exclusibe club, it was my responsibility to find a solution. They were all agitated and felt that the general club was unfairly and unethically intruding in to our group activity. I had several rounds of discussions with the President of the general club , a medical doctor and the General Secretary. What I succeeded in getting from them is this: there was a general objection to boys and girls of the locality doing rehearsals without the supervision of seniors, the genral club felt organising annual cultural function by age-specfic exclusive clubs as a threat to the general club and they could not tolerate this. I explanied to them that while we could take care of the sentiments of the elderly citizens' objection to girls and boys participating in rehearsals, the general club cannot threaten freedom of the members to have exclusin\ve club's own activities. We requested the elder sister of the girl to be present during the rehearsals and went ahead with the program with adequate publicity among the residents of the locality to support and participate in our Annual function. We quietly met the local police station officers and requested their presence during our program. Everything went off well. My friend appreciated my role as their leader in overconing the crisis and I complimented for showing solidarity and extending support.The girl did show signs of getting interested in me. After sharing a few romantic glances and innocous conversations for a few days, I went away to from Kolkata for three weeks.
It was time to ponder over on what to do after getting the Master degree. I planned to keep open all available options: jobs- academic and non-academic, getting into research and doing Ph.d. I was sure that I would not be getting into teaching at the University striagt away even I had topped the examination results and I was also sure that there was no way the University could get me into a third position. I sent applications for jobs to a multinational company, a public sector bank, a public sector fertilizer company a foreign banl and some colleges for lecturership as also for admission to the Indian Statistical Institiute's program for Research Course leading to Ph.d. My elder brother also asked me if I would be interested in joing as an accounts officer in his company, though he advised that it would be better if I had pusued a Ph d program. I was not still sure what would be better.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Admissions to Different Environments: My Unfolding Voyage 47
We get admitted to new environments. Some touch our environment. A few enter our environment and forge new environment.
My brother, Suku, passed the higher secondary examination when I got my Bachelor's degree. He did exceedingly well with distinction in all his science subjects including mathematics. He wanted to study engineering. I had filled in his application form for admission. He was selected for Architectural Engineering when the University announced the results. Strange things used to happen those days also: suspected case of cheating. I took my brother and visted the University office and said there is something wrong. My brother was definitely selected for Electronics and not Architecture. The official asked me how could I say that. I said that I had filled in his form and juust ticked only two streams that he would consider to study: first preference was electronics and second preference was Chemocal engineering. I did not tick any other preference. And Suku's score was among the best to be considered for electronics. There is some mistake somewhere. Those days the University officials were yet to become arrogant and had difficulty in ignoring logic. He called for the papers and was satisfied that what I had said was indeed true. But he appealed that we did not create further problem and offered Suku Electrical engineering as he had difficulty in putting his name in Electronics. I understood the problem: electronics had been recently introduced and there were limited seats while there was considerable demand from students to get into electronics by means fair or foul. Replacing Suku's name from electronics by some one else could be easily termed as a clerical mistake. We knew the possibility of such fraud. Honesty is not really the monopoly of educational institutions. We could have insisted on Electronics but thought that it might lead to delays and complications. So we agreed. Suku completed his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the same university.
Around the time Suku started going to engineering classes, one of my uncles visited us. He brought his maternal cousin to show what is Kolkata. She appeared a nice girl to talk and discuss economics She was from the Burdwan district and was studying undergraduate Economics Honors. bdgs Three of us made a single day trip in buses to various places and also saw a movie at a theatre. Since she was not used to riding buses, especially double-decked ones and smell that burning diesel creates, she started vomiting while on the bus and we had get out of the bus soon and walk a long stretch for her to become comfortable. Despite all this, the day did have a touch of romance. But she was also interested in getting my undergraduate class notes in economics. I gave them to her and she said she would return them by post in two months. During the next two months she would write mails to me and request more time for returning my class notes. Not that I needed these notes urgently, but I was not happy with the breach of conditions. I wrote a letter back to her expressing my unhappiness. She returned the notes soon. We had not met or exchanges letters since then. I wish I could have ended the borrower-lender relationship with a little more patience. In my unfolding voyage I had to soon become comfortable with treating my loans to others as a highly probable unintended gift: a few such loans indeed materialized into forced gifts. Much later I realized that possessions that I valued much did not remain so valuable when I lost them through loan that were not repaid or lost otherwise.
A year into the post-graduate studies, one of my uncles (father's cousin) and my elder brother, Mejda, would get married. As per the custom in the family, the bridegrooms need to use their sacred threads (nine threads of equal radius tied together with appropriate knots sworn as a garland - not around both sides of the neck and falling on the breast but worn around the left shoulder, touching the breast and then circling back under the right shoulder) when they perform the marriage ceremony rituals. These two gentlemen had missed their thread-wearing ceremony normally conducted before the age of fourteen and this ceremony involved shaving of the hair on the head. Now they were close to thirty and could not have gone to get married with shaven heads.So, the priests had a solution: everything would be done except shaving of the head in lieu of which a few haies would be cut by scissors and an additional monetary compensation was to be paid at the Alter of God and to be collected by the priest. I took advantage of this solution and joined my uncle and elder brother to secure the sacred thread for me. With the sacred thread ceremony, a man was said to have taken the second birth born. So, I became as senior as my elder brother and uncle who were 12 to 13 years older than me.
Both the marriages went of well with frequent interactions and feasts among families, relatives and friends amidst fun and festive mood with opportunities for coke-fizz like romantic moments for the young. The new brides had to find their own ways of getting into the strange environment after marriage. Both found a helpful friend in me, especially the new aunt who had to deal with a mother in-law with apparently harsh voice: my grand aunt was in reality so loving and affectionate to us.
My nephew, Joy, had in the meantime become a primary school student. We were spending lot of time enjoying his company. I would occasionally give him a cycle ride to school. Usually, he would go to school in a rickshaw. One day on his return from school he claimed that he had seen a 'twelve hand's' idol of Goddess Kali being worshiped in a pandal on the way. I told him that the maximum number of hands the Hindu Goddesses had so far been allowed is only 10 and he could not have seen a twelve-hand's idol of Goddess. But he insisted that he had seen that idol. He was right. In Bengali, height of an idol or length of a cloth was often measured by the length of a standard fore arm. So, an idol's height was measured sometimes by this measure: thus a twelve-hand's (Baro hath or Baro Hathi) idol meant an idol whose height is approximately equal to twelve times the length of a standard human fore arm. Joy in his childhood was a great pleasure to observe. Once when were in a restaurant he started shouting to the waiter: 'lickly, lickly'. We could realize later that he had just been in the process of picking up the English word 'quickly' at his school.
He was very fond of wearing the dress of military personel and would act as if he was in the battlefield engaging the enemy forces. He was very comfortable with people of varying ages and even strangers. He would soon have a beautiful sister, Munni, six years younger to him. Unlike Joy, Munni in her childhood was reserved and scarcely spared a smile for a stranger. She was very fond of her uncles and would seek the company of the uncles even when she was crying in pain or distress.
New admissions changed the environment without our knowledge.
My brother, Suku, passed the higher secondary examination when I got my Bachelor's degree. He did exceedingly well with distinction in all his science subjects including mathematics. He wanted to study engineering. I had filled in his application form for admission. He was selected for Architectural Engineering when the University announced the results. Strange things used to happen those days also: suspected case of cheating. I took my brother and visted the University office and said there is something wrong. My brother was definitely selected for Electronics and not Architecture. The official asked me how could I say that. I said that I had filled in his form and juust ticked only two streams that he would consider to study: first preference was electronics and second preference was Chemocal engineering. I did not tick any other preference. And Suku's score was among the best to be considered for electronics. There is some mistake somewhere. Those days the University officials were yet to become arrogant and had difficulty in ignoring logic. He called for the papers and was satisfied that what I had said was indeed true. But he appealed that we did not create further problem and offered Suku Electrical engineering as he had difficulty in putting his name in Electronics. I understood the problem: electronics had been recently introduced and there were limited seats while there was considerable demand from students to get into electronics by means fair or foul. Replacing Suku's name from electronics by some one else could be easily termed as a clerical mistake. We knew the possibility of such fraud. Honesty is not really the monopoly of educational institutions. We could have insisted on Electronics but thought that it might lead to delays and complications. So we agreed. Suku completed his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the same university.
Around the time Suku started going to engineering classes, one of my uncles visited us. He brought his maternal cousin to show what is Kolkata. She appeared a nice girl to talk and discuss economics She was from the Burdwan district and was studying undergraduate Economics Honors. bdgs Three of us made a single day trip in buses to various places and also saw a movie at a theatre. Since she was not used to riding buses, especially double-decked ones and smell that burning diesel creates, she started vomiting while on the bus and we had get out of the bus soon and walk a long stretch for her to become comfortable. Despite all this, the day did have a touch of romance. But she was also interested in getting my undergraduate class notes in economics. I gave them to her and she said she would return them by post in two months. During the next two months she would write mails to me and request more time for returning my class notes. Not that I needed these notes urgently, but I was not happy with the breach of conditions. I wrote a letter back to her expressing my unhappiness. She returned the notes soon. We had not met or exchanges letters since then. I wish I could have ended the borrower-lender relationship with a little more patience. In my unfolding voyage I had to soon become comfortable with treating my loans to others as a highly probable unintended gift: a few such loans indeed materialized into forced gifts. Much later I realized that possessions that I valued much did not remain so valuable when I lost them through loan that were not repaid or lost otherwise.
A year into the post-graduate studies, one of my uncles (father's cousin) and my elder brother, Mejda, would get married. As per the custom in the family, the bridegrooms need to use their sacred threads (nine threads of equal radius tied together with appropriate knots sworn as a garland - not around both sides of the neck and falling on the breast but worn around the left shoulder, touching the breast and then circling back under the right shoulder) when they perform the marriage ceremony rituals. These two gentlemen had missed their thread-wearing ceremony normally conducted before the age of fourteen and this ceremony involved shaving of the hair on the head. Now they were close to thirty and could not have gone to get married with shaven heads.So, the priests had a solution: everything would be done except shaving of the head in lieu of which a few haies would be cut by scissors and an additional monetary compensation was to be paid at the Alter of God and to be collected by the priest. I took advantage of this solution and joined my uncle and elder brother to secure the sacred thread for me. With the sacred thread ceremony, a man was said to have taken the second birth born. So, I became as senior as my elder brother and uncle who were 12 to 13 years older than me.
Both the marriages went of well with frequent interactions and feasts among families, relatives and friends amidst fun and festive mood with opportunities for coke-fizz like romantic moments for the young. The new brides had to find their own ways of getting into the strange environment after marriage. Both found a helpful friend in me, especially the new aunt who had to deal with a mother in-law with apparently harsh voice: my grand aunt was in reality so loving and affectionate to us.
My nephew, Joy, had in the meantime become a primary school student. We were spending lot of time enjoying his company. I would occasionally give him a cycle ride to school. Usually, he would go to school in a rickshaw. One day on his return from school he claimed that he had seen a 'twelve hand's' idol of Goddess Kali being worshiped in a pandal on the way. I told him that the maximum number of hands the Hindu Goddesses had so far been allowed is only 10 and he could not have seen a twelve-hand's idol of Goddess. But he insisted that he had seen that idol. He was right. In Bengali, height of an idol or length of a cloth was often measured by the length of a standard fore arm. So, an idol's height was measured sometimes by this measure: thus a twelve-hand's (Baro hath or Baro Hathi) idol meant an idol whose height is approximately equal to twelve times the length of a standard human fore arm. Joy in his childhood was a great pleasure to observe. Once when were in a restaurant he started shouting to the waiter: 'lickly, lickly'. We could realize later that he had just been in the process of picking up the English word 'quickly' at his school.
He was very fond of wearing the dress of military personel and would act as if he was in the battlefield engaging the enemy forces. He was very comfortable with people of varying ages and even strangers. He would soon have a beautiful sister, Munni, six years younger to him. Unlike Joy, Munni in her childhood was reserved and scarcely spared a smile for a stranger. She was very fond of her uncles and would seek the company of the uncles even when she was crying in pain or distress.
New admissions changed the environment without our knowledge.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Class of 66-68: My Unfolding Voyage 46
It is over four decades that our Class at the Economics Department of the University of Calcutta completed, in three years, the two-years of Masters Degree studies. Thanks to the incompetent State government of non-Congress coalition of communists and new breakaway local Congress parties, the weak and incompetent University administration as well as the juvenile Bengali revolutionary disciples of Marx, strong in both muscle-power and translations of Lenin-Mao verbiage,to fight both the communists in state power, the feudalist-petty bourgeoisie elements, we had to allow for sporadic and violent campus disruptions and examination delays that took away 12 months. After forty years, revolution is nowhere in sight: many revolutionaries have managed to live under capitalism with whatever comforts that they could extract from the system. A few has shot into prominence now giving their expert opinion on the television based on their experience in revolutionary communist activity and in teaching as university professors. A few of them we meet during university reunions or elsewhere and they seem to be happy with their life-long achievements.
Those days the boys had different groups, so did the girls. Only a few students would be part of more than one group. There were hostel groups (those who lived in the students’ hostel at that time), college groups (those who studied in the same college at the undergraduate level), common room groups (those who spent lot of time together playing table tennis, carom or simply gossiping over cups of tea and snacks), political party groups (generally communist), train groups (students generally traveling back home in the same train/ bus), same-row group (students regularly occupying the same seats along particular rows in the class-room, study-together groups (generally studying together and mutually helping each other outside the class), and teacher-Fan groups (special relations with particular teachers). Except for political groups, most groups were unisex groups. There was no inter-group rivalry or animosity. While these groups provided some kind of identity, there were many students who did not form part of any group and yet very comfortable with members of many groups. I had many close friends across several groups like Presidency College group, Moulana Azad College group, Seating Row group, etc.
While a special friendship with a member from the opposite sex would have been a good experience, the girls in the class either did not find interest in me or I did not find them of my type. I had very little interaction with the girls and limited to a few who were smart enough to talk to. One girl however did create avoidable problem. She was trying to draw my attention and one day she asked me to write down some quote in her notebook meant for collections. Since I was poor at quoting from the scriptures or works of great authors, novelists, poets, philosophers or speeches of great politicians and the like, I considered it worthwhile to try quoting from my own thoughts. I penned down with care some thing like this: ‘Mind needs to take control of the petulant heart’. To my surprise I received a long letter at home within a few days from a girl who claimed to be student of the Masters program in Bengali literature. She referred to my quote in her friend’s notebook and said that it was self-contradictory and I must listen to the heart of her friend. I did not reply. I received a few more letters and remained silent. While some friends tried to find out if I would comment on what they have heard about the quotation incident involving me and the classmate, they would surmise from my behavior that nothing really had happened. The quote-collector classmate would try for a while to talk to me in this regard but I succeeded not providing her any chance. It was an interesting but unfortunate incident: the girl was bold enough to take the risk of seeking quotes from a stranger and not probably a good sport to accept unwelcome quotes.
Those days many boys and girls did not develop the capability of transacting as responsible adults with members of the opposite sex. But some were capable and smart in friendly, rational conversations. There was one such classmate with whom I had occasional, intelligent conversation outside the class. I last met her in the examination hall. But that is all that I had interacted with my classmates of the opposite sex. I had no interest in discussing about girls in the class with my groups. Except once did I remark about one, a married girl, that the University was getting short-changed as this girl was paying fees for one student but allowing another within her to take lessons in economics free of cost. More than forty-five years later during one of our class reunion meets, this classmate, a retired college professor, told my wife and me that she had been amused with my remark when she heard about it at that time from another fellow classmate in my group. Then there was another girl who one day looked back on her way from the campus to the bus stop to see me walking 30 feet behind her. She slowed down her pace, allowed me to go head of her and probably felt relieved that I was not following her. I get my bus first on my journey back home. We had both skipped classes early that day.
Classmates were generally enjoyable companions. We had lots of fun and debates. Discussions about teachers' class performance, leg-pulling , unresolved issues in the classroom and gossiping were common. With some lot of affection grew over the months. There were classmates from different groups who would request me for help either for my class notes or even visit me at home to understand certain theories or problems.
Sometimes we had to accept special requests from each other. One my classmates, a very close friend, suggested that I should teach an undergraduate student of Economics honors whom he happened to know. I was reluctant. I got about twelve rupees (about 1.4 US dollars at the official exchange rate at that time and equal to a month’s tuition fee I had to pay to the University for my masters program) per hour that I spent with my pupil. But I had to spend another 90 minutes to go to his residence and come back. I gave him about eight hours a month. He seemed to enjoy my teaching of microeconomics and statistics. His mother used to offer me wholesome milk-based sweets and drinks, probably to make me energetic enough to teach her son. After three-months I gave up this assignment. I never liked to be a teacher, though I enjoyed the communication while teaching.
In the second winter that we had spent together in the University, some classmates arranged a cricket match between select elevens of two successive batches. Our captain, a stylish batsman, happened to know about my cricket credentials because he was from the same suburban municipal area. He requested me to play. That was the last time I played cricket. I do not remember the result, the scores and individual performance. But I came in touch with one of the junior fellow student, a smart, handsome guy. A few years later we would be working for the same employer.
One of my classmates was from a family in the newspaper business. He would drive in his car to the campus and sometimes gave me a lift one-fourth of my journey back home - the small common stretch on his drive back home. Once I had suggested to him that his family group launched an economics-finance daily (there was only one such daily at that time in India) so that they could offer jobs of economics correspondent when we complete our degrees. He did not finally complete the requirements of the masters degree, but his group did launch a business daily five or six years later. But I did not have an opportunity to work for his paper. Much later the daily did publish some of my articles, interviews and letters to the editor.
A part of the hostel group did cause the class some embarrassment. The Economics Department's student's hostel was located in a residential area close to the Department campus, about three minutes walk. Some hostel residents were bold enough to create lot of noise at the hostel even past mid-night hours, besides causing eve-teasing and got into some kind of animosity with the youth in the locality. There were lot of complaints on the behavior of these rather adventurous students suddenly enjoying the freedom from their parents and their strict discipline requirements at homes in towns or villages far away from the city of Calcutta. However, the problems would ease soon: facing threat of disciplinary actions from the University and such news reaching their parents, these few students changed their behavior and concentrated back on studies as the examinations approached. Weaknesses in the witness and evidence that surfaced at the last minutes save the students from the likely punishment of being expelled. Now when some us recount those days fore decades later at our reunion meets, it appears that none has any regrets for what had happened.
Re-unions however these days do not attract many of the alumni. In the reunion organized by the Economics Department of the University of Calcutta (AACUED) around 100 alumni turn up. From our Class of about 100 hardly five to eight attend. With age and various official and family commitments, only a few really can derive pleasure from attending Annual reunions. It is a wonder how some less than a dozen of active office bearers and members of AACUED still find interest in organizing the re-unions every year. The same is true of the reunion of our Class of 66-68. About 10 years back the attendance was about 35 out of the original class strength of about 100 students (the enrolment to the class was 123 but at best 100 attended). In the past few years, the attendance has been shrinking: it has fallen from about 20 or so to about 10. In 2010, surprisingly about 25 of us met at the residence of one of the classmates. He is a deeply religious man and runs his own business. He arranged a wonderful, sumptuous lunch for us. At these reunions, we seem to be much closer friends now, than we were when we studied together for about 500 days of classes spread over three years at the University.
Some of the classmates are no more: we come to know that only now. Many are unable to attend the reunions. Some lived in foreign countries, some others settled outside Kolkata (some have settled down in other states). Some are afflicted with diseases requiring long treatment. Even among those who join had by-pass heart surgeries or similar medical attention. Most of us are now grand parents and suffer from various aging problems. Most of us have retired from active employment. About one third of the classmates served nationalized banks (the banks were nationalized in 1969 just as we obtained our degrees and they would get into a raid expansion mode soon creating job opportunities for us. Another one-third went into various government services from income-tax department to sales tax department to judicial, police and administrative services. About a fourth of our classmates went to high schools teach. Some went to undergraduate colleges and various universities to lecture. Some picked up Ph d degrees along the way. Some students dropped out and did not pursue to get the masters degree - some went straight to get into some jobs, some girls were happy getting married.We have a nice profile of attendees at the reunions - from retired vice chancellors of university and university/ college professors and principals, to retired senior bankers, school teachers and former secretaries to the state government, and retired inspector general of police, business person, renowned film director and homemakers who did not get trapped into employment. I wonder if any of us had any idea as to how life would unfold after we left the University? And, we discover what as a group we have been doing since we parted on completion of our degrees?
Those days the boys had different groups, so did the girls. Only a few students would be part of more than one group. There were hostel groups (those who lived in the students’ hostel at that time), college groups (those who studied in the same college at the undergraduate level), common room groups (those who spent lot of time together playing table tennis, carom or simply gossiping over cups of tea and snacks), political party groups (generally communist), train groups (students generally traveling back home in the same train/ bus), same-row group (students regularly occupying the same seats along particular rows in the class-room, study-together groups (generally studying together and mutually helping each other outside the class), and teacher-Fan groups (special relations with particular teachers). Except for political groups, most groups were unisex groups. There was no inter-group rivalry or animosity. While these groups provided some kind of identity, there were many students who did not form part of any group and yet very comfortable with members of many groups. I had many close friends across several groups like Presidency College group, Moulana Azad College group, Seating Row group, etc.
While a special friendship with a member from the opposite sex would have been a good experience, the girls in the class either did not find interest in me or I did not find them of my type. I had very little interaction with the girls and limited to a few who were smart enough to talk to. One girl however did create avoidable problem. She was trying to draw my attention and one day she asked me to write down some quote in her notebook meant for collections. Since I was poor at quoting from the scriptures or works of great authors, novelists, poets, philosophers or speeches of great politicians and the like, I considered it worthwhile to try quoting from my own thoughts. I penned down with care some thing like this: ‘Mind needs to take control of the petulant heart’. To my surprise I received a long letter at home within a few days from a girl who claimed to be student of the Masters program in Bengali literature. She referred to my quote in her friend’s notebook and said that it was self-contradictory and I must listen to the heart of her friend. I did not reply. I received a few more letters and remained silent. While some friends tried to find out if I would comment on what they have heard about the quotation incident involving me and the classmate, they would surmise from my behavior that nothing really had happened. The quote-collector classmate would try for a while to talk to me in this regard but I succeeded not providing her any chance. It was an interesting but unfortunate incident: the girl was bold enough to take the risk of seeking quotes from a stranger and not probably a good sport to accept unwelcome quotes.
Those days many boys and girls did not develop the capability of transacting as responsible adults with members of the opposite sex. But some were capable and smart in friendly, rational conversations. There was one such classmate with whom I had occasional, intelligent conversation outside the class. I last met her in the examination hall. But that is all that I had interacted with my classmates of the opposite sex. I had no interest in discussing about girls in the class with my groups. Except once did I remark about one, a married girl, that the University was getting short-changed as this girl was paying fees for one student but allowing another within her to take lessons in economics free of cost. More than forty-five years later during one of our class reunion meets, this classmate, a retired college professor, told my wife and me that she had been amused with my remark when she heard about it at that time from another fellow classmate in my group. Then there was another girl who one day looked back on her way from the campus to the bus stop to see me walking 30 feet behind her. She slowed down her pace, allowed me to go head of her and probably felt relieved that I was not following her. I get my bus first on my journey back home. We had both skipped classes early that day.
Classmates were generally enjoyable companions. We had lots of fun and debates. Discussions about teachers' class performance, leg-pulling , unresolved issues in the classroom and gossiping were common. With some lot of affection grew over the months. There were classmates from different groups who would request me for help either for my class notes or even visit me at home to understand certain theories or problems.
Sometimes we had to accept special requests from each other. One my classmates, a very close friend, suggested that I should teach an undergraduate student of Economics honors whom he happened to know. I was reluctant. I got about twelve rupees (about 1.4 US dollars at the official exchange rate at that time and equal to a month’s tuition fee I had to pay to the University for my masters program) per hour that I spent with my pupil. But I had to spend another 90 minutes to go to his residence and come back. I gave him about eight hours a month. He seemed to enjoy my teaching of microeconomics and statistics. His mother used to offer me wholesome milk-based sweets and drinks, probably to make me energetic enough to teach her son. After three-months I gave up this assignment. I never liked to be a teacher, though I enjoyed the communication while teaching.
In the second winter that we had spent together in the University, some classmates arranged a cricket match between select elevens of two successive batches. Our captain, a stylish batsman, happened to know about my cricket credentials because he was from the same suburban municipal area. He requested me to play. That was the last time I played cricket. I do not remember the result, the scores and individual performance. But I came in touch with one of the junior fellow student, a smart, handsome guy. A few years later we would be working for the same employer.
One of my classmates was from a family in the newspaper business. He would drive in his car to the campus and sometimes gave me a lift one-fourth of my journey back home - the small common stretch on his drive back home. Once I had suggested to him that his family group launched an economics-finance daily (there was only one such daily at that time in India) so that they could offer jobs of economics correspondent when we complete our degrees. He did not finally complete the requirements of the masters degree, but his group did launch a business daily five or six years later. But I did not have an opportunity to work for his paper. Much later the daily did publish some of my articles, interviews and letters to the editor.
A part of the hostel group did cause the class some embarrassment. The Economics Department's student's hostel was located in a residential area close to the Department campus, about three minutes walk. Some hostel residents were bold enough to create lot of noise at the hostel even past mid-night hours, besides causing eve-teasing and got into some kind of animosity with the youth in the locality. There were lot of complaints on the behavior of these rather adventurous students suddenly enjoying the freedom from their parents and their strict discipline requirements at homes in towns or villages far away from the city of Calcutta. However, the problems would ease soon: facing threat of disciplinary actions from the University and such news reaching their parents, these few students changed their behavior and concentrated back on studies as the examinations approached. Weaknesses in the witness and evidence that surfaced at the last minutes save the students from the likely punishment of being expelled. Now when some us recount those days fore decades later at our reunion meets, it appears that none has any regrets for what had happened.
Re-unions however these days do not attract many of the alumni. In the reunion organized by the Economics Department of the University of Calcutta (AACUED) around 100 alumni turn up. From our Class of about 100 hardly five to eight attend. With age and various official and family commitments, only a few really can derive pleasure from attending Annual reunions. It is a wonder how some less than a dozen of active office bearers and members of AACUED still find interest in organizing the re-unions every year. The same is true of the reunion of our Class of 66-68. About 10 years back the attendance was about 35 out of the original class strength of about 100 students (the enrolment to the class was 123 but at best 100 attended). In the past few years, the attendance has been shrinking: it has fallen from about 20 or so to about 10. In 2010, surprisingly about 25 of us met at the residence of one of the classmates. He is a deeply religious man and runs his own business. He arranged a wonderful, sumptuous lunch for us. At these reunions, we seem to be much closer friends now, than we were when we studied together for about 500 days of classes spread over three years at the University.
Some of the classmates are no more: we come to know that only now. Many are unable to attend the reunions. Some lived in foreign countries, some others settled outside Kolkata (some have settled down in other states). Some are afflicted with diseases requiring long treatment. Even among those who join had by-pass heart surgeries or similar medical attention. Most of us are now grand parents and suffer from various aging problems. Most of us have retired from active employment. About one third of the classmates served nationalized banks (the banks were nationalized in 1969 just as we obtained our degrees and they would get into a raid expansion mode soon creating job opportunities for us. Another one-third went into various government services from income-tax department to sales tax department to judicial, police and administrative services. About a fourth of our classmates went to high schools teach. Some went to undergraduate colleges and various universities to lecture. Some picked up Ph d degrees along the way. Some students dropped out and did not pursue to get the masters degree - some went straight to get into some jobs, some girls were happy getting married.We have a nice profile of attendees at the reunions - from retired vice chancellors of university and university/ college professors and principals, to retired senior bankers, school teachers and former secretaries to the state government, and retired inspector general of police, business person, renowned film director and homemakers who did not get trapped into employment. I wonder if any of us had any idea as to how life would unfold after we left the University? And, we discover what as a group we have been doing since we parted on completion of our degrees?
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