The tiring eyes lazily looked at the watch the 15th time...
9:15 pm..and just when we thought that the ordeal for the day was over...one
white apron aspirant stood up and asked a question in Zoology. He was one of
the first benchers, and given a chance all the guys sitting behind him would
have spanked him mercilessly on his a** for having asked...or rather even
having got a doubt at that time of the day. The monotonous tone that was a
constant noise (nothing against the person delivering the lecture, I just hated
biology, and hence everything else even remotely related to it) to my ears,
continued in the same frequency giving the explanation all over again. The
watch ever so slowly ticked past 9:30..and the murmurs in the class started
picking up the pitch. "The sanctity and gravity of the class has to be
maintained", said the voice, no change in tone, no change in the facial
expression..nothing..just the Baba Saheb Ambedkar pose. The owner of this voice
was Mr Purushottam, a more than knowledgeable Biology lecturer, equally adept
at both botany and zoology, capable of delivering lectures with the same tone,
for hours together. As a matter of fact, any lecturer in Shastri Tuitions was
more than capable of delivering lectures for at least 4 hours at a stretch. The
white apron aspirants, considered Mr Purushottam as god’s gift to mankind in
Shastri Tuitions, as he was one stop solution for all their doubts in Biology. Throughout
my PU days, I always had this belief that anybody who got a doubt in Biology was
a fathead. Biology is all about knowing facts and any amount of logical
explanation would not change the "fact". For example, Femur is the
longest bone in the human body and that’s the fact. Period. However, Mr Purushottam, had the intelligence
or the knowledge or whatever you may call it, to satiate the urge of these
cabbages to ask doubts. His capacity to deliver the lectures and dictate notes,
at the same breath, made me wonder how could anybody remember so many facts?
Well I wasn’t a bright star in that tuitions and hence all my out of the
context queries, were answered by my inner voice which constantly said,
probably it could be possible by others, not me.
By and large, people who hate biology, have some kind of
inclination to numbers. You readers would be lulled into a false sense of
belief, that I had inclination to Maths and Physics. Bwahawwahahaaahaahaha. As
mentioned in my earlier post, the Maths class used to run at a frantic pace
that missing one class would make us fall back by at least 150 problems. 150
problems?? You would say, and all the students who have attended Mr Ramesh in
Shastri tuitions, would nod their heads in unison. He was one person who believed that teaching
is a noble profession, and classroom a temple and hence would enter the class
bare foot; the ability to fill the entire blackboard within a matter of minutes,
is unmatched by anyone. sinʘ, cosʘ, tanʘ were sprinkled all over the
board, and unless we had the hand eye co-ordination of a Virender Sehwag(ok it
was Sanath Jayasuriya then), I am sure we would have missed the logic in
deducing the result of the problems. And yes, we did miss, most of the problems
written down in our books had blanks below them and there were many occasions,
where students lost the interest in going back and writing down the solutions
at least from others who could catch up with the pace. I am proud to say that my
book dint have any blanks; the secret, I dint even attempt to catch up with
the pace. Whatever problems that I felt were important (and there was no sense
of judgment to this) found its entry in the book, others were discarded :). The only thing that
stopped Mr Ramesh from breaking his own record was his voice. His voice box
which during the initial hours of the class supported him, usually used to play
tricks in his endeavor towards the fag end of the class. His voice cracked
quite often, and when it slowly began to attenuate from being heard even by the
last benchers, to barely audible even by the first benchers, he used to end the
class, by which time he would have easily hit his target of 150 problems every time!!! All this writing constantly in
most of the classes, made our fingers twitch with pain and any cracking of
knuckles, time permitted, would be heard in the highest decibels!!
Did we have any respite? Of course the Chemistry classes conducted
by Mr Narasimhan, was a welcome change as far as the monotony was concerned.
Yes, notes were dictated even in his classes, but his way of giving analogies,
was second to none. Be it comparing manufacture of steel using perforated ladles
to deep frying jilebis, or taking a Ammonium hydroxide in hand and rubbing it rigorously
to smell ammonia to preparation of chewing tobacco, his classes were hilarious.
Our interpretations of his serious analogies, made us giggle which generally he
assumed as a reaction to one of his previous practical jokes. However, the
icing on the cake would have go to our chief (Tor) mentor Mr Shastri.
We did have our sessions of Gyaan from him regularly, whenever he was upset with us, whenever he found that the general mood of the class was not upbeat, or even whenever he found at 9:15PM that he still had time!!!. We dint have to actually write down any notes
in his class, after all, the text book that we mortals were referring, was
written by him!!! Hence, whatever notes that were supposed to be given could be
marked out in the text itself. Amidst (the bloodies, loafers, rowdies - the
adjectives that were awarded to us for our conduct in the class) all the verbal
bashing that we used to receive, (guys of this generation could relate it
remotely to MTV Roadies auditions, the only difference is that the class as a whole
received the verbal assault!!) occasionally he used to come up with tales of
past success achieved by students. The teary eyed students awe stuck, who used
to listen to the stories, dreaming themselves as successful engineers, or
doctors, as receiving best achievers awards giving speech about their struggle
and their fortune, were brought down to earth by one statement “Bloody avrella
18 hours odhuttha idru kanro dina, nim thara alla” (Those students were
studying 18 hours a day, not like you rogues). This jaw dropping statistic was
disliked by me for two reasons. One; the sheer duration of 18 hours seemed an
exaggeration for me and two; it was always directed towards boys. Probably Mr
Shastri believed that girls were more industrious and sincerely put in the
required number of hours up to the minute. These two reasons made me take that
statement in a lighter vein. How could anybody study for long? With great difficult I could achieve that stat
in a week, and since that stat was mentioned about a 1st rank
holder, I declared to myself that I was out of the rat race even before the
race began, and had no intention of receiving awards from the PU Board
officials :). However,
there was no short of motivation in his “talks” and the intensity was to such
an extent that, we guys in the evening batch, almost all had the instant josh
to sit through the night, and hit that 18 hour mark at least once. Highlights
of Tendulkar smashing all the SL bowlers in floodlit grounds of Sharjah, in
Star TV, were enough to quickly erase all that “18 hour build up”. To hell with
all the glory, I used to say to myself, it was always better to enjoy simple
pleasures in life. That very thought process, tuned up all the imaginary lullabies
in my mind, and soon I would be curling up in my bed, enjoying a well-deserved
sleep. A rightful reward for all the hard work that was put through the day.
Coming to think of it now, despite having a hectic schedule,
I still had the enthusiasm to go to college, attend tuition, come back home
manage to study and do all this without having a single break in a week (Yes we
did attend 7 hours of tuition classes, on Sundays as well!!). Was it the age?
Or was it the josh of trying to prove a point to the whole world how good you
are? I don’t know. Whatever it was, I miss those days. Jaane Kahan Gaye Woh
Din!! (once again not a melancholy tune!!)
A[V]I
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