Graphology

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If you lived a Lifetime of Teaching in the Good Old Days (like me) you are condemned to read thousands of handwritings most unwillingly.

This is because Evaluation of Answer Scripts is the worst part of Teaching.

The flop side (as opposed to the flip side) is that you tend to become a pseudo-expert in the pseudo-science of Graphology....

...At least you can blow up some popular myths like girls have a better handwriting than boys. There may be some truth in this Rule but I have seen beautiful girls with ugly handwriting, though rare. In general girls are surely better organized in their answers, but it can't always be an advantage, since organization is one thing and brilliance is quite another {;-}....call me MCP if you will.....Mahatma Gandhi and Mark Twain had the worst handwriting.....good organization and beautiful handwriting only make the task of the reader easier....ask Doctors' Drug Dispensers...

There is another popular myth that a bold handwriting indicates a bold character: My Ph D Guide SDM had the biggest, boldest and best handwriting ever (filling in the tiny spaces of the Good Old Money Order Form was anathema to him). But he was one of the timidest souls I have seen in worldly matters (always scared that students with extremist views are out to get him).

It is a different matter that in intellectual matters I have seen none bolder than him...he could challenge Dirac and Einstein in their fields and poke holes in their Papers in chats with me and DB but was wit-scared of Referees {;-}.

But if anyone challenged his Paper, Devil Take The Hindmost...he could be a roaring lion...

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My first experience of Evaluation of Answer Scripts, with the Question Paper set by someone else than me, was a disaster.

As soon as I joined IIT KGP at 21 on May 1, 1965, our HoD (HNB) dumped on me a bundle of about 100 JEE Scripts (there was some tiny remuneration for this most unpleasant task and HNB wanted to be kind to me).

I took a lot of time cracking the Model Answers which were doled out to us with strict instructions to follow them to the letter. I was a young man in a hurry and wanted to finish that bundle as quickly as possible (I didn't know that if you do so, another bundle would be dumped on you as a bonanza for your efficiency).

So I completed the task in one night and was about to deposit it the next morning, but before going to bed and falling asleep, I had this one script with the ugliest handwriting and worst organization bobbing up in my mind like a nightmare. As I was in a hurry and the answers at the end of each question were wrong, that script got barely 38 marks.

After tossing in bed for an hour, I got up, picked up that script cursing the chappie for horrible handwriting, and spent half an hour trying to tease out sense. At the end of the re-examination, the script got 82....all questions were rightly but differently answered till the last step....

Next morning I went to HNB and took my Summer Vacation then and there...and never did the JEE Job for the next 20 years, till the Evaluation became Central and so the atmosphere got picnicky with 35 of us sharing unending Jokes and cups of Tea...plus I became sort of Team-Lead by then.

Lesson: Boring Jobs should be done in a convivial atmosphere

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When we were in School where my father was the Head Master, every once in a while the Peon used to enter our Class Room with 30 odd white paper slips and distribute them amongst us. He also used to hand out one sheet from the day's Newspaper with a Column marked on it.

The Teacher would stop whatever he was teaching and read that column aloud asking us to take Dictation and submit our answer-scripts (the white paper slips with our Roll Numbers and Signatures). The Peon would collect them all and quit to repeat the thing in the next Class Room.

At first we didn't know what was the meaning of this Mystical Exercise, but it dawned on us by and by that the HM was handed an Anonymous Letter and was trying to figure out whodunit. Apparently he appointed a Select Committee of the Local Graphologists and the result was announced in the next morning's Assembly with the name of the Anonymous Absentee called several times but to no avail.

Anonymous Letters used to come in these few categories:

1. Love Letters to the Minority of Girl Students (not the word Girl...I am no MCP!).

The Girl Student concerned would have definitely read it over and over before handing it to the HM through proper channel.

Nothing much can be done about these...hormones being what they were...but we never heard of acid attacks during those Innocent 50s of the Nehru Era. The poor fool would be caned and let off with a stern warning...but by then he got what he wanted...Notoriety...

Once of course it was this young and handsome Bachelor Teacher who was the culprit. Since he can't be caned, he was shifted to some other Section quietly in order to suppress unpleasant Newspaper Reports...I alone had the inside info, being the HM's son.

The Teacher however was the Best and I would have learned Maths far better had he not turned impulsive...sigh!

2. Letters abusive of HM or his Staff.

In the former case, the HM ignored them wisely.

In the latter, he enjoyed them and took note of the contents but suppressed the matter after finding out the culprit and giving him a hearing and then warning him.

3. Letters revealing inside info regarding someone or the other.

The Letter-Writer is obviously scared of signing. No attempt is made in these cases to figure out the Author, but Secret Services are employed to find out if there is any truth in the allegations...more often than not, there Is a grain of it....but no action can be taken on the basis of an Anonymous Complaint, but the Big Brother is watchful...

4. Letters from Demented Souls...mostly out of Frustration in Love Affairs and attaching nude pictures.

The Standard Procedure in these cases is to ignore them outright after enjoying the Pictures and circulating them (if not selling them) among friends.

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At IIT KGP I was the proud recipient of a few Anonymous Letters. I used to circulate them among friends and feel great...someone is jealous...and it is always better to be envied than pitied...

DB wanted badly to get some, and I wished I could write....but he knew my handwriting as well as I knew his.

By that time, chappies became cleverer and used to write in Block Letters (before typewriters and keyboards were available)...but the contents generally indicated the symptom...

I had lots of fun but my wife was scared that I would be shot dead next or a Letter Bomb would be coming....to the extent she was on the point of declining to take delivery of a Gift Packet from an Addressee unknown to her...

After she phoned me the Sender's Name, I told her to accept it at once, open it and let me know the Contents....lots of wonderful gifts and goodies from Indra's Dad in exchange perhaps for teaching badly Indra's QM 0, EM 2 and QM 2 and allowing him to enter late every Monday Morning and then go to Harry's during his two 4th Year Labs...I wished I could...

His dad too was a brilliant student of Physics from the Presidency College during its Golden Era...

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