Procrastination

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That is a big word for postponementality. Webster defines it as putting off intentionally the doing of something that should be done.

Like for instance opening that ghastly-looking object called the Answer Scripts Bundle. Every warm-blooded teacher procrastinates it instinctively.

My Guru SDM made no bones about it; and even the HoD, HNB (5 years his junior in age) was hesitant to remind him that the last date was long over, the Dean in the UG Meeting was sarcastic, and the Chairman Senate would pull him up and put the Dept to shame. Once he had to ask me to politely cajole SDM to open that bundle. And I had to use all my tact to convey HNB's request at the appropriate weak moment.

Procrastination is supposed to be an adult male prerogatve. Women are wired differently; their lives are guided by timeliness and strict rhythms. And perhaps they don't have too many excuses to procrastinate. I mean, males can postpone for no reason at all...they can just languish doing nothing like that well-fed lion in the safari park. I have rarely seen a full-blooded woman doing nothing. Like Nature abhors vacuum, women abhor empty moments (my wife is busy peeling potatoes, instead of buying chips).

We postpone doing things we dislike and jump on things we like. There is another angle to this. We linger over things we love, like that plate of hilsa or that book of our favorite author. On the other hand we get over quickly doing things we hate to do. Like that bundle of answer scripts. This works to the advantage of students. Whenever SDM was late, as always, and finished his bundle in a hurry, he was very liberal out of fear. I haven't heard of any student failing in his paper. Can't say the same of some perverts who jump on that bundle as soon as they see it...like cats on impounded mice.

When Yama declares that you have to live in Hell for 5 years and Heaven for 5 years, but the choice of which one first is left to you, you will invariably choose Heaven first thinking that conditions in Hell would improve by then (unless you are a pessimist, cynic or an outright masochist).

The classic case of procrastination is that of students going to the US for higher studies like Ph D or even MS. They promise their mothers that they were going solely for improving their knowledge, and would return soonest, mouthing flash words like pay-back time since patriotism is a dirty word in this globalized world.

And, after finishing their studies, they would tell their mom that they need some 'hands-on' job experience to round off their knowledge and also to put by a few thousand dollars since they have been starving while studying.

And after a couple of years they would tell their mom that conditions in India are not ripe right away and they would like to stick on for a couple of more years so they can make optimum use of their hard-won knowledge.

Then they would get married willy-nilly and become fathers and pass on the blame of procrastination to their wives and kids.

Finally, after 30 years in the US, the following canonical conversation takes place:

Son: I have got my green-card and citizenship so you can live with us here as well as in India. Sell that ancestral house in Jubilee Hills and come over

Mom: It's OK. Don't worry about me

Son: But I can't come whenever you fall in that greasy bathroom and break your hip bone

Mom: You don't have to...my sister's idiot son will take care of me

Son: But I feel guilty

Mom: That's your problem

Son: But you are already home-bound at 85 and live alone in a centrally air-conditioned house, so, what exactly prevents you to come over to the US?

Mom: I don't like that bikini in which your wife moves in your house day in and day out...

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