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The Shuttle-Badminton Wrecking Crew of our Faculty Club consisted of two elderly couples, Prof and Mrs T, and, Prof and Mrs S.
The cardinal mistake they did (from the point of view of onlookers) was that they persisted in inbreeding...Mrs T never forsook Prof T as her partner nor did Mrs S cease to cling to Prof S, as if it were a part of their marriage vows.
So, the shuttle-warfare was not so much against their opponents but between wives and their (respective) husbands...it looked like a continuation of their bedroom quarrels. It would have been compensatory fun for waiting onlookers if they quarreled in English or Hindi or Bengali or any one of the recognized Indian Languages listed on our Rs 100 Note. Mrs T chided Prof T in maybe Tulu, while Prof S continually emitted his non-stop growl of his wife's style of play in a subdued monologue in one of the obscure dialects of Punjabi.
The trouble with our own Badminton was that the Faculty Club didn't have an indoor court...it was too poor to afford one. So, it was an outdoor affair and the only season when it could be indulged in was the evanescent KGP winter, say between November and January. And that too for two hours in the evening between 5.30 and 7.30. After that the breeze picked up and the course of the shuttlecock in its flight became as unpredictable as those of paper rockets hurled by backbenchers at the frontbench dames...it was always hit and miss.
And in the Beginning there was only one badminton court at the backyard of our Club, visible from our Faculty Hostel. All that two of us, myself and OM, both in our twenties, wanted was just a good game that would warm us up for the rest of the night. And before we could jump the fence separating our Hostel from the Club after our Tea, we would see the joint-arrival of the two couples as if on a perfectly coordinated mission. We would see them sitting on the grass on either side of the net even before it was put up by our shuttle-boy, the younger son of Das, the Caretaker of the Club. I was then not aware of the word, but today I would call them the Squatters Supreme.
I guess Prof T and Prof S arranged their time-tables with their Time Table-in-Charges so they had their last periods off. Or better, they may have fought for it and became Time Table Makers of their respective Departments.
I have some experience of this Time Table Business. One day during 1976 I was called to the Office of our HoD, HNB. And without so much as a prelude, he said that I would be the Time-Table-in-Charge of the Physics Department for the next three-year term.
The Phy Dept then was huge...it had 35 Faculty Members, some of them as cantankerous as the fishmongers at Tech Market (before the arrival of fridges). And I was about the junior-most. And there were as many as 5 Courses of Physics, compulsory for all students of B Tech...so it was a serious affair. And so, I protested meekly to HNB that I had no talent for such an onerous PR job, I wouldn't learn any Physics from it, and that I wouldn't enjoy it, so I don't want to do it, please sir...
He then asked:
"Sure you don't want to do it?"
"Yes, sir...I mean, No sir"
"That is precisely why I want you to do it...most everybody in the Department approached me offering their services"
So that was that...the HNB style of administration. I couldn't guess for a long time why any sane person would want to do it.
The high-point in the schedule of the Departmental Time Table Makers was attending the Meetings called by the Central Time Table Maker...a sort of Archbishop. During my tenure the Archbishop was an old and meek Professor from the ECE Dept. His Meetings would be attended by the 14 rowdies from their respective Departments. And the old gent was so gentle that from the beginning to the end of the meeting he would be shouted at by most everyone wanting convenient 'slots' for their Departments. It was such a mess that I felt sad for the old man but I could never fathom why he wanted that odious job at all or why he continued for an additional term.
In my first Central Committee Meeting, I found my friend VR from the CHE Department and sat beside him. He was surprised that an antisocial like me would be chosen as the Phy Representative and I had to explain that the job was forced on me. And then I asked him why such a lazy lubber like him, fond of reading novels in his spare time, and sticking like a leech to the Time and Newsweek magazines in our Faculty Club, took up this time-consuming social service job. And he said:
"To hell with social service...as you know, I am a late-riser and the advantage of being a Time Table Maker is that on my virgin TT template I first fill in my convenient slots, and the rest of them can go to hell...this is my third term and I fight like the devil in my Department to cling on to it"
So, there you are...secret revealed...
For, the day I took charge, Senior Professor X barged into my room and said that the new Senate Norms entitled Professors to have only 6 hours of teaching load per week (the average was 15)...mind you!... And I asked him why. And he said:
"We have to attend so many Senate Committee and Sub-Committee Meetings"
"But Professor HNB asked me to equalize the teaching load for all teachers irrespective of their designations...please talk to him and let me know"
He never returned.
And Prof Y, gunning for the next Headship, ran into my room and ordered:
"Don't give me any first period classes"
"Why?"
"I suffer from constipation...you know!"
"I don't know...please talk to HNB"
And it went on and on and on...like these blogs...
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The Shuttle-Badminton Wrecking Crew of our Faculty Club consisted of two elderly couples, Prof and Mrs T, and, Prof and Mrs S.
The cardinal mistake they did (from the point of view of onlookers) was that they persisted in inbreeding...Mrs T never forsook Prof T as her partner nor did Mrs S cease to cling to Prof S, as if it were a part of their marriage vows.
So, the shuttle-warfare was not so much against their opponents but between wives and their (respective) husbands...it looked like a continuation of their bedroom quarrels. It would have been compensatory fun for waiting onlookers if they quarreled in English or Hindi or Bengali or any one of the recognized Indian Languages listed on our Rs 100 Note. Mrs T chided Prof T in maybe Tulu, while Prof S continually emitted his non-stop growl of his wife's style of play in a subdued monologue in one of the obscure dialects of Punjabi.
The trouble with our own Badminton was that the Faculty Club didn't have an indoor court...it was too poor to afford one. So, it was an outdoor affair and the only season when it could be indulged in was the evanescent KGP winter, say between November and January. And that too for two hours in the evening between 5.30 and 7.30. After that the breeze picked up and the course of the shuttlecock in its flight became as unpredictable as those of paper rockets hurled by backbenchers at the frontbench dames...it was always hit and miss.
And in the Beginning there was only one badminton court at the backyard of our Club, visible from our Faculty Hostel. All that two of us, myself and OM, both in our twenties, wanted was just a good game that would warm us up for the rest of the night. And before we could jump the fence separating our Hostel from the Club after our Tea, we would see the joint-arrival of the two couples as if on a perfectly coordinated mission. We would see them sitting on the grass on either side of the net even before it was put up by our shuttle-boy, the younger son of Das, the Caretaker of the Club. I was then not aware of the word, but today I would call them the Squatters Supreme.
I guess Prof T and Prof S arranged their time-tables with their Time Table-in-Charges so they had their last periods off. Or better, they may have fought for it and became Time Table Makers of their respective Departments.
I have some experience of this Time Table Business. One day during 1976 I was called to the Office of our HoD, HNB. And without so much as a prelude, he said that I would be the Time-Table-in-Charge of the Physics Department for the next three-year term.
The Phy Dept then was huge...it had 35 Faculty Members, some of them as cantankerous as the fishmongers at Tech Market (before the arrival of fridges). And I was about the junior-most. And there were as many as 5 Courses of Physics, compulsory for all students of B Tech...so it was a serious affair. And so, I protested meekly to HNB that I had no talent for such an onerous PR job, I wouldn't learn any Physics from it, and that I wouldn't enjoy it, so I don't want to do it, please sir...
He then asked:
"Sure you don't want to do it?"
"Yes, sir...I mean, No sir"
"That is precisely why I want you to do it...most everybody in the Department approached me offering their services"
So that was that...the HNB style of administration. I couldn't guess for a long time why any sane person would want to do it.
The high-point in the schedule of the Departmental Time Table Makers was attending the Meetings called by the Central Time Table Maker...a sort of Archbishop. During my tenure the Archbishop was an old and meek Professor from the ECE Dept. His Meetings would be attended by the 14 rowdies from their respective Departments. And the old gent was so gentle that from the beginning to the end of the meeting he would be shouted at by most everyone wanting convenient 'slots' for their Departments. It was such a mess that I felt sad for the old man but I could never fathom why he wanted that odious job at all or why he continued for an additional term.
In my first Central Committee Meeting, I found my friend VR from the CHE Department and sat beside him. He was surprised that an antisocial like me would be chosen as the Phy Representative and I had to explain that the job was forced on me. And then I asked him why such a lazy lubber like him, fond of reading novels in his spare time, and sticking like a leech to the Time and Newsweek magazines in our Faculty Club, took up this time-consuming social service job. And he said:
"To hell with social service...as you know, I am a late-riser and the advantage of being a Time Table Maker is that on my virgin TT template I first fill in my convenient slots, and the rest of them can go to hell...this is my third term and I fight like the devil in my Department to cling on to it"
So, there you are...secret revealed...
For, the day I took charge, Senior Professor X barged into my room and said that the new Senate Norms entitled Professors to have only 6 hours of teaching load per week (the average was 15)...mind you!... And I asked him why. And he said:
"We have to attend so many Senate Committee and Sub-Committee Meetings"
"But Professor HNB asked me to equalize the teaching load for all teachers irrespective of their designations...please talk to him and let me know"
He never returned.
And Prof Y, gunning for the next Headship, ran into my room and ordered:
"Don't give me any first period classes"
"Why?"
"I suffer from constipation...you know!"
"I don't know...please talk to HNB"
And it went on and on and on...like these blogs...
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