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What this single shy orthodox South Indian Brahmin (me...gps) couldn't do in two long years in the 1960s by way of demolishing the stiff Table Manners of our incipient Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP was done with a breezy wave of the hand in two short weeks by two shyer orthodoxer South Indian Brahmins...Dr P and Dr C.
Let me talk of the achievement of Dr P first.
Dr P joined us as a Pool Officer (PO). This PO business was rampant during the 1960s in our Indian Universities and IITs. Some Babu somewhere in the administration of CSIR felt that there was then too much of brain drain from India to America (Personally I thought, too little...great brains like mine chose to stay back and serve our country like our outgoing shyest mouthshut Sardarjee said he was willing to do for another term, given a dog's chance).
CSIR then invented a scheme by which the juicy brains that left for greener pastures but were still pining for their homeland, for whatever reasons, could be lulled back to their motherland India, that remains Bharat, like leopards to their honey traps. And announced that they were welcome to get back and stay as a PO in any Indian university of their choice for a period of one year (12 months) extendable by another year (12 more) and serve that university as a temporary faculty. And get paid by CSIR a humongous stipend of Rs 600 per month. The host institution may or may not like their PO's faces and/or brains. If they do, they can absorb their resident PO as their permanent faculty after the usual Interview (starting salary Rs 400 + DA). If they don't, the PO is free to apply elsewhere and try his or her luck. And if no Indian university likes them they were free to get lost or hope to get back to their adopted momland and try for their Green Cards by and by. POs for the nonce were like our Trishankus.
And our Faculty Hostel became the den of homing POs.
Dr P was a PO in our Math Dept. And at the very first sight we found in him all the symptoms of a math genius a la Srinivasa Ramanujan. He was lean and hungry-looking. And he had a head of the Number 11 size. And he never looked at anyone face to face. He was always dressed in white. He walked with a bowed mumbling head. He avoided all contact with us boarders as a needless and worthless distraction from his academic pursuits maybe. He rarely spoke and, when he did, all of us present pricked our ears just to hear how it sounds...it was such a rare treat..."Coffee is cold".
Most of us ignored him by and by since he didn't smoke, play chess or bridge or Scrabble, or indulge in campus gossip like who got turned out from which class, or of the hoary grainy movies exhibited by TFS in our Netaji Auditorium. Some detectives said they spied on him when his ground floor room's door was slightly ajar and found him tackling what looked like 6-fold integrals without the aid of Gradshtyen and Ryzhik's (Universal) Tables of Integrals, Series and Products!!!
By the time Dr P joined us the Skeleton Menu was already in force. Apart from the Skeleton which was compulsory and cost Rs 120, anyone could order any other side dish for the coming month and pay for it.
I was on the Skeleton which started with breakfast as usual. And it had 4 slices of rotten bread and jam and butter on the table (unlimited). And of course tea or coffee (unlimited) in mugs and cups and sugar bowls. Then came the lunch at noon with 4 rotis like worn-out leather chappals and watery dal and masala subji (alu-gobi or, for drastic change, gobi-alu). And then Tea at 4.30 PM which had a couple of dog biscuits and tepid tea (unlimited). And dinner at 8 PM which was a true copy of lunch apart from being colder and thinner.
Dr P was like me...a South Indian Brahmin who hates breakfast but feels as hungry as a wolf at Tea Time. Dr Ghosh-Dastidar (my Canada-returned PO-neighbor) and I used to skip the dog biscuit-Tea in our mess altogether and jump the fence and sit down in the Chai Dukan table where minuscule singaras were to be had hot and fresh from the oven at the rate of 10 paise each, and indulge in competition of who scores more than half a dozen at a go.
Dr P apparently felt too hungry at Tea Time but since he didn't mix with us he wasn't aware of the singara shop across the fence. Also perhaps he was very careful of his temporary PO purse which had to last for all of two years (24 months). And, like me, he wasn't touching his 4 slices of bread at breakfast...just look at them wistfully and leave them alone cold.
The second week he arrived, he found out discreetly that our junior lecturer and alumnus in AE, Dr KG, was the Mess Secretary then. And Dr KG was as jaunty and naughty a chap as David Niven in the Guns of Navarone.
And I was witness to this rare dialogue between Dr P and Dr KG:
Dr P: I don't feel hungry at breakfast but I do at Tea. Can I have my breakfast with Tea?
Dr KG: Sure, sir, you can have your breakfast with tea or coffee...both unlimited
Dr P: No, no...I mean can I have my breakfast with Tea?
Dr KG: Sure, why not? You can have your breakfast with tea or coffee...both unlimited
Dr P: Oh, no! I mean, can I have my breakfast with TEA?
Dr KG: Sure, Dr P, why not? Anyone can have his breakfast with tea or coffee...both unlimited
The conversation ended there...Dr P left the dining hall in a huff. And Dr KG (who was in my first year class earlier) winked at me and roared and roared.
And Laxman was all smiles.
Next morning Dr P arrived at breakfast time and leisurely broke his 4 slices of bread into crumbles and heaped the tiny pieces on his main plate and poured first water and then tea and then coffee over the bread pieces and stirred the soupy mixture with his spoon and then fork and then knife and then got up and walked off.
This feat he repeated every morning for the six months he stayed with us before he vanished...rumors abounded that he was taken in by IISc Bangalore where I thought happily that he had his bellyful of Teatime Tiffin of masala dosas, alu bondas, hing bajjis, onion pesarats, veg upma, rava idlis, uttapams (both onion and veg)...
But none like DR KG...
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What this single shy orthodox South Indian Brahmin (me...gps) couldn't do in two long years in the 1960s by way of demolishing the stiff Table Manners of our incipient Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP was done with a breezy wave of the hand in two short weeks by two shyer orthodoxer South Indian Brahmins...Dr P and Dr C.
Let me talk of the achievement of Dr P first.
Dr P joined us as a Pool Officer (PO). This PO business was rampant during the 1960s in our Indian Universities and IITs. Some Babu somewhere in the administration of CSIR felt that there was then too much of brain drain from India to America (Personally I thought, too little...great brains like mine chose to stay back and serve our country like our outgoing shyest mouthshut Sardarjee said he was willing to do for another term, given a dog's chance).
CSIR then invented a scheme by which the juicy brains that left for greener pastures but were still pining for their homeland, for whatever reasons, could be lulled back to their motherland India, that remains Bharat, like leopards to their honey traps. And announced that they were welcome to get back and stay as a PO in any Indian university of their choice for a period of one year (12 months) extendable by another year (12 more) and serve that university as a temporary faculty. And get paid by CSIR a humongous stipend of Rs 600 per month. The host institution may or may not like their PO's faces and/or brains. If they do, they can absorb their resident PO as their permanent faculty after the usual Interview (starting salary Rs 400 + DA). If they don't, the PO is free to apply elsewhere and try his or her luck. And if no Indian university likes them they were free to get lost or hope to get back to their adopted momland and try for their Green Cards by and by. POs for the nonce were like our Trishankus.
And our Faculty Hostel became the den of homing POs.
Dr P was a PO in our Math Dept. And at the very first sight we found in him all the symptoms of a math genius a la Srinivasa Ramanujan. He was lean and hungry-looking. And he had a head of the Number 11 size. And he never looked at anyone face to face. He was always dressed in white. He walked with a bowed mumbling head. He avoided all contact with us boarders as a needless and worthless distraction from his academic pursuits maybe. He rarely spoke and, when he did, all of us present pricked our ears just to hear how it sounds...it was such a rare treat..."Coffee is cold".
Most of us ignored him by and by since he didn't smoke, play chess or bridge or Scrabble, or indulge in campus gossip like who got turned out from which class, or of the hoary grainy movies exhibited by TFS in our Netaji Auditorium. Some detectives said they spied on him when his ground floor room's door was slightly ajar and found him tackling what looked like 6-fold integrals without the aid of Gradshtyen and Ryzhik's (Universal) Tables of Integrals, Series and Products!!!
By the time Dr P joined us the Skeleton Menu was already in force. Apart from the Skeleton which was compulsory and cost Rs 120, anyone could order any other side dish for the coming month and pay for it.
I was on the Skeleton which started with breakfast as usual. And it had 4 slices of rotten bread and jam and butter on the table (unlimited). And of course tea or coffee (unlimited) in mugs and cups and sugar bowls. Then came the lunch at noon with 4 rotis like worn-out leather chappals and watery dal and masala subji (alu-gobi or, for drastic change, gobi-alu). And then Tea at 4.30 PM which had a couple of dog biscuits and tepid tea (unlimited). And dinner at 8 PM which was a true copy of lunch apart from being colder and thinner.
Dr P was like me...a South Indian Brahmin who hates breakfast but feels as hungry as a wolf at Tea Time. Dr Ghosh-Dastidar (my Canada-returned PO-neighbor) and I used to skip the dog biscuit-Tea in our mess altogether and jump the fence and sit down in the Chai Dukan table where minuscule singaras were to be had hot and fresh from the oven at the rate of 10 paise each, and indulge in competition of who scores more than half a dozen at a go.
Dr P apparently felt too hungry at Tea Time but since he didn't mix with us he wasn't aware of the singara shop across the fence. Also perhaps he was very careful of his temporary PO purse which had to last for all of two years (24 months). And, like me, he wasn't touching his 4 slices of bread at breakfast...just look at them wistfully and leave them alone cold.
The second week he arrived, he found out discreetly that our junior lecturer and alumnus in AE, Dr KG, was the Mess Secretary then. And Dr KG was as jaunty and naughty a chap as David Niven in the Guns of Navarone.
And I was witness to this rare dialogue between Dr P and Dr KG:
Dr P: I don't feel hungry at breakfast but I do at Tea. Can I have my breakfast with Tea?
Dr KG: Sure, sir, you can have your breakfast with tea or coffee...both unlimited
Dr P: No, no...I mean can I have my breakfast with Tea?
Dr KG: Sure, why not? You can have your breakfast with tea or coffee...both unlimited
Dr P: Oh, no! I mean, can I have my breakfast with TEA?
Dr KG: Sure, Dr P, why not? Anyone can have his breakfast with tea or coffee...both unlimited
The conversation ended there...Dr P left the dining hall in a huff. And Dr KG (who was in my first year class earlier) winked at me and roared and roared.
And Laxman was all smiles.
Next morning Dr P arrived at breakfast time and leisurely broke his 4 slices of bread into crumbles and heaped the tiny pieces on his main plate and poured first water and then tea and then coffee over the bread pieces and stirred the soupy mixture with his spoon and then fork and then knife and then got up and walked off.
This feat he repeated every morning for the six months he stayed with us before he vanished...rumors abounded that he was taken in by IISc Bangalore where I thought happily that he had his bellyful of Teatime Tiffin of masala dosas, alu bondas, hing bajjis, onion pesarats, veg upma, rava idlis, uttapams (both onion and veg)...
But none like DR KG...
...Posted by Ishani
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