Allergica Teacheralis

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Oliver Wendell Holmes says that kids who hadn't grown up handling and fondling books from their household book racks will grow up to fear books.

I suppose, after 150 years, 'book racks' must be replaced by 'systems' as Hyderabadis call their PCs.

My father, with his six biennial 'daughter productions', was too poor to have a home-library; but took care of his only son's 'early education' in an ingenious way.

By the time I came to 'Secondary School', he was its HM. By nature, I am an out-door sort and used to grab all the prizes in the 'subjunior' category of 'pull-ups, high jumps, long jumps, 3-legged races, ball badminton etc', for which traditionally 'items' like 'torch light, table lamp. pen-set' were awarded. He decreed that an exception must be made in my case and books be substituted for thingummies.

In adition, he used to force me into 'entering' for 'literary' stuff like 'essay-writing, elocution, recitation' for which I neither had the skills nor interest. However, being the HM's son, I was given at least a 3rd prize, if not a 'consolation' one.

These 'literary' actvities naturally deserved 'books' as prizes. Here, he refused to make any exception. Books and more books.

But, he used to take pains to go to the District HQ, Nellore, to personally 'select' books meant for me according to my rising age and 'mental' development. So, I started from 'Lorna Doone', and reached 'Tom Brown's School Days' via the mandatory 'Tolstoy and Kabuliwala', by the time I quit school.

Today is his 16th Death Anniversary, and I remember him for his kindness with gratitude.

In my First Year at the University, I somehow chanced upon the First Edition of Eddington's paperback: 'Nature of the Physical World'. I didn't follow much, but became lyrically fanatic about Relativity.

I was looking forward to learning this subject from a competent teacher in our class room. I had to wait till my Final Year.

Everyone else (who didn't perhaps read Eddington) were busy furiously copying the Minkowski Calculus in the very First Lecture from a rather dour and stubborn Lady Professor (I was not averse to Lady Professors...rather the boot was always on the other foot. I LOVED 'My Fair English Lady Professor' to distraction. It was just that I loved Relativity more).

I never attended any of her classes after that; just so I don't get to hate that subject. At our University, there was no Attendance Rule.

It was my fate that I had to not only teach Relativity year after year all my teaching life, but get to invent and publish two wacky Relativity Paradoxes, one of which is in the Second Edition of Taylor & Wheeler; and the other is with Aniket as the first of 5 authors. Aniket: Now that you told me that you are in possession of the Sommerfeld set, look into the last Chapters of his Electrodynamics. Full of four- and six-vectors! I didn't teach them, but made Dharam Vir, Subba Rao & Trivedi teach them in my stead.

So, there IS a thing called Teacher-Allergy.

Towards the end of my stay at KGP, I had neatly divided my Relativity-Electrodynamics Semester into pre- and post-midsem Parts. The first part was formal and was taught from Classical Theory of Fields of Landau & Lifschiz. The second part was the bread-and-butter EM Radiation from other books.

Very few of my students liked both parts equally.

Ashish Bhardwaj (now a big shot) was vocally whining: "What is the use of all this crap?" about the first part. He was one of the few who went into Experimental Physics at Caltech and got some Patents of his own. When we came to the Radiation Part, he used to slide forward to the front bench and 'ogle' at the various Polar Plots as if they were so many nauch-girls. And, recommended to the Director KLC, who happened to be his Local Guardian (Ashish was the son of the Big Boss of IPCL, Baroda), that gps should be made to teach ALL his subsequent courses forthwith.

[Aside: A Punjabi Lady Teacher, newly recruited in the Humanities Dept, was looking for alliances for her sister, and asked me how good is Somnath Bharadwaj, our own new recruit and our student a decade ago. I told her that he is a Bengali BharAdwaj and not a Punjabi Bhardwaj. She went away disappointed. Somnath is now the hubby of a wonderful Bengali English Mam from Cal and is the father of two darlingest sons]

And there was this other kid, whose name I forget (he is a near-topper in Jogia's batch), who attended the first lecture my Part I and stopped attending, because he had already waded through this favorite of his from L&L. And when he started attending the Radiation Part post-midsem, he was out of his depth and lost continuity; because there WAS a continuity that I grafted and implanted.

Then there was this Campus Child, Ms S, my son's batchmate, who I knew was a serious student from KG onwards. And, Dr TBG (sadly no more) used to 'inherit' the EMI, EMII etc as I outgrew them. TBG himself was a Campus Boy 25 years older to her; and HE had sat through my EM Courses when HE was an IIT student. And, he religiously used to meet me before taking up my EM courses and 'Follow Me' (like in Mia Farrow's movie).

So, everything should gel, in the natural scheme of things.

But, she attended ALL his classes but failed by practically submitting blank papers in both the mid- and the end-sem exams (I was by then the Chairman of the UG Committee, and had to 'oversee' her scripts).

She got the dreaded 'F' Grade in her 3rd year.

I asked her 'why'?

She simply shrugged her shoulders, bent her head down and made a gesture that said: "Everything was going over her head".

Now, it turned out that the Old Curriculum was getting replaced by the New Curriculum (of Sayan & Somnath); and this particular Course was no longer being taught in the next semester. Which meant she would be losing a precious year if she doesn't get to 'repeat' that Course in the very next Semester.

That meant that some teacher should take that EM II Course only for HER!

Dr TBG said: 'No'.

And since I was the 'Inheritee' of TBG's EM Courses, the task naturally fell on me.

By now, you know me. Am I the one to take 3-hour Lecture Classes for a whole Semester for just ONE student? And, that too a Failed Candidate?

So, I got into applying my Least Action Principle. In our first meeting, I asked Ms S which book TBG used to follow. She said, "Griffiths" and that she did have a copy of her own. So did I. I told her we would meet only on Wednesday Afternoons. And I WON'T be lecturing, since she had already attended all of TBG's Lectures. She will bring her copy of Griffiths. I would start from Chapter I and select a dozen or so problems of increasing difficulty and mark them in her book. She will have one week to solve them in a File with PT Sheets. She would make 2 copies. Submit one to me and keep the other with her. Next Wednesday, Problems from the next Chapter will be ticked by me. Meanwhile, I would go through her last=week's work. Correct the mistakes. Honor system will be followed by both of us. And, if she can't solve any of the Problems, I would give hints, so she will try and submit them next week.

She was ENTHU itself. Both of us knew how boring it would be for us to stare at each other 3 hours every week.

I thought and dearly hoped she would start making excuses, absconding, Spring-Fest and Stomach Ache etc after the first few weeks; and would meet me occasionally.

Great going for both. And I would give her a 'P' Grade and let her go.

No Chance!

She was more regular than I was. Waiting in front of my Office Room every Wednesday Afternoon. With an ever-bulging file. And solve 90% of Griffith's Problems except the wicked 'starred' ones. She would try many her own long-winded way. And, when I pointed out short-cuts, there would be a glow in her face. And, some of the integrals, she would do simpler than my old-fashioned methods. And I had to do the 'starred' ones all over again after a lapse of many years.

Great learning experience for both of us.

And, she walked away with an 'A'.

Eyebrows were raised how an 'F' could get an 'A' all of a sudden; but by then gps was a feared fiend, and, in any case, I had her whole 'duplicate' File with me (I knew how to beat OUR SYSTEM by then).

And Ms S must be a post-doc in some good US University by now!

Allergica Teacheralis!



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