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Mid-1970s: Raman Auditorium: HNB [who recruited and gave me all my (undeserved) promotions] in the front bench:
The Farewell Function for the outgoing students was on swimmingly.
The outgoing students bragged about being 'brutally frank' in their criticism of Physics Teaching (like those brahmins who burned their boat after crossing that river).
They were unanimous that teaching was 'ok type'; but one after another were accusing their teachers of setting such routine, easy, and un-challenging Question Papers that the 'spectrum of their genius hierarchy ' was not truly reflected in their Transcripts.
HNB, himself by far the best teacher (see the link to the Tribune article by Dharam Vir IAS below) but also an easy target of this accusation, smiled and looked back at his army of teachers.
None responded.
Next year I happened to be the Wave Optics Teacher for the new first years. We then had a nascent semester system but without grades yet; marks in decimal system (with glorious fractions doled out by unrelenting teachers) were still being displayed in all their beauty on their Transcripts. The midsem Paper was for 80 marks. And the endsem for 120 marks, making up a total of 200 marks for each subject, totaling about 1500 marks including Lab and Grand Viva.
As a rule I set easy midsem Question Papers so that, with less than half the course covered, students can score well and relax; and I can relax in Summer Vacation without Summer Quarter and Supples.
The endsem paper would tease out the 'VIBGYOR spectrum'.
For setting the endsem Paper I walked into the Central Library and picked up the only available copy of Ditchburn, a text book on Light with a difference. And made up 15 short-answer questions, all of them testing the basic concepts of Wave Optics via their applications (like Young's Eriometer, Searle's Young's Modulus Setup, Cornu's Elliptical & Hyperbolic Fringes etc). Each question carried 10 marks, totaling 150 marks. Students could answer as many questions as they wished in any order that suited them. All marks they get here and there would be added up, with an upper-bound cut-off at 120.
When the cattle came home, it turned out all of them were scoring between 15 and 20 (a bloodbath) except one dark horse 'N', who surprised me by scoring 60 out of 120.
I was moved. And as everyone knows, I am the kindest of all, to a fault, after HNB.
Clearly all students, good, better and best, expected Essay Questions from the third-previous year and took it easy the night before their endsem Optics Exam.
I didn't know how to get out of the bog of my own making (remember we gave marks, not grades, and so could be challenged easily).
I straight walked into HNB's Office and narrated my predicament.
HNB smiled but asked me to show him my endsem Question Paper.
There..there..is the BEST HoD at his wisest!!! I fetched the damn thing, and, he read it back and forth and back and forth and took my Viva on each question.
After he satisfied himself that the thing WAS too challenging for the first year kids, asked me what I wished to do about it.
I replied that the best script should get the full marks: 120. And so I would like to add 60 on each script wholesale, not pro rata as per convention.
He smiled and asked me to go ahead. I then asked him how we would defend this grace-en-masse.
He reeled out his dictum: "When the questions are as hard as diamond, even the attempt is like carborundum".
So, everyone was baffled and happy, and then on, their seniors were careful in their Farewell Functions.
The dark horse 'N' met me early in his Second Year and sought my blessings. I asked him what for. He said he was quitting IIT KGP. I was stunned and asked him where he was going. He said he got admission into the Railway Engineering College at Jamalpur.
I knew all about it. They used to conduct the toughest Competitive Entrance Exam after Class XII, much tougher than JEE and IAS then. For, they had only 60 seats, unlike the 1000 of IIT JEE or 300 or so of IFS, IAS and the Central Services
Those who cleared it were given free food, accommodation in their hostel and pocket money to boot, for 4 years. Thereafter they were absorbed as Engineers in the Welfare State of the Indian Railways and never looked back. Sky is the limit....if you make your mark, you could step right into the coveted Railway Board. You would then have your own salon, which was attached to any desired train of the Indian Railways, with family, cook, and orderly perhaps.
But there was this Catch: they didn't give you a Degree after 4 long years at Jamalpur. With good reason: you can't get out of the Indian Railways to which you were bound hand and foot till you retired or died (in one of those Railway accidents) whichever is earlier as per rules.
I congratulated 'N' and we parted.
A couple of decades later, when I was gathering wool (now dubbed "lateral thinking") on the cement bench at Harry's, a Railway vehicle stopped by and a middle-aged 'N' walked up, and asked if I remembered him.
Of course (those 120 marks!).
He said he was doing rather well in the Railways, but wanted to do an MBA abroad to beat his other competitors. He got admission at Chicago, and Railways agreed to sponsor him.
But there was this other Catch.
Since he didn't have any Degree, but an unvalidated one-year stint at IIT KGP, Chicago wanted his Dean-Certified Transcripts for that missing year. That explained his visit to IIT KGP. He met the AR, who asked him to get lost because he didn't have the manpower to retrieve 20-year-old 'Dead-Sea-Scrolls' from the attic for an absconder who ran away without clearing his dues and getting a 'No-Dues Certificate'.
'N' was forlorn that his Chicago MBA was in jeopardy: "Between the Cup & the Lip".
I always had cordial relations with the Academic Section; Tapan-da in particular.
So I asked 'N' to relax in his Officer's Club Guest House for the night and fall on the feet of the AR next day sharp at noon.
Which he did. And got his 'Dean-Certified Transcripts' for his missing year (with 180 marks in Optics) as well as the obligatory 'No-Dues Certificate'.
He had of course to pay (through his Railway's Nose?) his Mess Dues, Library Dues, Gymkhana and other Dues with compounded interest, and 'retrieval chrages', making my poor IIT that much richer.
I guess he is now riding our 'Palace on Wheels' in his mini-salon, if not in a full-blown one.
Kids will be KIDS!!!
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Here is the link to the Tribune Article by Dharam Vir IAS:
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030322/windows/main3.htm
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