Watch & Ward

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"See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil"...............

.................The motto typified by the 3 Chinese Porcelain Monkeys Gandhijee was fond of (and used as paperweights in his Sevagram Ashram)

(Some relentless wit added an unspeakable 4th Monkey on behalf of the Ministry Of Family Planning at the height of the campaign for compulsory sterilization which contributed its bit to the downfall of Indirajee's infamous Emergency; everything is infamous after its downfall, but famous till then)

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Last night I happened to read George Orwell's 'Shooting an Elephant', perhaps for the fifth time in as many decades. It is the best narrative piece I ever read, surely. It has everything in it to make absorbing reading and rings true to boot.

This kindled many memories of the 200 odd Invigilation Duties I had to regularly 'do' at IIT KGP willy-nilly. I had no stomach for them, but there was no escape. I took them as lightly as I could (Faankeebajee).

Throughout my stay at IIT I had to face a stream of constant rhetorical questions such as:

"If nobody does Invigilation sincerely what will happen to IIT?"

"If nobody guides Ph D students what will happen to IIT?"

"If nobody does Wardenship what will happen to IIT?"

..........................and so on and so forth.

This nobody business made me feel like Ulysses in the Cave of Cyclops.

I can only say that IIT KGP has been doing rather well with or without or in spite of me.

Anyway, it just turned out that in all these decades I could never catch a single student cheating red-handed (what a bloody word for the poor lily-livered poltroon!), although most others did. My eyes were always wide open for those spells of 3 hours, but they were like the eyes of a dead goat: staring but not seeing.

During my first 20 years I rather enjoyed those 3-hour spells of Invigilation. I was then truly a nobody among half a dozen seniors in Raman Auditorium. As soon as things settled down to a silence other than its wheezing old fans, I would first take a long look at all the question papers (extras left over). Curious as I was, I learned a lot of what was being taught in other Departments on their specialized subjects. It was a mind-expanding exercise (like a mental bullworker). It also gave me tips on how and how not to set question papers. For, the paper-setter would duly arrive to announce 'corrections' in his question paper. At times it was hilarious, like this ME teacher loudly announcing: "Question # 5: Replace 'crankshaft' with 'piston'". And students duly noting down the change. But I was young and speculative. And I would dramatically visualize what would happen to our Director in his Staff Car if I replace its 'crankshaft' with a 'piston'.

And then I would pick up and browse all the text-books and sometimes even khatas left by students on the dais after their last-minute preparation. And if nothing interesting turns up, I would draft a couple of long-pending letters sitting in a last row seat. I recall that once I wrote down the first draft of the manuscript of a Paper (with B K Parida) whose calculations were through.

All in all a very productive 3 hours.

In one of those forages on the dais, I happened to pick up an English Text Book kept there by a First Year student. And it opened on the page of this George Orwell piece. I read it quickly once and then began a leisurely word-by-word lip-smacking devouring. Halfway through, there was this shout that was taken up and repeated again and again from all corners by every invigilator but me: "Time UP! Stop writing!! Submit your Answer-Scripts!!!"; much like: "Fasten your seat-belts! Oxygen masks are dropping down!! Going, Going, Gone!!!".

I then returned the book I was reading to its owner.

That evening I rushed to the Tech Market and bought a sizzling copy from Thackers which was the only book-shop then. To this day I have not only preserved it but browsed all its articles with great pleasure whenever I was in the mood.

Let me have the pleasure of keyboarding its title and front-matter (give it to the Yankees: they are experts at wordsmithy):

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MODERN PROSE

Stories, Essays and Sketches

edited with
an introduction and notes by

MICHAEL THORPE

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CALCUTTA

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

DELHI BOMBAY MADRAS

...... ....(Oh Calcutta!, Bombay!!, and Madras!!!; and not Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai)


For

Chong Yoon Wah
Choong Weng On
Chuah Toh Chai

and other Members of the

Department of Modern Languages and Literature

Nanyang University, Singapore, 1963-4

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Who says I am sentimental?

Just for fun only!


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