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Yesterday I was talking of my misadventure with poached eggs in our dining hall at our Faculty Hostel (a rapidly degrading version of the once formidable Guest House) on my first Sunday Breakfast in 1967.
During the rest of next week I had no time to enter the dining hall at the breakfast hour. For, I was a late riser and had just time enough for a smoke in bed followed by quick ablutions that included a brahminical bath. We were then running a 6-day week and classes started at the ungodly hour of 7 AM.
I used to rush downstairs, pick up my ancient pushbike with its rusting front basket and pedal furiously to the Institute. I was allotted the first hour each day of the week by our glorious Time Table Maker, Raam-da. Due to another misadventure by the Babus at Delhi, B Tech ran for all of five years then and physics ran right into their third year. The class load was huge and followed a pyramidal structure while the pay and designation were an inverse pyramid:
Professors........................8 hours a week
Assistant Professors......12 hours a week
Lecturers.........................16 hours a week
Associate Lecturers.......21 hours a week
And the hours were all of 60 minutes each, not the 50 they dwindled to later on. And I was a new and young Associate Lecturer and the system showed no mercy.
This reminds me of a funny incident that happened in 1976 when I was a mere Lecturer but was made an unwilling Time Table Maker. Dr BK was then a senior Assistant Professor and I loaded him with the default 12 hours in the routine I made. One fine morning bang in the middle of the semester Dr BK arrived in my office panting and waving a paper in his hands gushing:
"Here it is...my appointment letter as a Full Professor"
"Oh, congrats!"
"Never mind. But reduce my teaching load immediately to the Senate Norm of 8 hours a week"
"But why?"
"We senators have a lot of work other than teaching"
"Like what?"
"You know...we have to attend several meetings of the Senate and its Committees and Subcommittees"
"But it is the middle of the semester and no change can now be made just for you...other promotees will duly arrive and ask for reduction of their load and it would be an impossible exercise"
"You mean you won't do it?"
"Yes, I won't do it"
"I will complain to the HoD (HNB) about you"
"By all means. He will remove me from the august post of Time Table Maker and I would love it...maybe he will make you the new Time Table Maker"
...Silent retreat...
Anyway, on my run on my pushbike to the Institute everyday, an urchin of 5 who later on grew to be Tikka, the owner of Harrys, would be looking out for me under the neem tree. He had instructions from his eldest brother to run behind me and shove a couple of Wills Flakes packets into my basket...and his aim was always unerring. I would then run to the Institute Canteen under the Netaji Auditorium where Peter, my bearer-friend, would be waiting for me under the mango tree with my glass of tea and a cigarette and a matchstick. And then I would run straight into my lecture class:
"Today I am going to talk about Kirchoff's Laws and their application to circuit analysis"
What wonderful days they were indeed!
For the record, when I retired in 2005 as a Full Professor a la Dr BK, my teaching load was just:
And those were 50 minute-hours. But of course the class was 350-strong.
Anyway by the Next Sunday when I entered the dining hall leisurely at breakfast time, I was friends with the Majordomo, the forbidding liveried Laxman...for we discovered that both of us were from AP and we could chat and tip in Telugu.
He duly arrived with the 4 pieces of toasted bread and asked me how I would like my eggs. And I told him that I was a strict vegetarian and so no eggs for me. He then suggested that I could have cornflakes in place of eggs.
This proposal was fearful to me. For, when I was trying to cook for myself before I joined the hostel, and getting tired of it, friends suggested I buy a packet of Kellogg's Corn Flakes which I could eat with or without milk and sugar as a snack. And I bought a huge packet of the damn thing from Saha Babu's dukan in the Tech Market and opened it and ate up half a packet at one go...I was hungry and was in no mood to cook my dinner. Halfway through I discovered in the dim light of BF - 4/12 that the whole packet was infested with li'l li'l black and blue worms crawling happily.
So I told no to Laxman's goodwill offer and then he tried to help me out:
"Sir, you can have porridge if you don't like corn flakes...Naik, our cook, is expert in making swell porridge which is grabbed and gobbled up by our foreign visitors"
That was the first time I heard of porridge and asked:
"Is it vegetarian?"
"Yes sir...it is made of cornmeal...you can add the amount of milk and sugar you wish"
That day I was again in a rather adventurous mood and told him ok bring it.
And found that it was an absolutely gooey stuff which became more gooey when I added milk to it. And the first spoon I plucked out lingered on my tongue sticking to it like glue and tasting as if it were a mess of shredded blotting papers dipped in a suji broth.
I pushed it aside and called Laxman to come outside the gorgeous dining hall. And he came...birds of similar stock:
"Laxman, my dear fellow! Don't you serve Idli, Plain Dosa, Masala Dosa, Pesarat, Puri, Vada, Bonda, Upma, Bajji, Uttapppam (onion and vegetable) and such civilized stuff?"
"No sir...this is a Western Style Guest House"
(Aside) "To hell with you and your Western Style...are we not in Mother India?"
It took but two years to civilize the place and make Laxman shed his starched livery and broken English...
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During the rest of next week I had no time to enter the dining hall at the breakfast hour. For, I was a late riser and had just time enough for a smoke in bed followed by quick ablutions that included a brahminical bath. We were then running a 6-day week and classes started at the ungodly hour of 7 AM.
I used to rush downstairs, pick up my ancient pushbike with its rusting front basket and pedal furiously to the Institute. I was allotted the first hour each day of the week by our glorious Time Table Maker, Raam-da. Due to another misadventure by the Babus at Delhi, B Tech ran for all of five years then and physics ran right into their third year. The class load was huge and followed a pyramidal structure while the pay and designation were an inverse pyramid:
Professors........................8 hours a week
Assistant Professors......12 hours a week
Lecturers.........................16 hours a week
Associate Lecturers.......21 hours a week
And the hours were all of 60 minutes each, not the 50 they dwindled to later on. And I was a new and young Associate Lecturer and the system showed no mercy.
This reminds me of a funny incident that happened in 1976 when I was a mere Lecturer but was made an unwilling Time Table Maker. Dr BK was then a senior Assistant Professor and I loaded him with the default 12 hours in the routine I made. One fine morning bang in the middle of the semester Dr BK arrived in my office panting and waving a paper in his hands gushing:
"Here it is...my appointment letter as a Full Professor"
"Oh, congrats!"
"Never mind. But reduce my teaching load immediately to the Senate Norm of 8 hours a week"
"But why?"
"We senators have a lot of work other than teaching"
"Like what?"
"You know...we have to attend several meetings of the Senate and its Committees and Subcommittees"
"But it is the middle of the semester and no change can now be made just for you...other promotees will duly arrive and ask for reduction of their load and it would be an impossible exercise"
"You mean you won't do it?"
"Yes, I won't do it"
"I will complain to the HoD (HNB) about you"
"By all means. He will remove me from the august post of Time Table Maker and I would love it...maybe he will make you the new Time Table Maker"
...Silent retreat...
Anyway, on my run on my pushbike to the Institute everyday, an urchin of 5 who later on grew to be Tikka, the owner of Harrys, would be looking out for me under the neem tree. He had instructions from his eldest brother to run behind me and shove a couple of Wills Flakes packets into my basket...and his aim was always unerring. I would then run to the Institute Canteen under the Netaji Auditorium where Peter, my bearer-friend, would be waiting for me under the mango tree with my glass of tea and a cigarette and a matchstick. And then I would run straight into my lecture class:
"Today I am going to talk about Kirchoff's Laws and their application to circuit analysis"
What wonderful days they were indeed!
For the record, when I retired in 2005 as a Full Professor a la Dr BK, my teaching load was just:
3 hours a week
Anyway by the Next Sunday when I entered the dining hall leisurely at breakfast time, I was friends with the Majordomo, the forbidding liveried Laxman...for we discovered that both of us were from AP and we could chat and tip in Telugu.
He duly arrived with the 4 pieces of toasted bread and asked me how I would like my eggs. And I told him that I was a strict vegetarian and so no eggs for me. He then suggested that I could have cornflakes in place of eggs.
This proposal was fearful to me. For, when I was trying to cook for myself before I joined the hostel, and getting tired of it, friends suggested I buy a packet of Kellogg's Corn Flakes which I could eat with or without milk and sugar as a snack. And I bought a huge packet of the damn thing from Saha Babu's dukan in the Tech Market and opened it and ate up half a packet at one go...I was hungry and was in no mood to cook my dinner. Halfway through I discovered in the dim light of BF - 4/12 that the whole packet was infested with li'l li'l black and blue worms crawling happily.
So I told no to Laxman's goodwill offer and then he tried to help me out:
"Sir, you can have porridge if you don't like corn flakes...Naik, our cook, is expert in making swell porridge which is grabbed and gobbled up by our foreign visitors"
That was the first time I heard of porridge and asked:
"Is it vegetarian?"
"Yes sir...it is made of cornmeal...you can add the amount of milk and sugar you wish"
That day I was again in a rather adventurous mood and told him ok bring it.
And found that it was an absolutely gooey stuff which became more gooey when I added milk to it. And the first spoon I plucked out lingered on my tongue sticking to it like glue and tasting as if it were a mess of shredded blotting papers dipped in a suji broth.
I pushed it aside and called Laxman to come outside the gorgeous dining hall. And he came...birds of similar stock:
"Laxman, my dear fellow! Don't you serve Idli, Plain Dosa, Masala Dosa, Pesarat, Puri, Vada, Bonda, Upma, Bajji, Uttapppam (onion and vegetable) and such civilized stuff?"
"No sir...this is a Western Style Guest House"
(Aside) "To hell with you and your Western Style...are we not in Mother India?"
It took but two years to civilize the place and make Laxman shed his starched livery and broken English...
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