Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Rags to Riches
RAGS TO RICHES:
UNINTELLIGENT RAGGING
MIT,MADRAS,Class of 1964
University entry is already a major turning point in the life of a student who has to keep his scores at reasonably top levels if he aims to have some degrees to decorate his name in later years. The tensions of maintaining such grades are well known. To add to this situation there is something called Ragging that makes it even more difficult for the novice undergraduate.
We had our fill of ‘Raggers’ too…..
One of them was known by name “Glaxo Baby” which was his nick name. He was a fat guy with chubby cheeks like the baby in Glaxo Ads and came from a rich family. He asked me to utter some lewd abusive words. I was a very timid bloke not capable of either abusive or lewd language, thanks to careful upbringing by conservative parents. I have never seen or heard my mother or elder brothers using abusive language. I have seen my father shouting at some of the office workers when they made some mistakes but even that was only on rare occasions.
So the only abusive words I could mutter at that moment when I was called upon to do so were “Madaya (fool), Muttal (idiot) and Porukki (loafer)”.
He laughed at me. “Is this what you call abuse and lewd? Where do you come from?”
I said “from Royapettah”. He told me that I should go to Washermenpet or Kothwal Chawadi to really learn abusive language. I had never been to either and told him so.
He was quite disappointed with my lack of exposure to such important aspects of life. However he was not ready to dismiss me without asking yet another question to establish my ignorance.
He asked me whether Madras was wet or dry.
It was raining at that time and so it was an easy question to answer. Wondering why anyone would ask such a silly question I answered “Wet, of course”.
He said “No! You don’t even know the difference between wet and dry. How on earth did you manage to graduate?”
I responded “I am sorry, I don’t get you. What has it got to do with my graduation?”
He said “You had been in college for 4 years and you don’t even know Madras is dry. OK. Get lost”.
I had been told that I was to say “Thank You, Sir” when a Senior dismisses a newcomer. But since he told me to get lost I felt he didn’t deserve to be thanked and just walked away from his room.
He called me back, “Hey ignoramus, didn’t you forget something?”
I looked around to see whether I left my slippers or my umbrella, but remembered that I didn’t have an umbrella and my slippers were on my feet. There was nothing missing. I said “No, I didn’t forget anything”.
He said “It is bad manners to leave a senior without saying “Thank you”. How can you expect us to help you if you don’t respect us?”
I was too timid to mobilize enough courage to punch him on his bulging face. I said “Thank you for what? I don’t appreciate what you did to me. I don’t want your help”. With that I left, hoping that he wouldn’t consider it worth his while to pursue me any further. Luckily, he didn’t.
Later that day when I narrated this to Krish, a friend of mine who was also in similar circumstances, he laughed merrily and said I did respond well. He told me that they were all spineless and brainless. They could do nothing.
I asked him whether he knew Madras was dry. He said yes. I was surprised. I asked him how come it was dry when it was raining?
That was when I learnt for the first time in my life that dry referred to prohibition. Madras was under prohibition from sale of alcoholic drinks. Pondicherry was wet and people used to go there to drink. So it was, that I had to learn such bits of wisdom thanks to our Seniors like “Glaxo Baby”. I came to know later he used to go with friends to Pondicherry for some weekends of drinking and floating.
After a couple of days I was called by another Senior. I went to his room at the appointed time, wondering what it was going to be like this time, since he would have already come to know about my uncooperative response to “Glaxo Baby”.
Only thing I can remember about him is his French beard. I don’t recollect his name. He made me stand at the entrance for some time as he pretended to be busy with God-knew-what. Then, as if he suddenly remembered he called me and offered me a seat. That was an unexpected kind gesture.
He told me that most of the new students were morons and we were going to find it difficult to manage the subjects in the first semester which was short.
Then all of a sudden he asked “Where is your brain?” I couldn’t understand any connection. I was fairly sure that I didn’t leave my brain in my room. I pointed my forefinger at the rough location of where I thought my brain was, hoping that it continued to be there although I knew he had no way of finding out whether I did have any, with whatever little he himself had at his disposal.
He then asked me “Where is your anus?”
“My God. This man goes very fast form one end to the other” I thought. I obediently showed him my rear end as a nursery school child does when such intelligent questions are asked.
He said “You stupid. I am not interested in your ass. I asked about U-R-A-N-U-S-- URANUS. Don’t you know where the planet Uranus is?” With this he started laughing as if he had achieved a great victory in proving my ignorance.
Why did all these great guys have to prove their superiority by indirect methods of trying to expose the ignorance of lesser mortals?
If he had shown a map of all planets and asked me where Uranus was, I would still have not managed to locate it, since Geography was not one of my strong subjects and I had never cared much about Uranus anyway. I had heard that it was very very far away. It didn’t even figure in my astrological charts, to have any influence on me.
I laughed with him as if his intelligent joke had impressed me.
He seemed pleased now and softened a little. He asked me which faculty (major) I had opted for and I told him “Instrument Technology”. He said he was in “Automobile Engineering”.
Then he asked me “Is a piston male or female?”
I had done machine drawing during my high school days and I had some idea about pistons and cylinders.
I said “Male”
He asked “Why is male called a male?”
I wondered why. I had never thought about such important engineering concepts and I was almost sure that he was going to prove to me that I was not suitable to study engineering with such a poor knowledge of the basics.
I tried to think of some possible explanation but nothing sensible came to my mind.
There was no use saying “A male is called a male because it is not a female”, but I said it, anyway.
He responded with his pearls of wisdom “No. A male is called a male because male is always on TOP. It is derived form the Tamil word ‘male’ which means top”.
I had to laugh, pretending again as if he had made a great discovery in the roots of English language. With such linguistic abilities at his command I wondered why he was wasting his time in the study of automobile engineering.
I wanted to ask him “If that was so, then by the same logic the Tamil word for bottom was “Keezhe” and the word “female” didn’t seem to have even a remote connection to that word. Why was that so?”
I didn’t ask him this question because I thought it was too much of an exercise for his tender brain which might collapse if forced to handle such complicated logic.
He asked a few more intelligent questions of similar nature presumably with the object of proving my ignorance and found that it was more interesting to go for dinner (as it was dinner time) than to question an ignoramus on empty stomach. He graciously left me at that. I didn’t mind thanking him as he was much more polite than most others with his parting words “see you later”.
Soon after that I applied to the Director to allow me to be a day scholar. I didn’t like the hostel atmosphere even though the food was quite good and I had quite a few friends to spend time with. I had never been away from home before and the home-sickness was aggravated by the ragging.
Within a month I left the hostel and so did some of my friends. We had to travel daily by bike and train to reach our professional school of learning, the one and only MIT in Chromepet, on of the suburbs of Madras. But we didn’t mind that to the alternative of living in the hostels that housed such self proclaimed ‘Seniors’ who didn’t know that they were lacking in so many areas including academics. What is the use of education on such unfit individuals whose main aim in life seemed to be to harass other lesser mortals, to prove their not existent superiority. What a waste of life.
Perhaps from those beginnings of 'RAGS' they hope to achieve the 'Riches' of better-than-thow attitude to hide their inferiority complex.
Ragging is a curse on our educational system. The sooner it is done away with, the better it will be.
UNINTELLIGENT RAGGING
MIT,MADRAS,Class of 1964
University entry is already a major turning point in the life of a student who has to keep his scores at reasonably top levels if he aims to have some degrees to decorate his name in later years. The tensions of maintaining such grades are well known. To add to this situation there is something called Ragging that makes it even more difficult for the novice undergraduate.
We had our fill of ‘Raggers’ too…..
One of them was known by name “Glaxo Baby” which was his nick name. He was a fat guy with chubby cheeks like the baby in Glaxo Ads and came from a rich family. He asked me to utter some lewd abusive words. I was a very timid bloke not capable of either abusive or lewd language, thanks to careful upbringing by conservative parents. I have never seen or heard my mother or elder brothers using abusive language. I have seen my father shouting at some of the office workers when they made some mistakes but even that was only on rare occasions.
So the only abusive words I could mutter at that moment when I was called upon to do so were “Madaya (fool), Muttal (idiot) and Porukki (loafer)”.
He laughed at me. “Is this what you call abuse and lewd? Where do you come from?”
I said “from Royapettah”. He told me that I should go to Washermenpet or Kothwal Chawadi to really learn abusive language. I had never been to either and told him so.
He was quite disappointed with my lack of exposure to such important aspects of life. However he was not ready to dismiss me without asking yet another question to establish my ignorance.
He asked me whether Madras was wet or dry.
It was raining at that time and so it was an easy question to answer. Wondering why anyone would ask such a silly question I answered “Wet, of course”.
He said “No! You don’t even know the difference between wet and dry. How on earth did you manage to graduate?”
I responded “I am sorry, I don’t get you. What has it got to do with my graduation?”
He said “You had been in college for 4 years and you don’t even know Madras is dry. OK. Get lost”.
I had been told that I was to say “Thank You, Sir” when a Senior dismisses a newcomer. But since he told me to get lost I felt he didn’t deserve to be thanked and just walked away from his room.
He called me back, “Hey ignoramus, didn’t you forget something?”
I looked around to see whether I left my slippers or my umbrella, but remembered that I didn’t have an umbrella and my slippers were on my feet. There was nothing missing. I said “No, I didn’t forget anything”.
He said “It is bad manners to leave a senior without saying “Thank you”. How can you expect us to help you if you don’t respect us?”
I was too timid to mobilize enough courage to punch him on his bulging face. I said “Thank you for what? I don’t appreciate what you did to me. I don’t want your help”. With that I left, hoping that he wouldn’t consider it worth his while to pursue me any further. Luckily, he didn’t.
Later that day when I narrated this to Krish, a friend of mine who was also in similar circumstances, he laughed merrily and said I did respond well. He told me that they were all spineless and brainless. They could do nothing.
I asked him whether he knew Madras was dry. He said yes. I was surprised. I asked him how come it was dry when it was raining?
That was when I learnt for the first time in my life that dry referred to prohibition. Madras was under prohibition from sale of alcoholic drinks. Pondicherry was wet and people used to go there to drink. So it was, that I had to learn such bits of wisdom thanks to our Seniors like “Glaxo Baby”. I came to know later he used to go with friends to Pondicherry for some weekends of drinking and floating.
After a couple of days I was called by another Senior. I went to his room at the appointed time, wondering what it was going to be like this time, since he would have already come to know about my uncooperative response to “Glaxo Baby”.
Only thing I can remember about him is his French beard. I don’t recollect his name. He made me stand at the entrance for some time as he pretended to be busy with God-knew-what. Then, as if he suddenly remembered he called me and offered me a seat. That was an unexpected kind gesture.
He told me that most of the new students were morons and we were going to find it difficult to manage the subjects in the first semester which was short.
Then all of a sudden he asked “Where is your brain?” I couldn’t understand any connection. I was fairly sure that I didn’t leave my brain in my room. I pointed my forefinger at the rough location of where I thought my brain was, hoping that it continued to be there although I knew he had no way of finding out whether I did have any, with whatever little he himself had at his disposal.
He then asked me “Where is your anus?”
“My God. This man goes very fast form one end to the other” I thought. I obediently showed him my rear end as a nursery school child does when such intelligent questions are asked.
He said “You stupid. I am not interested in your ass. I asked about U-R-A-N-U-S-- URANUS. Don’t you know where the planet Uranus is?” With this he started laughing as if he had achieved a great victory in proving my ignorance.
Why did all these great guys have to prove their superiority by indirect methods of trying to expose the ignorance of lesser mortals?
If he had shown a map of all planets and asked me where Uranus was, I would still have not managed to locate it, since Geography was not one of my strong subjects and I had never cared much about Uranus anyway. I had heard that it was very very far away. It didn’t even figure in my astrological charts, to have any influence on me.
I laughed with him as if his intelligent joke had impressed me.
He seemed pleased now and softened a little. He asked me which faculty (major) I had opted for and I told him “Instrument Technology”. He said he was in “Automobile Engineering”.
Then he asked me “Is a piston male or female?”
I had done machine drawing during my high school days and I had some idea about pistons and cylinders.
I said “Male”
He asked “Why is male called a male?”
I wondered why. I had never thought about such important engineering concepts and I was almost sure that he was going to prove to me that I was not suitable to study engineering with such a poor knowledge of the basics.
I tried to think of some possible explanation but nothing sensible came to my mind.
There was no use saying “A male is called a male because it is not a female”, but I said it, anyway.
He responded with his pearls of wisdom “No. A male is called a male because male is always on TOP. It is derived form the Tamil word ‘male’ which means top”.
I had to laugh, pretending again as if he had made a great discovery in the roots of English language. With such linguistic abilities at his command I wondered why he was wasting his time in the study of automobile engineering.
I wanted to ask him “If that was so, then by the same logic the Tamil word for bottom was “Keezhe” and the word “female” didn’t seem to have even a remote connection to that word. Why was that so?”
I didn’t ask him this question because I thought it was too much of an exercise for his tender brain which might collapse if forced to handle such complicated logic.
He asked a few more intelligent questions of similar nature presumably with the object of proving my ignorance and found that it was more interesting to go for dinner (as it was dinner time) than to question an ignoramus on empty stomach. He graciously left me at that. I didn’t mind thanking him as he was much more polite than most others with his parting words “see you later”.
Soon after that I applied to the Director to allow me to be a day scholar. I didn’t like the hostel atmosphere even though the food was quite good and I had quite a few friends to spend time with. I had never been away from home before and the home-sickness was aggravated by the ragging.
Within a month I left the hostel and so did some of my friends. We had to travel daily by bike and train to reach our professional school of learning, the one and only MIT in Chromepet, on of the suburbs of Madras. But we didn’t mind that to the alternative of living in the hostels that housed such self proclaimed ‘Seniors’ who didn’t know that they were lacking in so many areas including academics. What is the use of education on such unfit individuals whose main aim in life seemed to be to harass other lesser mortals, to prove their not existent superiority. What a waste of life.
Perhaps from those beginnings of 'RAGS' they hope to achieve the 'Riches' of better-than-thow attitude to hide their inferiority complex.
Ragging is a curse on our educational system. The sooner it is done away with, the better it will be.
Bed of Nails
JERRY TAKES A DIG:
Jerry used to jog with me when we were in a workout
program 3 evenings a week. I introduced some breathing techniques from Yoga to
the group to help them expand their lungs and increase their oxygen intake.
The next day when he met me at
work he was appreciative of the techniques. He said he had read about Yoga but
did not have any idea that breathing techniques were part of Yoga.
He then asked me "I read
that Yogis always sleep on a bed of nails. Do you sleep on nails too?"
I was not shocked by his question
because many people in the west have only a vague idea about Yoga because of
what they read and the magazines highlight only odd bits such as sleeping on
the nails.
If I have to undertake the
formidable task of changing such public opinion one life time would not be
enough and even then I might end up wasting my time because people only believe
what they want to believe.
To them ‘India
But Jerry needed an answer, much
as he would have liked to believe that I might one day teach him to sleep on a
nail bed. I had to politely and firmly dispel such misconceptions for the good
of both of us.
I said "One day not long ago
when I went to bed there was something that disturbed my sleep and yet I didn’t
know exactly what was wrong. I turned this way and that way, adjusted the
pillow. Then everything seemed OK, but after sleeping for a few minutes I woke
up again. There was something biting me at my back. I switched the light on and
without disturbing my wife I tried to see what it was. There seemed to be
something below the sheets. I moved the sheets. There indeed was the culprit- a
hairpin. After I removed it I had no problem with my sleep.
So tell me if a small hairpin can
be so uncomfortable to sleep on, how can I ever sleep on a bed of nails?
There may indeed be some yogis
who have achieved complete control and detachment from feelings and for them it
is immaterial whether they sleep on a mattress or a nail bed. The rest of us
have to be happy with normal beds since nail beds are expensive.
One more important point should
be taken into consideration before you entertain such temptations. The gaps
between the nails will invariably provide free accommodation to bed bugs to
whom biting humans is an endless source of pleasure and protein”.
He started laughing, amused that
bug bites could make any difference to a person who is unaffected by nail
pricks.
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