Teacher, Teach Me

Writing about teachers who taught us is like the most common post.

But then my professors aren’t that common! : )

The law professor: Mr. L

This guy’s lectures were the best sleep inducers ever! Stronger than any sleeping pill ever discovered.

He had this really sinister smile, with a stupid cowlick falling on his forehead and used talk in this droning monotone which was a lullaby by itself.

His lectures used to be for 3 hours after the lunch break and he never gave us a break in between. So people peacefully resorted to sleeping in his lecture no matter where they were sitting, be it the first bench or the last. We used to rush to sit on the last bench, preferably near the walls so that we could put our heads on the walls and snooze.

No one ever dared talk in his lecture, partially because he was scary and the other reason being that they preferred to sleep after a good lunch.

I remember once he had caught me and Amber…. He thought we were upto something whereas we were just taking down notes.

He said, “Ladies of the last beeeeeeeench, what are you doiiiing?”(Yes that’s how he spoke)

Amber and I, “Taking down notes sir.”

Him (with that idiotic smile which I hated to the core): “I’ll know when I come there and check your books.”

I was totally pissed by now and said, “Sir you can if you want to.”

Him: “Let it beeeee. I don’t want to embarrass you.” (And again that smile)

Me thinking: That scum, how could he say that?!!!!

The other incident I remember is:

At the end of a lecture he called out to the class and said, “If you class rep is awake, I would like the attendance register.”

That oaf knew we weren’t listening to him, but he tortured us just the same…

Some of his classic dialogues were;

“I am not your father’s servaaaaaaaaant.”

“I don’t want noiiiiiiiiiiiiise, I want voiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.”

Whenever someone entered a second late, and would say please sir, he would go: “I am not here to please youuuuuuuuuuuuu, you are here to please meeeeeeeee.”

He was definitely creative with his dialogues I must say.

All the guys used to try and mimic him. Sometimes me too!

On the last day of his lecture, one of my classmates wrote ‘good riddance’ on the black board and Mr. L who had arrived early that day was standing at the door, trying to read what that fellow was writing. When he realized that the prof had already arrived and saw him, he somehow managed to bunk the lecture before others could settle in.

The quantitative techniques professor: Mr. P

This professor was one of the best we had! He can make the most boring subject like quants, materials management, logistics etc. simple and interesting.

The best thing about him was that though his papers were tough; he gave marks generously and didn’t fail any of us.

He was an IIT Mumbai graduate and that says a lot about his intelligence. He had a lot of experience in the real world and was well read. All the above reasons made his lectures all the more interesting with his anecdotes and case studies and not to forget his sense of humor.

No one really knew where he was from, because he spoke most of the languages fluently. If anyone asked him about it, he would say, “I am from everywhere.” All of us kept guessing till the last year. Though I had a strong feeling that he was a Tamilian because no one can speak tamil so fluently, that too when you have been living in Mumbai for so long, unless you are one. And he used to have a special corner for three people in our class who were tamilians: me, Amber and another guy. We scored full marks in internals in all his subjects. At least I did!

Whenever he wanted either me or Amber to solve something on the board, he would say, “Inge wadi!” (Which means, ‘come here’ in tamil)

No one else understood what it meant and from that day, we came to be known as ‘The Ingewadi Sisters!’

Once in class, when a boy was caught talking to a girl, thus disturbing him, he got so furious that he called him and made him sit next to a guy on the first bench and said, “ Now be happy and gay!”

He had something to say about everyone in class. Once when he was walking through the rows, he came up to a friend of mine, who happens to be a Catholic and says, “Do you know, if I walk in to a church and shout D’Souza, half of the crowd will stand up!”

I believe he was the only student-friendly professor we had and who really helped us out whenever we were in trouble and agreed to the fact that our co-coordinator was a total nut-case!

The economics professor: Mr.M

Mr. M was really talented at mugging up the notes and dictating it without a reference, during his lecture. I think even that’s an art, though I didn’t believe in imitating it. He used to love it when people by-heart their speeches and repeat it, during the presentations and mark them higher than others. It was totally unfair because I could never by heart the speech like many and could never speak without a reference note!

He had this tendency to add the phrase ‘like say’ at the beginning and ‘it out’ at the end of everything sentence.

Like say we are having inflation in the economy.

Like say the farmer has a produce and wants to sell it out.

Everybody write it out.

This is the topic for your group; I want five of you to present it out.

He has to finance it out.

After a few days most of us stopped using the phrase ‘it out’ even at the right places….

The coordinator: Mrs. N

She was the most erratic person we have ever met! One second she you find her yelling at the top of her voice and the next second she is smiling fondly at the same person she yelled at, like she was kidding a few minutes back!

People believed she was a maniac and some of us had overheard a professor mentioning that she was going through some psychological treatment. I won’t be surprised if she is!

Her favorite dialogue was: “I am going to kill you! And I mean it!”

We used to try hard not to laugh whenever she said that.

The finance professor: Mr. H.B.

He was the coordinator’s pet. She considered him a boon to our college.

I agree that this professor has good knowledge about the subject…. But Mr. H.B., I am sorry to tell you that you just cannot teach.

The first hurdle in his sessions was that no one understood what he spoke.

When asked for a feedback about his teaching, most of my classmates wrote, ‘we would like to know what language he speaks in class.’

The most interesting thing was his papers. First of all, no one could solve his papers. Even professors from other colleges used to find it tough.

And secondly, he used to make us sit according to our roll numbers and used to have codes like: add the numbers in your roll numbers and answer the corresponding question number.

All this for a stupid class test, which we were bound to fail!

Not that any of the others were crazy in their own way, but these were some of the unusual professors we had in the three years of our college life!