Nutty Professor

Let me introduce him to you as Zee Bee for the sake of anonymity- ZeeBee who kept us all Beezee studying! For those of you who know him, zip it!

Well, it all began on a day when we were silently insulted by this man who calmly stood on the podium looking down on us for not reading the article he had asked us to, a week in advance. This composed demeanor did what all the months of screaming didn’t and couldn’t do…. It made us realize this one can’t be taken on a ride, he dictates and it’s up to us to either listen or not attend. He taught well, he brought a whole new dimension to the subject… there was less teaching more learning, more thinking, pondering and discussing of various subjects so that made up for what he expected… seemed like a fair deal.

He has a very carefully designed evaluation technique where you were free to stay away from class to escape the truck loads of articles and endless assignments with details from the word count, font size, 7x7 ppt rule, the number of slides to the quoting of source was mentioned. I think he only left out the color and the ppt design out; otherwise nothing was left in doubt or better to our imagination! But then escaping all this cost you when you saw your mark sheet.

We all felt trapped and going on a one way road to becoming a workaholic in those months with sleepless nights and tension packed mornings. He pushed you to the very limit and it only got harder. Emails send 5 minutes before deadline and acknowledgements received within an hour at any god forsaken hour of the night. We only shook our heads and felt sympathetic towards our friends who were going to specialize under him and prayed for their mental well-being.

Their torture as predicted only grew worse with reading material provided on cds to reading fat books of 20 chapters for a miserable 5 marks test!

We all crack up on this joke by my friend JR, if ZeeBee’s essays (which were endless and numerous) had a word count of say, 2000 words, the minute a person hit 2000 he would just stop even if the last word was an incomplete sentence or ending in and!

When my friends asked him for guidelines for a project he sent a long winding mail. What I read only made my laugh till my sides ached! :D

Here’s a situation… if ZeeBee were to choose a girl in marriage:

The girl wishing to marry me and stay under my shelter will be expected to comply with the following guidelines.

The selection will include the following phases:

• Cooking review with a synopsis of methodology followed
• Primary data collection from friends and acquaintances
• In-depth compatibility study and analysis of the outcome
• Minimum of 5 references from non-family members with nos. and email addresses provided
• Decision to whether marry or reject

The cooking review is to have an understanding of the culinary capabilities of the girl with ateast 10 dishes in 3 cuisines to test for consistency and accuracy for a period of one month.

The primary data will be collected from at least 50 friends from each social network like facebook, orkut etc. if not applicable other sources such as school, college, building and office friends will be tapped or 20 neighboring families to test for behavioral inconsistencies and the frequency.

This round two is an elimination round if cleared, the candidate is eligible to participate in round three.

The compatibility study comprises various parameters such as characteristics and behavior which will be ranked and rated. The data will be analyzed by using Z score to assess the level of significance and margin of error.

The girl is deemed ready for marriage only if the final conclusion is approved by atleast 5 references who are non-family members with names, nature of relationship with the candidate, numbers and email addresses are provided in the prescribed format.

Based on the above findings the final decision will be taken.

Those who wish to apply will be provided with best sources for cookery books/ recipes and the guidelines to join at least 1 social network. For the data analysis, you will have to arrange for and study the software yourself.

Once you decide upon whether you want to apply and have the basic methodology in place, you are free to call and fix up a meeting!

All said and done he is still one of my favorite profs. After all he did make us feel we are worth every effort we put in, every time he nodded in satisfaction or uttered ‘good’ it was like holding the Oscar statuette in your hands. And not to forget he taught and also got me interested in a subject which was considered by most of us as a hopeless invention of an idle mind!