My Under Graduation Mis-adventure

I enrolled for my B.A. in English Literature in the American College, Madurai. You’ve guessed it right. It’s not run by Americans. It’s a pretty old college with a huge wooded campus. Our literature block was an old styled, dusty, run down building just on the left of the main entrance and surrounded by huge trees. I understood why they had assigned such a dilapidated building to us when I met my classmates. However, the post graduation centre was located in a new block with a wonderful departmental library.

My classmates? Almost all of them with the exception of three or four had been rejects i.e. they had applied for other courses and had been rejected due to low marks. So an assorted group of rejects ended up in English Literature or Philosophy. You can imagine the high standard of the class. Just four of us who could speak English and who probably chose English literature freely and willingly. The rest were struggling with the nuances of a foreign tongue that unlike other languages lacked logic in its written and spoken form and its grammar. Now do you see the connection between us and the building that housed the geniuses? However, the whole thing worked to my advantage – I was always the first in the class, attained with neither sweat nor blood.

My teachers? Except for a handful, most of them were average teachers. A few younger ones had no control over the classes. The older ones used the bad old lecture method to teach. Neither the old lecture method nor the modern method of teaching would have worked miracles in my class. The students were smarts beyond redemption.

My fate? I was stiff bored with the lectures. Could I bunk the classes? Our college was an autonomous college which means that though they are under the Madurai Kamaraj University, they made their own syllabus, conducted their own exams, had internal assessment and were strict about attendance. I did bunk my classes. I needed 75% attendance to sit for exams or 60% attendance with fine or penalty to sit for exams. I did exactly that. Those subjects which were unbearable torture, I bunked up to 60%.

Some classes were really boring. I could observe that most of my classmates were lost in deep contemplation. The lectures failed to penetrate their fort-like skulls. Instead they rebound back like an elastic ball. Some would invariably doze off. Looking at the wrist watch was a favourite pass time. I understood Einstein’s relativity theory thoroughly especially time dilation. Time crept like a snail for us unlike for lovers where it hopped like a rabbit.

What about me? Most of the time I dozed off, though I found sitting and sleeping highly inconvenient. My glasses aided me with its glare and gave the idea to the lecturer that I was wide awake and was all rapt attention. Sometimes I scribbled poetry to while away the time or read a book. Here I want to mention an intriguing fact that puzzles me to this day. There was one lecturer, one Mr N, who used to put me to sleep as soon as he started his lecture. He taught us literary criticism and I could always read the texts by myself and understand them. Honestly, I haven’t managed to keep awake for even one of his classes that entire semester though I tried desperately to break the record. His voice was like a lullaby which put me to sleep immediately. I don’t think my mother’s lullabies were as effective and in fact my parents informed me grudgingly that I had troubled them many a night as an infant crying for no obvious reason. Here was Mr N avenging the inconvenience caused to my parents. Interestingly, one my classmates wanted to put me in trouble and told Mr N, “Patrick is sleeping”. Pat came the reply, “Patrick will sleep and score marks. Can you?” My friend went red in the face with embarrassment and I went purple with such adulation. Till date, I believe that I wouldn’t need anesthetics to be operated upon if just Mr N. lectured to me at the operation table.

Read those poems I wrote during those boring moments of inspiration which made the rounds in the class after I completed them and won some applause. But don’t imitate me in class.

Composed while sitting in Class (23 Oct, 1989)

I sit, furiously, acting to be serious

Opposite the professor,

The gap ‘tween us mysterious

On either side my mates seated, each one

In a cosy world of his own fun.

A few look dazed struck by the dooming sound

Distant echoes of nonsense as he propounds.

A few with blank stares like zombie shadows

Their eyes and imagination walking tall.

A few in states of semi-consciousness

Bad dreams, nodding assents of yes.

Others escaping as heroes with their heroines

Into the flickering lights and the dancing shades

Of the woods grey and green,

Flashing smiles on lips and eyes

As chivalrous deeds and close encounters

Get done, undone and done.

All along the professor makes himself a fool

A Shakespearean clown deeming to be a tool

Of great knowledge and understanding

And of serious and great standing.

Sweet sleep invades my glassy eyes

The voice fades, lights dim, eyes close.

My mate’s poke startles me awake

The lullaby is over he says.

Three cheers for autonomy and attendance!

While doing my M.A., I had another professor who put me to sleep as effectivey as Mr N. I don’t know whether he was teaching us an Ode by Shelly or Keats or this was taught by another teacher but I immediately thanked the poet for providing me inspiration and wrote an imitation ode. Here it is:

Ode on Chelliah’s Lullaby (16th Oct 1990)

Can I compare thy melody, issuing effortlessly

from thy big loud all knowing mouth

turning into vapours and waves

never reaching the innermost recesses of the brain,

to the heavenly strains that can calm the storms

of our minds’ miserable turmoil

and induce a serenity so deep as the deepest sea

or to the sweetest melodies of the flute

that can arouse the deepest feelings of the heart,

or to the various myriad music

that with irregular cadence endlessly

erupt at dawn and dusk?

Can they be compared to thy strains

That can enter one ear and come out of another

Without causing a wee bit of disturbance,

That can send us to mystic heights of contemplation,

That can set our imagination running wild

That can send me into sweet deep slumber

Within seconds of hearing thee?

In one of the semesters, we studied the romantics. They were a group of poets that thoroughly influenced me especially Wordsworth and Keats. I enjoyed the poems I had for the course and tried to read more poems and some critical material about them. In fact, I remember I submitted a paper on Wordsworth as a nature mystic. I am a lover of nature myself. I tried a hand at composing some nature poems based on the sights I had seen in my life and from my imagination. Now when I read them they look pretty like kid’s stuff. However, I’d like to publish them here.

A Moon-lit Night (27 Dec, 1989)

T’is midnight as I stand in the open

The town and the adjacent fields

Basking and lolling in the gentle rays

Of the benevolent moon

Everything below in a swoon.

The houses throw deep shadows

The distant monster hills

Seem distinct dark and reposing.

Her soft soothing rays

Lull all to deep slumber.

Her beams on the deep green fields

Make the dew drops glitter and glimmer

Like pearls scattered all over.

She stands high in the sky

Like a lone shepherdess

Silently watching all below

In a penetrating silence

Reflecting the silence of the sky

Disturbed only by the cry of a child

Lone footsteps, a sneeze or snores

A cat or mouse scampering on all fours

Now and then, the baying of dogs.

Her playmates seem

Distant flickering lights

On a pitch dark night.

Like a lonely sad maiden

With some unhappy tearful story

Sits she forlorn

Accepting graciously

My silent company.

Sunset

The sun has set a million times

And yet so magnificent a sight

To behold it again every time.

A rolling ball of fire descending

The white-blue sky dissolving

In its beams yellow and crimson

Dark clouds their edges burning

Everything mingling and merging

The western horizon turning

A huge pink background

The ocean like burning embers

The boats and birds appearing

As dark shadowy silhouettes.

Slowly and steadily submerging

Into the waters leaving behind

Just a wee glow gleaming

Beyond the horizon

Darkness and stillness

Quietly following behind.

The romantics made me feel that we were moving away from a life in union with nature to a virtualistic and technology driven monotonous life. Wordsworth had felt that they were moving away from a simple life to a complicated life of industry, commerce and business even during his times when the industrial revolution was on. The result was an inspiration to write a long imaginative poem comparing life in the past and now. Read on:

Adams’ Resurrection (Written on 31 Oct, 1989)

Adams stirred, sighed, rubbed his eyes

Mischief twinkled in his waking eyes

And mounted his sly boyish smile.

From eternal sleep he wanted a break

To peep on the dwellers above

Who had shut him under in his rough cell.

Too many mounds he noted, a sad plight

He couldn’t believe his eyes, what a sight!

Tall buildings scraping the sky, hustle and bustle

Deafening noise all about him –

he, a thin milky jinn

Walked up to the road, a steaming sun

That seemed to vapourize his ghost.

Hurriedly he got under a green shade

His visit – he had chosen the wrong time

Not his mistake, he couldn’t guess the clime.

Hurrying legs, indifferent feet

Shuffling aimlessly, massive bodies

Puny figures, ill-fitting dresses,

Odd shapes put together,

A few looking young

With supple limbs and fresh looks.

The faces, by God! gasped Adams,

Faces of all sorts – eerie, murderous,

Blank, sorrowful, angry, gloomy.

Never ending traffic, all at top pace

As though in a rat race -

Who will get to the top


Stampeding those below?

Living as though in a sleep

Without grasping the real and the true

The now – but groping and living

in dreams of tomorrow.

It was not so ghastly as all this

Peace and calm were his.

Love and harmony, delight and joy.

Pleasant were the ever green fields

And the towering shady trees

The birds’ melodious chirping

The diamond dewdrops

And the whispering breeze

The whole of nature and people

Breathing puffs of freshness.

All of this gone and in its place,

Awkward sounds and ugly sights.

Life was a melody with harmony,

But now an order lacking melody

Meaningless, mechanical and menacing.

It had been his mistake – his wrong step

He had slipped from his state of grace.

Adams floated back to his mound

Eternal sleep is better he said

And lay back in his cell.

I need to stop here and talk about one of my classmates called Sundar. He didn’t look like a college going student. Instead, some growth imbalance made him look like a school going grade 8 student. But he was the most mischievous among us. He would swing into the classroom using the door to do so by hanging on to it during the class of Mr D who was bit of an eccentric and had hardly any classroom control. Tiffin boxes would be busily emptied during his class.

The young lecturer Mr E, who taught us ethics was equally bad at controlling the class. In order to control the class, he would put black dots against the name of the students who talked and misbehaved in class. Somebody asked him what he would finally be doing after he put all those dots. Before the teacher could answer, Sundar said that when a student accumulated 10 black points he would be awarded a free pencil. The teacher remarked that though he was short statured, he had a lot of cheek. To that Sunder replied that even Thirukural (the famous two line poems of practical wisdom written by the great Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar) was only two feet long meaning the meter of the poems.

Another episode I’d like to narrate is copying. Students sitting around me would try to copy from me during small tests and quizzes which were part of internal assessment. I felt helpless about the situation. I didn’t positively try to help them yet I didn’t prevent them actively from copying. In the semester exams, however there was no chance of copying. One awkward moment was when the test papers were distributed after correction. One of the weak students compared his marks with mine and blurted out quite loud to my embarrassment as well as to the chagrin of the teacher that he scored more marks than me though he had copied from me.

Some things I hated in the college were compulsory PEd classes and the study of a language in the first year. I hated those days we had PEd and was glad when I went to 2nd year. I took Tamil as the language though I hated Tamil. The hatred took root in my childhood and schooldays due to some teachers teaching us. I still remember the 3rd grade Tamil teacher. She used to beat us mercilessly with a ruler even for silly reasons. I used to take imaginary revenge on her by planning her fall due to a banana peel or putting pins on her chairs etc. Then in Grade 6 and 7 we had two Tamil teachers who took to the business of teaching Tamil very seriously, more seriously than the Tamilnadu Chief Minister. Both of them hit us if we couldn’t give answers. One of them had a peculiar way of hitting. He would bend us forward and with open palm bring down his hand on our backs with a force that is used to hammer a nail into a wall. Fortunately, I never had the chance of getting this treatment. But I’ve seen my classmates gasp for breath, the wind being knocked out of them brutally. One or two urinated out of fear. The result was a hatred for the subject and I always barely managed to pass my Tamil exams. I was very very glad when I joined Don Bosco, Tirupattur from Grade 8, the school I enjoyed studying and being in.

After a week of Tamil classes in college, I decided to change to French. The first French class I sat in was all French (Greek) to me. The lecturer taught the entire class in French and here I was with no knowledge of French. Fortunately, I picked up enough French and its grammar due to some similarity with English to pass the exam.

One day I witnessed a scene in the office of the parish priest of a church in Madurai. The priest, the bell ringer, the watchman and two women were reprimanding a small girl for something she had done. I felt that this was material for a poem and quickly wrote a poem.

The Trial

Caught in the act red-handed

Brought in by the bell ringer

To the office quite crowded –

A watchman and two women facing

A priest behind his desk

Stern and serious faced

The charge was raised.

The women and the man gasped

Their false reactions masked

Beneath their feigning features.

She needs spanking declared one

While the other muttered

What a thing for a girl to do!

The watchman argued her act

Would have proved dangerous

The priest offered serious advice

Someone asked her to apologise.

All the while she stood

Puzzled and shamed

Unable to understand the din.

She was just a girl of ten

Her crime: she had climbed

Over the locked church gate

A short cut home to take.