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cesspool memoirs

episode 00

"Avare peticharum nervazhi natappeeela"

when i joined the mct in early 95 there were two other male members in the teaching staff. both were old timers - i remember seeing them as students in the same institution ages back.

there was strict separation of the sexes in the department and the male staff members were left completely stranded. at the time i joined the two male teachers were sitting in a ramshackle sort of affair around a central pillar in the mammalian lab with a few news papers for company. one of them indeed told me that before the other person came he never used to remain any where near the physiology department

"avare peticharum nervazhi natappeeela
bhuvanavasi janam - - - - - - - "



make-shift staff room for males

with the kind permission of the hod, i made a bit of rearrangement of the cupboards and almirahs in the lab and created a make shift staff room for the male teaching staff - of course with the help of the others. the hod also contributed a few curtains and we had a comparatively decent staff room within no time. the resources were already there and what was needed was a bit of initiative and a degree of innovation. we all made ourselves comfortable there.

godi mein

a kintergarten aged son of one of the staff memberes used to come there once in a while. i have never seen him sitting on the lap of any body else other than his father's; but he used to climb on to mine!
that way kids used to find my lap rather comfortable. long back in dhana i had made a little girl ( she was just three ) sit on the table for once, as i was busy that day with some paper work; the child sulked "nahin; godi mein".

nauseating

i used to bring my lunch packet along in the morning and had made a slight enclosure where i could take my meal. one day as i was sitting there one of the female attenders brought a departmental notice to me. once she left one of the gentle man teaching staff of the department came to me stroking his crotch and asked "enta, valare personalayittu.."
some how or other i can never forget such incidents and i have a picture memory of them even after ages! is that so with every body or is it that i am abnormal?

experimental physiology records

in physiology we had two practical records for the students and it was completely renovated during 1996. the human physiology record revision was done by a lecturer who was an md in medicine and the experimental physiology record was renovated by me though i was the junior most as far as teaching experience was concerned. the difference is there for any one to see who can spare some time to compare the records of 96-97 and the previous ones.

incidentally it was for this particular year that i was given adverse remarks in my confidential report.

there was the usual cme of the physiology dept. in 1996 as well and i had contributed the best i could and i remember the hod commending me after the participants left -"jyothi sarikkum shine cheithu."

off the beaten track

it is a fact that i did not follow the beaten track as far as the teaching was concerned and i had my own way of doing things. in fact one of the lecturers who was with me in alleppey once he got transferred to trivandrum had come and sat in one of my classes. once i finished he made a comment on his own: "kolllam"!

i consider myself a student of science and am ready to accept criticism. i do make amends when i realise that i made a mistake. you prove your point and i will accept it.

simple key

the slightest deviation from the practice being followed for ages in the department was not tolerated. i had introduced a simple key into an electrical circuit rather than disconnecting a wire and touching the other end to break and make the circuit. a very minor thing and there was a big hue and cry about it.

sphygmomanometer

another funny thing was the position of the manometer while taking bp. the students were instructed that the subject should hold the bp apparatus in his/her hand while recording bp in the standing position. my contention was that the artery (usually the brachial), the pressure in which is being measured should be at the level of the heart and that it is practically immaterial where the manometer is. if the subject holds the manometer in the hand in which the bp is being measured, it can even affect the reading. (of course it is better if the mercury meniscus is at the level of the observer's eye). i gave the students a drastic example as well: if you keep the sphygmomanometer on the table and next time on top of everest there could be a difference in the reading!

these are matters of elementary physics which prabhakaran mash has taught me in the fifth form and i can never go wrong there. unforutnately i was no more in mahe de la bourdonnais college in mahe. in the department of physiology the highly "intelligent" doctors took serious note of things.

in deed the students who followed my instructions were penalised in the practical examinations. so later i used to tell them that such and such is the right thing but at the practical examination you have to do the other way to score marks!

moral of the story

looking back, one thing that comes to my mind is that i had this habit of making loud guffaws : that could have annoyed people. that way i could laugh at myself as well. i have learnt it from the khalsas; you ask them to tell a joke at a party or something, it will be invariably about a sardarji. (my feeling is that all those sardarji jokes are cooked up by themselves only)

once, for the demonstration in the experimental physiology lab, which older time students refer to as "kari" (soot), i was given a lone big frog which almost weighed a kilo. usually you can snip off the sternum with a pair of small scissors. in this fellow i had to use a bone cutter. by the time i finished i was sweating profusely. i wiped off the sweat and threw a question at the students: "what is the moral of the story?" they could not make head or tail and looked at each other. then i gave them the answer "try to do well in your studies; otherwise you also might end up here, catching frogs". the youngsters roared with laughter.

printed notes

it is simply not possible for me to commit to memory the class notes and dictate it in the class word by word for the students to write down - which incidently was the practice the others followed. rather than use the notes in the old records made decades back, for better or for worse, i used to make a concoction of my own, type out a few copies and distribute it amongst the students so that they could take photocopies. my classes were rather extempore and this was the practice i was following from alleppey onwards where i used to take regular lecture classes. that time all i had was my good old brother portable and i used to use very thin paper so as to be able to make the maximum number of copies at one go!
i was ready to commit what i have to say in writing and if i made any blunders it will be obvious to every one who cares to read the notes. could you find any?

in the practical classes rather than sitting in the chairs in the space alloted for teachers like the other lecturers used to do, i used to be with the students at their work benches and in my humble(foolish?) way tried to help them to the maximum possible. i used to make an effort to get to the root of things and in fact i remember one of the youngsters telling me on his own "ithupole explain cheythonnum aarum paranju thararilla".

unlike the others i never used to correct the practical records during the practical class but used to take it to the staff room ( as long as i was there and later i used to take them to my home ) and go through it thoroughly and return it to the students at a later date.
an asst. professor got annoyed that the students while coming to collect the records from my table, were passing in front of the cubicles they were sitting in. she took all the records from my table and dumped it in the lab. the result was that one of the records went missing and the poor student had to write the whole thing a second time. there was nothing i could have done to help him in any way and i still feel real bad about the incident.

preventing other teachers from entering the class

one of those days the hod paid a surprise visit to the lab. i was with a group of students carrying on with my gimmicks. the others, all ladies, were sitting at the table (obviously discussing all sorts of complicated physiology). and the hod bullied them.
may be to escape her wrath some one ( who i think was doing pg) said that jyothi was monopolising the students and they are not getting a chance to instruct them. the hod later told me this and from then on i stopped going to their classes.

the above is the basis for the hod's statement in justification of the adverse remarks in my cr that i used to prevent other teachers from entering the class.

mouth suction

for the first two years 1995 and 96 i was in the amphibian lab it was in the third week of december 96 that i was shifted to the human physiology lab. some time later in 1997 i had to take a class on esr. i found that the youngsters were being made to suck foreign blood with their mouth into the esr pipette . of course in our times we have done it and i remember blood directly going into my mouth a number of times. but times have changed and every other dept. in the college had stopped using mouth suction. and it was a crime to ask the new comers to do it.

i brought this matter to the notice of the hod. when she insisted i told her i have no problem doing it myself but i will not ask the students to do it. i did not refuse to take classes then as is claimed by the hod.
of course later the things had changed drastically and i had given in writing that i will not take classes and that time i have given it in writing - that was in 2002 on a different issue altogether and not concerned with the cr in question which refers to 1996.

i followed up the mouth-suction matter further and later the then dme intervened ( there are sensible people amongst them!) and the practice was stopped.

dog dissection

another issue that came up is in connection with the dog dissection. when i pointed out the foolishness of the practice being followed in the department people got damn annoyed. but later incidents proved that i was right.

during the practical demonstration there used to be a crowd of 25 students around one single demonstrator and most of them could not see what exactly was going on. i had suggested that we hold three or four demonstrations simultaneously. there was strong objection from the others and we continued with one demonstration.

in my initial enthusiasm i had suggested that i am ready to take all the practical classes for one or two batches. the idea was that if others also do so there will be a certain amount of healthy competition and the students will benefit. but no one was ready to take up the challenge.

the pariah

i never tried to force or even coax others to follow my line but was doing what i thought were right things. as a member of the teaching staff i had an obligation towars the students. i am afraid there was a different, rather selfish angle to the way i looked at them. children of my class mates had started appearing as students and that was when i realised that i have become an old man! even males have the hankering and the child that told me " godi mein " was not the only one who was enjoying the sit-uation.

if the tide gradually turned against me, it was not due to any mistake of mine nor did i misbehave with any body. it is just that i am one of those "untouchables" of the present era! the other staff members were finding it "disgusting" to have a pariah in their midst. infact another lecturer who had joined the pg course later had bluntly told me "you have got a bad name and i think i can use it to my advantage" (i am using the exact words he used, though the first part of the statement was in malayalam) and he did. infact at a later date he used to coax the students to misbehave in my class!

the fact that i managed to get the lecturer trainee appointment against the expectations of all my "well wishers" could have made its own contribuion. the dme was under severe pressure to deny the appointment from my "friends" and i remember some of the disgruntled members of the teaching staff telling me "you will not get it". but when the orders came from above the dme had no other go but to enforce it.
also STEC had approved my project and given me a research grant of a quarter lakh rupees
- the pariah was stealing the lime lightt!

after some months i started sitting facing the wall in the staff room so that i dont have to see the vulgar gestures some of my "colleagues" were making at me. later i moved out of the "staff room" into a distant corner of the same lab away from the others so as to avoid an alteracation and i made an effort to do a bit of reading.

in 97 january the hod directed that i should be moved out of my corner in the lab. rather than go back to the "staff room" and enter into a brawl i used to spend my time in the journal section of the college library and come to the department only when i had to take classes. that way i could avoid the crotch-scratching and finger in mouth signs.

the journal section is in the first floor of the library and hardly any body comes there. some time later we had a very dedicated librarian. he was very religious as well and used to do his namaz in one corner of the journal section. in a very short time he managed to get a lot of work done. i wonder if anybody ever appreciated his work and within no time he was transferred!

the fact is that i did not exactly enjoy being treated as a dirty dog. any good for nothing third rate clown in the department could have dictated terms to me. i should have quitted; but that option was not open for i did not have a place to go, not even a roof over my head! i needed the job badly and in fact i needed the money. if i quit it was almost impossible to find another job at my stage in life. so i dragged on. initially there was hope that i could do the md and get transferred back to alleppey. but it did not work out that way.

the students were the only human contact i had and my experience with the youngsters in alleppey had made me love my job. there was no question of my refusing to take classes on my own.

when i got transferred to trivandrum one doctor who knew of my gimmicks in alleppey had warned me that the lot in trivandrum was an altogether different kettle of fish and that i have to be careful with them. i carried on all the same and did not have any problems with the student lot and indeed i used to get along well with them - i can say that with 100% certainty for at least my first few years in trivandrum... . .

to be continued

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scientific research!
Mr. Javert

viceman
2005

last updated 21 jan 06

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thanks

this fellow had helped me a lot. not only that he and his wife were the sureties for my p g course ( i dont know what i would have done without them; probably i would not have been able to join the course at all!)
it is in his house that i ever had a home meal in the last fifteen years or so. of course i also have a bit of scruples there - i dont believe in breaking bread with all and sundry.

now he is firmly in the enemy camp and my "friends" in the dept. of physiology used to discuss what they did with him in my presence for myinformation.

my dear ma ku, you are the looser; veliyilayil kitakkunna vella thulliyute soundaryam maha samudrathile oru thullikkum illa!