A student, part two

    I decided to go with him for a lark. At the appointed place and time early morning, he was waiting for me. We crossed Katraj ghat and took Bengaluru highway. Then, a short distance from Pune, we turned right and proceeded towards Gunjawani. I had never travelled here before. We had to climb and it had rained very heavily the previous day. I drove with a lot of trepidation. At one point, villagers cautioned us to not go ahead because of accumulated water but to take a short detour. Finally we reached his friend's basic farmhouse. We went to the river from there, had lunch prepared by the caretaker couple. The student had promised a meeting with the villagers but it did not transpire. On the way back, I forced the student to drive so that I could relax. I came back home in the evening.

   It was an outing planned by him to butter me up. I asked him to visit a research library and prepare a bibliography. He prepared the latter without visiting the library. Google search was all that he was willing to do, apart from his talk about visits to different districts and farmers in them.

   He took a long time to prepare a synopsis for his pre-Ph.D. interview. I made him revise his note 7 or 8 times. His presentation of the note was horrible. He had made no preparation. The research panel suggested some changes in the research outline. He could not understand them and I had to help him with the corrections.

   By now I had become wise to his ways: all talk and no work. I came to the conclusion that he was a fraud. It also became clear that his was not a permanent post and often he did not have enough money with him. His schoolfriends helped him out. Once he asked if he could come over to my house and I served him sumptuous Diwali 'faral'. He ate like a starving person. Next time he called, I offered only tea and biscuits at the behest of my mother. His face fell when he saw that. I felt bad and also realized that he was used to cajoling people and extracting invitations from them. There was no progress in his research.

   My retirement was fast approaching and because of some new rule, I could not even continue with guiding my existing students once I retired. I happily offloaded this student to another guide from our college.

   I learnt later that he managed to get a job in a new commerce college. There were prospects of getting the right pay-scale and becoming permanent, provided his work came up to expectations. I do not know if that has happened or not.

   The student continues to message me and greet me on Teacher's Day, new year and Diwali etc. I return his greetings but say nothing more. 

   Whenever I think of him, I feel sad about my own gullibility.

A student, part one

    He was my Ph.D. student. Unlike my college colleagues, I had neglected the work of guiding research students till the very end. When it transpired that for becoming a Professor, one had to have at least one or two Ph.D. students, I woke up.

   The procedure for becoming a research guide and for guiding students was a long, bureaucratic one which had no academic value. It showed distrust of guides at every possible juncture and its assumption seemed to be that guides were in a mad rush to have as many research students under them as possible. Learning the procedure was humiliating and a waste of time.

   Once I became a guide however, students started approaching me and I foolishly got taken in by their claims. I said yes, I would be their guide. I just forgot that commerce faculty's academic standards are very poor. These students were already in touch with touts in the market who promised to do statistical and quantitative analysis for topics they themselves suggested, for a fat fee of course. The students had happily decided that they would have to shell out money but the return was a secure path to academic progress: becoming heads of departments, principal, subject experts on university panels etc. etc. All these things were gleaned and pieced together by me bit by bit as time passed. No student was interested in any topic; nobody genuinely felt that s/he must explore a certain area to know it better. They had no puzzles of dichotomy between what the books said and what was happening around in their mind. One Assamese girl who had studied and who taught economics was the sole exception.

   Among the rest, one stood out for his smooth talk. He was a fair fellow with curly hair. He had good manners and had the gift of the gab. My colleague Shaila who shared my room was charmed by him.

   So this fellow came and chatted very nicely. He was teaching in an MBA institute. He had failed his SET examination. He was simultaneously preparing for it and for Ph.D. He said he was familiar with agriculture and so I suggested a topic related to agricultural marketing. He held forth on organic farming, indigenous seeds, evils of APMC (Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee) and online marketing tools for farmers. He appeared to be knowledgeable.

   He talked about a land-owning friend of his who was experimenting with organic food and online marketing in his village in the command area of Gunjawani dam in Pune district, Bhor taluka. He invited me there. I said yes perfunctorily to fob him off. However, just two days before the promised outing, he phoned to remind me. I was touched.