Living in Truth! (Arrogance Personified)

It was an autumn day in 1992 when RK would point out to a person in a navy blue blazer and red tie and ask me if I knew who he was! On being replied in negative, he told me that it was VMK, the most knowledgable professor in the department. His source: Das, who was one of VMK's dearest students and friends.

It would be almost a year and half, before I would attend his lectures. Of course, he was there in our lab course since the fall of '93 , but he would give us a course beginning only in January, '94.

The arrogance of the man was obvious from the beginning; it was clear that he knew about it, enjoyed it, and loved to shimmer in it. He would inform us that he would give us a course of macromolecules, which is another name for Polymer Chemistry, but since he won't be able to teach us Statistical Mechanics, which was obviously his first love, he would combine both and give us a course on Physical Polymer Chemistry. Someone asked him if the course was entitled, Advanced Polymer Chemistry, to which he retorted, "No, unlike the courses given by other teachers, my course is always basic. This is Basic Polymer Chemistry.". And then, as an afterthought, he added, "But my basic course will be much more advanced than their 'advanced' courses."

He then handed us over a few photocopied pages; in it, there were written in his handwritting the names of 35 books from which he would give us the course! He was always that way. At least, that's what he told me!

Over the next couple of years, and during my visits to Delhi, he would tell me lot of stories. The most impressive of them all was about his Professorship interview. When he appeared to be interviewed for a full professorship, GS, a professor of Organic Chemistry who did hid PhD from Oxford (or was it Cambridge?) and was proud of it, was the chairman of the interview committee. To the utter dismay of VMK, GS stasrted asking him question on Thermodynamics, a field VMK seemed to know in an out, and in which GS need not have the most comprehensive knopwledge. Irritatedf beyond repair at the questions hurled at him, VMK finally retorted, "Why are you asking me things you have no idea about? Why don't you ask me things you know? Why don't you better stick to Organic Chemistry?"

As VMK would tell with obvious pride later, the expert from the University Grants Commission commented, "I have seen many different kinds of people;but have never seen a man as arrogant as him."

VMK would be made a full professor, though!

He also once told me a story about a Prof. B., who taught physics at St. Stephen's and who went to do a PhD (or was it Sabbatica?), who when asked by his host replied that he taught Quantum Mechanics. However, he failed miserably to the questions asked by his host, and also failed to complete the homeworks assigned to him. His host then said to B. "You have only taught quantum Mechanics; but you have never understood anything."

According to VMK, B. often used to narrate this story, and laugh at himself. VMK told me that B. was an interesting character, and that I would really enjoy meeting him. He even promised to introduce him to me. However, as fate would have it, I never got a chance to avail that offer. ( I would never know if this really happend with B, of if this was just a story made by the man himself; but it is always a nice thing to see a Professor of the best college in the country making fun of himself, that too sitting in the college cafeteria and accompanied by VMK's laud laughter! One required enough guts to do that, I suppose.)

The Physical Chemistry division at the University was rumored to be cursed: 6 of the professors were bachelors/spinsters. I once asked VMK why he never married, and what he told was the most honest (and most true) answer/explanation I ever heard. He told me that he sepnt the best years of his life working day and night in some labs in Rice University and other places (he spent a total of 9 years for his PhD and postdoc) and then when he looked back, it was already late. He also told me that once you are in your 30's, going for a traditional arranged marriage almost becomes impossible, becuase as one grows older, one becomes more and more inflexiable and one becomes more and more possessive about one's own space and views etc., thus making the option of compromise less and less probable.

VMK loved to have a good time, at his or other's expenses. He was kind of the King in the coffee club in MMK's office. About 10-12 profesors from Chemistry and Physics and St. Stephen's used to his ministers and deputies; the central easy chair belonged to the King, from where he ruled! They often used to laugh about other teachers, but also about themselves. Water was constantly boiling in a jar on the hot-plate and If you visited them, you were often offered a cup of coffee.

His jokes were an integral part of the depertment welcome and farewell parties. Most his jokes were insulting teachers; but while he woulc laugh at himself, most of his colleagues took those personally and took offense. They also felt that VMK made those jokes to insult them. (Of course, VMK did that for sure; but then most of them were airbags without much contennts.).

For example, he used to tell a joke about the death of a poor teacher, for whose burial the villagers approached the rich man in the village and asked for 200 pounds. When he asked why they needed the sum and they explained it to him, he gave them 1000 pounds and said, "Go, bury 5 of them!"

Another of his jokes was about a student who attended only one class on Quantum Mechanics, never again to return to the class. And then, when he had his exams, it turned out that he scored 99 out of 100 in that paper. Obviously, everybody in the department was surprised and they called him and asked how he managed this. He replied, "Regretably, I attended one class and I got so confused that I could not answer the first question. Hence I could score only 99 and nor 100!"

He also told an anecdote, in which a very renowned scientist at his old age was found stiting with undergraduate students, attending a young Professor's classes. If I am not wrong, it was James Clark Maxwell, as VMK told us. When a professor noticed his being there and expressed his surpise, another professorcommented. "He has learned so much that he no longer qualifies to be a teacher."

That was VMK. He spared none, including teachers like himself.

His most interesting anecdote was about the father-son duo of Bragg. They won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915, when the son Bragg was only 25 years old! Now, as VMK mentioned, the father Bragg was both an excellent researcher and teacher, while son bragg was a first-rate scienitist but very poor teacher. When the son Bragg started giving his first lecture at the University, one student sat in the front row and constantly looked at the roof, never taking any notes. When Bragg asked him why he was not taking down any notes, he told that he already had the notes. On being told that that was the very first lecture given by the teacher in his entire life, the student replied, "But my father used to attend your father's classes."

He was brutally honest; he told on our (including the toppers in the class) face that all of us were just very ordinary, average students. The only student he would praise was Das. He told that when he had given them a course on Statistical Thermodynamics, Das used to explain the whole lecture just after a class was over. His classmates used to refer to him as the Professor, and sos did VMK. When Dad would decide to pursue his PhD in India just to be with girlfriend, VMK would scoff at him by saying, "Stupid guy; another Victim of romance! He does not know what he is doing." (Das would end up at Harvar -- a place more suitable for someone of his calibre -- a few years later!).

His questions used to be extremely tough, and there was no way to mug up things and write in the exams. If you did this, you would eventaully score a zero, because he already changed the character tables and other such things, so that everything has to done on your own, and everything you wrote from your memory in the exam would be 100% wrong. (He often used to tell about an open book exam he conducted in the '70s. The students were very happy and excited at first, and they carried loads of books to the exam hall; but then, once the question papers were handed out to them, to quote him, "Ganga and Jamuna started flowing out from their eyes!")

When the students of the Organic Chemistry specialization used to go to complain to their Professors because they only scored 40 out of 50 (and not 45), he used to chuckle and comment, "In my course, they used to dance if they scored 10 out of 50, because they only expected 5!" That was him. He used to say that if a student scored 48 out of 50, it did not show that the student was brilliant; all it showed was that the teacher did not know what to ask and how.

to be wtitten.... vmk


filmfare
oxalic acid

tea
sartre
tie HUji, time to die
shine like star
morning 7-00


Red sweater guy, from USA.
IGNOU book, money and teaching
eyesight
Hyd operation
sartre
dinesh
liver

Sources: http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1915/index.html