Monday, May 12, 2014

Academia at 42 degrees



I have often asked myself this uneasy question: how do I like to invigilate in an afternoon examination at 42 degrees? Most people will probably think that I am a decadent masochist if I say I relish doing it or if I were to turn quixotically philosophical and say temperature is an attitude of the mind. But if I were to be honest, I would look at it from the perspective of examinees that have to study, memorise, assimilate, prepare and beat the anxieties of writing a test in a room that is faintly reminiscent of the barbarous Holocaust. To sit on those bum-hard benches with egotistical authorities assuming criminal intent and issuing diktats that combine moral clichés with legal threats is an assault on common human dignity. But as the axiom goes: what can’t be cured must be endured. That is where an invigilator is advantaged. An invigilator is privy to a show that can be amusing enough to distract the mind from the forty two degrees through the drudgery of three elastic hours. An examination hall is a wonderful place to observe differences and similarities, performance and pretentions, dignity and subservience, community fellow-feeling and individual excellence, empathy for the ignorant  and subterfuges for self-preservation.
The chap in the third row, first bench has an obvious disadvantage as opposed to the person in the sixth row at back of the room. He wears a cream shirt with buttoned down flap pockets over which is embroidered in green and pink thread ‘SELF CONTROL’ He practices it with the perseverance of an ascetic until the last ten minutes of the test when material advantage overwhelms the conscience. Two rows behind, a girl with a yellow kurta and pink dupatta with temple appliqué at the borders, stares at the ceiling waiting for divinity to intervene while chewing the cap of her ball-point pen. Providence usually takes its time and in the next fifteen minutes the top end of the pen looks like the bone given to an energetic puppy. The guy with frazzled hair reminiscent of a two-minute-ago electrocution looks left, then right, sticks his tongue out, scratches his temples, the back of his head and settles down to challenge the question paper. The girl in a pair of Levis indigo jeans bought last night with a loose crepe orange cotton top in the second last row has got into the business of assaulting the paper in real earnest, drawing lines as margins, writing six lines and underlining three, erasing a pencil-drawing, scratching her nose and then continuing to write in a kind of aesthetically pleasing hand that catches my envy through the corner of my eye. Another in a black kurta who remembers very little of physics from school wrestles with her writing equipment, grimacing, snorting and smiling with each moment of disaster or triumph.
Tea comes in a plastic cup that could not have been smaller. Within seconds a serrated layer of cream forms at the top of the earth-brown liquid that bears the authoritative stamp of institutional hospitality. A sample of the river water collected next to the cremation bank may have tasted better. That sounds just a little bit morbid. Shall I erase it? Tea drained in spite of its violence on the taste-buds, its time to focus on the job of a conscientious invigilator.
May I borrow an eraser from her please? - asks a petite wheat-complexioned boy with a chiseled face. I am surprised at the good manners of this young man. This culture-plus moment almost demands the generosity of gratification with something like- Borrow two if you please. I hated to see this young lad sitting in the forty two degrees on that austere seat proving to the world that he had the wherewithal to get a masters degree and embark on a lonely road to success defined by society.
Time for examinees is a haiku, for invigilators an epic. And the hands on my wristwatch continue its painful circumambulation as the incinerating heat eases to a bearable close. Five to five, five minutes to go. That announced, hope renews. A sudden flurry of community consultations begins. Words, digital signals, snarls, whispers, winks, turns, twists are cautioned. It stops briefly, starts again. Resilience in an uneven world is an instrument of survival. End of time, we file out celebrating our freedoms in our own different ways. We are after all children of different gods.

6 comments:

  1. Good one :) I particularly like this part, "Tea comes in a plastic cup that could not have been smaller. Within seconds a serrated layer of cream forms at the top of the earth-brown liquid that bears the authoritative stamp of institutional hospitality. A sample of the river water collected next to the cremation bank may have tasted better. That sounds just a little bit morbid. Shall I erase it? Tea drained in spite of its violence on the taste-buds, its time to focus on the job of a conscientious invigilator." Deja vu? Not quite. Have never been in your place. Nostalgia? Perhaps.
    Just check the typo in the penultimate para. "May I borrow an eraser form..." instead of 'from'. Have been doing this for years. Hopefully, I shall be forgiven:)

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  2. "Time for examinees is a haiku, for invigilators an epic". it is such a delightful reading. a painful time can also be eloquent in expression.

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  3. Just Awesome Sir...sketches the experience of both, the student (I can feel myself sitting on those benches taking my exam in 93) and ofcourse the experience of invigilation still bears on mind ...."Tea comes in a plastic cup that could not have been smaller."

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  4. murari prasad
    I've got to hand it to you--you've got the magic touch. By the way, " [their] painful circumambulation" or " its..."? i wish i could use it as a set text for teaching my students, but have run out of takers because of persistent truancy.

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  6. Chatternama is as always, an excellent read, to be enjoyed while one draws deep from a gigantic frothy, icy mug.... oh how many of those plastic thimbles filled with over-boiled tea-leaves have invigilators survived through the years?

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