This is not a diatribe

I protest. Strongly. A low comedy played out today and it was too absurd even to evict any emotion resembling laughter. Our final presentations were scheduled today and a person no less than our very own HOD walked in to evaluate the students. After months of intense hard work I was looking forward to the presentations because I was looking for feedback on my work and it was an opportunity to share my experiences with my classmates.

My presentation was the first one that she evaluated. I was expecting a fair and critical analysis from the evaluators with concrete suggestions that we could incorporate in our work in the future. But what transpired was very different from my expectations.

It all started because I had essentially carried out research in the social sciences and the HOD has a chemistry background fortified by the rigors of laboratory work and being buried under piles of unnecessary paper work.

But that shouldn't make a difference, should it? Inspite of being from a pure science background, she could have been more open to the fact that research in social science is possible. She refused to believe that data in social science is generated by talking to people, by taking into account people's perceptions and relying on independent observations. Why else would it be called a 'social' science then? Her eyebrows were in danger of disappearing into her hair when I informed her that I generated primary data by interviewing people. Why else would it be called primary data?

She expressed extreme surprise, astonishment and dismissed my entire work because I spent only 21 days doing field work. How could I explain to her that I encountered conditions where I had to eat food infested with rat shit and cockroaches and that some nights I went without food as I was too disgusted to eat the crap anymore? But I am digressing here. Why does the number of days that I spend on field matter as long as I collect data that is reliable and proves my hypothesis right? It is immaterial whether I spend 10 days or 30 days. All the days of walking for 10 kms everyday for long hours in the sun boiled down to this. The quality of the time spent should matter and not the quantity.

She was also disbelieving of the fact that I conducted 50 interviews and that each interview consisted of nearly 200 closed and open ended questions. She expected me to list all the questions on the slides that I had prepared. Really now, come on!

According to her, I spending 21 days on field for my work is very less because a period of 6 months is granted to us. Just to make it clear- we are granted only 4 months out of which the major chunk is spent in conducting a literature review, working out and managing the logistics of the field visit, scheduling interviews, framing relevant questions to be included in the questionnaire and analysing data.

Another problematic area was the classification of my respondents. I had used the standard method of classification where respondents are grouped in categories based on the amount of land that they possess.

Large Farmers: >10 acres

Medium Farmers: 5-10 acres

Small Farmers: 0.01-5 acres

Herders

Landless

This is the protocol followed in my field of interest (watershed development). She said that this kind of classification is wrong because a farmer cannot be large, medium or small in the real sense. Really madam, your quibbling over semantics exposed your pettiness and your scientific approach. Pray,  where is the logic?

And it is not just about me. When another student gave her presentation, our HOD was disbelieving that Self Help Groups are formed by NGOs in areas where watershed development projects are carried out to bring the community together. Her ignorance can be forgiven but not her arrogance.

She was keen to drive home the point that conducting a thesis out of the University is an exercise in futility as students end up having a gala time outside their homes. Sorry, this did not hold true in majority of my classmates. We got an opportunity to step out of the hallowed precincts of our department and explore the world outside. Unfortunately she sees that as a waste of time and now has scrapped this system for our juniors who will be expected to conduct their projects under faculty (which is virtually non-existent and the few that are there are incompetent) who are all from the chemistry background. They will be expected to perfect their skills in titration, BOD and COD estimation, chromatography and the like. Now I don't have anything against laboratory work. I myself come from a pure science background and I just discovered my calling pulling me in another direction. But I believe that our HOD needs to wake and understand that research in pure science and social science is complementary to each other. Research is but not limited to sitting for long hours in the laboratory where one has to prepare chemicals and medium, autoclave and sterilize instruments, incubate microorganisms, etc. She dismissed the fields of anthropology, history and ethnography in a wave of her hand. She believes that what people say is not does not come under the realm of hard and verifiable facts. Of course she doesn't know that there are certain methods used in social science to verify what people say. Like I said, her ignorance can be forgiven.

To be fair, there was another evaluator who despite being an ecologist asked me fair and pertinent questions about my work. She was neither judgmental nor did she have any preconceived biases against the social sciences. She interrogated me in a way that could be called real defense. My close friend gave her presentation before mine in which the HOD was not present and even she had conducted her research in the domain of the social sciences. This evaluator was fair to her too and asked very pointed and relevant questions. 

This is not a personal vendetta against our HOD. It is just a ranting by a frustrated student who is caught is the grasp of people who come from a peculiar mindset that looks down upon the social sciences. It speaks volumes about the encouragement the department provides when people try to do something other than spending time in the closed and controlled conditions of the laboratory.

I will be giving a seminar shortly where I work and I believe that this will be where that I will be truly evaluated. The faculty here come from varied backgrounds but they are not dismissive about other fields. They listen and understand and encourage research from all fields. It is progressive while my department seems to be stepping into the middle ages with their initiatives of scrapping the policy of conducting projects outside Pune. She thinks that we have wasted our time having 'fun'. Stepping out of my department have opened up new avenues for me. I have learnt what it means to work in the field of academics and it was like a breath of fresh air after the unnecessary hurdles of slow and lumbering pace of work of our department.

And this wasn't true only for me. I being from a city decided to spend 4 months of my time someplace else all because of the opportunities that open up when one is out of one's comfort zone. There are some people in my class who come from rural Maharashtra and they worked in institutes like ISRO and it has done wonders for their confidence.

However, our HOD is quite determined to believe otherwise.

All is not all right in this world and the injustice rankles. I wish that I could proudly state that I have done my Masters from this department. But even I am determined to believe otherwise.

And so I rest my case.

Results

This is how my marksheet in my nightmare read:

Pollution- Logical

Environmental Economics-Emotional

GIS and Remote Sensing-Lachrymose

Statistics-Leering

Computers-Provisionally Passed

Practicals-********

I think my results might be in a few weeks time. I hope I pass. This nightmare  doesn't portend a very  promising result for me. I'm superstitious and these things unconsciously play at the back of the mind. I swear to God that I will really study the next time around. Anything to keep nightmares like these at bay.

Examination Woes

After three long years I will be giving exams for a fortnight. Biotechnology was pretty chilled out about exams. Three days, 80 marks papers and we would  be free. Now it's 5 papers, 50 marks each spread out over 10 days. It's a real bore. The breaks in between are the worst though this time around they seem welcome since my books still continue to be in a state of permanent rest. And I will be doing the honour of opening them only before each paper.

 

M.Sc has made me even more lazy.  I am not sure if it is because of the horrendous number of assignments that we are besotted with or is it due to the fact that we end up doing them only a night before the submission. I wonder where the time flies. The professors made us slog by giving us a schedule of 9 to 6 and before we knew it exams were bolting towards us faster that Usain Bolt.

Tomorrow are the practical exams and I have just skimmed through reluctantly. The laziness lingers. Here's hoping that I won't have any serious repercussions tomorrow.

little BOY BEGGAR

Begging is to request a donation in a supplicating manner. Beggars are commonly found in public places such as street corners or public transport, where they request money, most commonly in the form of spare change.

This particular beggar that I encountered was a 7 year old, filthily attired in torn clothes, unkempt hair...the usual normal child beggar we spot everywhere. A small 4 year old child clutched his hand and kept up a continuous wail. He was obviously his brother. I had just halted at the Pulgate Signal due to the red signal. As more and more vehicles accumulated at the signal, the elder beggar child jumped into action. He half-dragged, half-pulled his brother towards the vehicles.

They hurried off to a Toyota Innova. The two men sitting inside recoiled at the sight of them. The beggars pounded on the door and window of the car, they tried to open the door and both set up a shrill cry. The man in the car unrolled the window, at least one part of the battle was won by the beggars.

The man then surreptitiously removed a coin from nowhere and fingered it in his fingers. The beggars hadn't seen this and had by that time increased the volume of their shrill. It was pounding my ears though I was with my helmet on. The man handed oven the coin to the boy and within a flash rolled over his window again.

The beggar thankfully received his coin and then stared at it for a very long time and then the scream that emanated from him surpassed all the previous screams. He now banged at the door of the car with an infuriating shriek that his kid brother was startled into silence. And then I realised the meaning of the scream. The coin which the man had handed over was a 50 paisa coin. All the boy's labour, was in the worth just 50 paisa. His tiny fists pummeled the window but the men inside did not relent. The little buy clutched the coin tightly in his hand, then opened his fist to look at it one last time and making sure that the men were looking at him he held it up and then with bitterness in his eyes he threw the coin down and then departed. The signal now turned green.

I can't yet figure out where my disgust should lie. With the men or with the beggar.

Are you going to a Wedding?

Going to weddings is one of the most toughest things to do- for me at least. It's like going to the battle without any arms and ammunition. The most dreaded things are

1) Aunties and Uncles pop over to you and ask ' Did you recognise me?' I have now decided just to grin and bob my head stupidly next time someone asks me this at a wedding. Maybe they'll get dazzled by my smile and forget their question.

2) Aunties and Uncles pop over and exclaim, "My God, how big you have become!" Well what do they expect? Am I supposed to remain 3 feet tall for the rest of my life? Babalog please try to understand, I'm a growing girl :)

3) When photographer gets set to click your picture the troublesome hair just then decides to lash up across your face and you are the only one looking like the evil witch.

4) The cameraman always ends up shooting when you are in embarrassing positions like picking your teeth, dropping food, piling your plate high with food or worse still-picking your nose. Shoot him for Goodness sake.

5) And then there are some dorks who will stare and smile at you from afar just waiting for a chance to hit on you. This is very very sleazy.

6) The restless aunties who can't seem to keep their mouths shut and will keep biting your ear off until you reciprocate in kind and then only to realise that you haven't an inkling as to who the auntie was in the 1st place. Feels undeniably goofy.

7) Having embarrassed myself with one auntie a couple of times I sincerely wished to avoid her the next time I saw her. I begged my sister out of desperation to pretend to be me. Thankfully the auntie didn't mention the incident, just greeted and passed on. Whew.

The 1st incident took place 6 years ago- Someone had called home and I had the misfortune to answer the phone. She asked to speak to my mother and I didn't bother asking the person on the phone who it was and I rudely said wrong number, mum doesn't want to speak to anyone and banged the phone down. A week later the same lady called up my mum and she turned put to be the AUNTY. What ensued was so not very good.

The 2nd incident took place 9 months ago. Auntie called asking to speak to my mother. But unfortunately for me, my mum was at her workplace. I told the auntie so. Then feeling that it would be polite on my part to make some polite conversation, I casually asked her, "How is Uncle?"

Auntie just paused for what seemed like an eternity and then heavily answered, " It's been 4 years since Uncle left this world beta." Oh shoot, I could have bitten my tongue right there and then. I apologised as sloppily as I could and kept the phone and went and fumed in my bed. How could I have asked such a question? When I told mum about this she was ready to whip me and my sister actually rolled on the floor laughing.

Now henceforth, I have decided to steer clear of this particular Auntie. It's dangerous territory.

Any ways coming back to the point-I like weddings, I love the people who are getting married, I love dressing up and going for weddings. I don't like what happens to me at weddings.

Pune Not Good

The holidays have come at a very inconvenient time. University had just begun and we were finally settling in with the schedule and within 3 weeks time Swine Flu struck and vacations were declared. Pune has come to a virtual stand-still. The entire student crowd is cooped up at home. The roads were a dismal and dull look. And the handful who are brave enough to step out have the green masks tied firmly around their faces. Everyone is frightened. The kids in my apartment don't go down to play anymore- the reason being one positive case among them.

And the gloominess coupled with the water cut that the city is once again facing. The prospects don't look very bright on the cards. The rains are heavy and intermittent but there is no rainfall in the catchment areas. The water levels in the dams continue to dip dip dip. Now the PMC decides that the time is ripe to dig 350 bore-wells. That's how much the city needs.

People are storing water in tanks and now a new demon is raising it's ugly head- Dengue. The stored water is becoming a perfect place for mosquitoes to breed.

People are dying everyday, the numbers are climbing, the clock is ticking.

What is going to happen next?

---- ---- ----- ---- ---- ---- ----

Yet again, another blast.

Yet again, lives lost in a senseless and mindless task.

Yet again, more bereavement.
Yet again, churned grief, anguish and torment.

Yet again, more cliched political commentary.
Yet again, a day for them (the fanatics) to make merry.

Yet again, time for political parties to raise their hackles.
Yet again, time for people to cry and wither behind shackles.

Yet again, more probes.
Yet again, lost hopes.

Yet again, another day. And yet again, another blast.
Tomorrow is another day. So yet again, another blast.