THE FIRST IMPRESSION

Shimoujo Badsatoo has at last achieved it; yea, he is appointed as a lecturer in the New Hope College in Kelligon district. It is a coeducation college and no male or female is admitted to it unless one passes the ‘beauty check’ ordeal. The founding fathers of the college felt that beauty matters a lot in every age and so handsome guys and girls should be brought to a place where they can freely exchange their looks and fall in love with each other in a dedicated manner. So, they subject all the applicants to a rigorous and unbiased test to decide the worth of their beauty to be admitted. So, somebody is studying in that degree college means he or she belongs to the category of ‘exceptional beauty’. Further, they strictly follow the norm of age range. The girls should be in the age range of 18-24 years and the boys between 20-26 years. They believe that this is the age at which one can really appreciate the concept of love and practice it seriously if possible. So, impressing such beautiful girls and guys is not an ordinary matter as such. Badsatoo pursued a bit of Google Search and understood that majority of the students of that college are very intelligent. Above all, he sincerely believes in the saying ‘the first impression is the best impression’ and mostly tries to uphold it in his personal or professional life. He wanted to greatly impress the students with his first lecture itself. He began to speak extempore in the classroom on the first day of his professional feelings and impulses. The following is the speech noted down by a student (he is good at shorthand) in the classroom. I too copied it into my long notebook to use it in future if need be.

Dear students,

Many laugh at the mistakes committed by a lecturer while in the classroom and working with the blackboard. Remember that it is easy to laugh at others but very difficult to face it while we are being laughed at. I hope you remain good students forgiving me if I commit mistakes in my teaching. By this I do not mean that you should not question me when I am teaching something wrong but that you can do the same in a peaceful and polite manner. For example, there is much difference between, “sir, don’t you think what you have done is wrong” and “you are wrong”. A teacher can use the latter toward his students but the opposite makes the teacher uneasy and tense and that is what I want to make you aware of. I mean I am a sensitive person and I request you to be a bit kind toward me in such circumstances where you get a great chance to ridicule my small mistake. To err is human. I hope you are very disciplined and decent students and I appreciate if you remain so even in my class.

Don’t think that I got this job just like that. I was subjected to severe phases of selection process and I spent about one month attending all those rounds of tests and demos. Further, they strictly warned me in the final interview, “Mind you, beauty is something you can see and enjoy and serious problems arise when you try to acquire it in some fair or foul means. Particularly we do not entertain such acts from our faculty when they direct such things toward our students. Don’t develop any personal attachments with our students and strictly be an ideal fellow to go out of this college as an experienced lecturer one day. The experience certificate issued by our college matters a lot in your latter life and so keep your present life within limits”. So, I am not going to mind how you look but what I am doing as a lecturer to satisfy my professional and personal pride.

The management of this college has further clarified me that students over here are encouraged to fall in love and marry the beloved ones without any inhibitions and apprehensions. I wondered to know that they have special tie-ups with banks to see that large amounts of loans are sanctioned to the ones that succeed in their love affairs and intend to settle down in their lives soon after their marriages. So, mutual love and marriages among the students are greatly encouraged here and I felt very happy to know that liberalism and idealism are practically being implemented here. I may not have love marriage for my fate is like that but I can’t help appreciating such lucky ones that get united via that heavenly and dreamy route. I feel lucky in this sense to teach such students who are modern in their attitudes also choosing their life partners unlike many other students in this nation who take most of their decisions in consultation with their parents lacking any challenge or pride on their part as ‘independent’ individuals.

I am supposed to teach economics. Micro and macro are two words that you frequently come across in this subject. Micro is this college upholding the ideal concept, ‘love and marry and forget the rest for it gets adjusted automatically once you have completed the brave act’. Macro is this nation which represents the practical reality of ‘anybody can love many but only few can marry the chosen one for majority fear tradition and culture which are not that strong and ideal if one checks them with a rational and broad outlook’. So, there is much difference between the two concepts. We should always try to choose the best features of the two and see if we can form a new one that looks better than the two from which it was really born. The best example is the present politics. Major political parties conflict among themselves during the elections and give scope to the smaller ones to reach such a commanding position where the big can’t help listening and following what the small say. Coalition governments at the center and state are the visible examples.

I am a strict formalist and I greatly admire and practice punctuality. So, whether you listen to me or not is not important to me but am I teaching or not is important. So, even though there is not a single student in my class, I deliver my lecture during my allotted time. I simply imagine that there are thousands of listeners before me attentively listening to my scholarly words on the scheduled topic. This is how I improve my professional skills. At the same time, I don’t like to criticize you being jealous of your love affairs and the related developments in the premises of our spacious college and other lover parks situated around. Further, I try to console myself now and then saying to myself, ‘cool down man! Everything will be all right. A day would certainly come in your life when all the students listen to your lecture. Perseverance is what you need to inculcate in this profession’.

I don’t like using a textbook while discussing a topic and I don’t mind if you keep one with you to crosscheck and alert me if I am going wrong. Checks and balances are necessary in every field. I don’t like to boast of myself saying that I have studied in so and so great colleges and universities. I have read what I was supposed to as part of my studies and I will teach you only that much which you really need at this level of learning. I don’t say that those that never sit in my classroom are foolish and waste fellows but that they may become great people one day when all the people listen to them without any questions or doubts for their words don’t encourage such responsive developments. Sometimes your physical presence in the classroom matters a lot to me though I clearly know that you are not paying any attention to my lecture. As a contemporary human being, having acquired a bit of general knowledge through books and mutual interaction with fellow human beings, I am aware of the fact that the present college students have many tensions and fears as lovers or beloved ones in carrying out their responsibilities as faithful and reliable individuals. So, just act that you are listening to me. It can encourage me a lot for I am very good at self-motivation for I pursued research for five years on the theme of ‘challenges in door-to-door marketing’.

Before concluding, let me be frank to you that I try to like you as you are for the modernity demands it from the liberal ones and because I like to be one. I don’t expect that all of you change all of a sudden to please me. I know that habit formation and the related human behavior rarely change. All I want is that you do anything silently and decently. By this I mean you sit silently in the classroom, you enter the classroom silently, you leave the classroom silently whenever you like without bothering yourself to take any permission from me for that, and you pursue your authorized activities of mutual admiration silently in any place and at any point of time you may find suitable or appreciable and that you don’t expect silence on my part for it is a bad trend when considered in any perspective.

From tomorrow onwards, our actual teaching session follows.

Datla Chiranjeevi Raju