WITTY PROFESSORS

There were the Tamil professors who spoke only in English, and the professors of English who were at home only in Tamil.

In my student and teaching days in college I came across many types of professors. Some had a dazzling way with words, which sometimes concealed their inadequacy in their subjects. There were others who had mastered their subjects, but were often stuck for words. There were the Tamil professors who spoke only in English, and the professors of English who were at home only in Tamil.

Satiric wit


But then there were the witty professors who elicited helpless laughter wherever they were, either inside or outside the classroom. Prof. Bennett Albert of Madras Christian College was one of the wittiest professors I knew. He said very funny things with a very serious expression. He usually taught prose, and was particularly good when dealing with the English satirists.

Once while lecturing on Jonathan Swift, he referred to an incident where Swift broke up with his fianc饠who had written a hostile letter to him. Swift goes to her house with the letter, and then in the words of Prof. Albert: "He flung the letter in her face, flung a furious glance at her, and flung himself out of the room." This was said with a grim look, but when the class burst out laughing Bennett permitted himself a small smile.

One day, after I had joined the staff, Bennett and I were standing just outside the faculty room and chatting. The professors in MCC those days were always casually dressed. Bennett wore baggy white trousers with an unusually high waist. I was in a slack shirt and cotton trousers.

Another young lecturer, Abraham Eraly, came towards us in an immaculately tailored suit and a tie. Bennett's eyebrows jerked up in surprise. "Just an attempt to conceal my mediocrity, Sir" said Eraly. "Young man, I hope you will succeed," said Bennett, deadpan.

The humour of Prof. Chandran Devanesan was of a different type. He was a bon vivant, and enjoyed life thoroughly. He wrote the Bishop Heber Hall song. (If you want to marry, My darling, and to marry well/ stick to a Heber lad and send the rest to hell) Chandran Devanesan had an M.A. degree from Cambridge. (He later got a Ph.D. from Harvard). One day he was holding forth in the staff tiffin room. "In Cambridge they don't sit and value papers. The professor piles up all the answer books on top of a staircase and aims a mighty kick at them. The papers that go all the way to the bottom of the stairs get first class, those in the middle second class. And those that don't move from the top get fail marks."

Professor Gift Siromoney winked broadly at us and said, "So that's how they get degrees from Cambridge!" "That is only at the undergraduate level," said Devanesan with a mock huffiness.

Quick-wittedness


Prof. R. Suriyanarayanan (RS) taught us Physics in the American College. He was always dressed in freshly laundered white jibba and dhoti. He made Physics very simple and digestible.

One day while he was teaching us Dynamics, he turned to the blackboard and started writing some formulae. A student from one of the back rows let off a paper arrow that soared over us and hit the blackboard very close to the professor's head. RS bent down and picked up the arrow, and the class became tense. He held the arrow in his hand and faced the class. There was pin-drop silence.

And then he said: "If this arrow left that gentleman's hands with an initial velocity,

`u' and reached the board with a final velocity, `v', then v2 - u2 = 2as. The class burst into relieved laughter. I never studied Physics after that, but I still remember that formula.

All these witty professors are no more. One can't help feeling that a little bit of light and laughter went out of this world with them.







J. VASANTHAN