Naseeruddin  Shah’s book has been on my reading table this Feb week

 And  makes me write about my (PU) days when I was callow, dumb and meek

Naseeruddin Shah's memoir and my musings on PU Chandigarh

I am  reading Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah’s memoir ‘And Then One Day’ these days. It is an engrossing, charming book written with luminous honesty that Naseeruddin is known for. Among several interesting things, he writes about the AMU, Aligarh. And he paints a dim, unflattering picture in regard to its insularity, and general air of neglect and apathy in some respects. Reading that, I am reminded of my own days at the no less prestigious PU Chandigarh in the good old seventies, and find some resonance with him.

After having missed entry in Medical College Shimla by a whisker – for which I had no real regrets – I got admission in the PU’s zoology department. Looking at the beautiful, sprawling campus with neatly arrayed, grey, red-tiled buildings, lawns, water fountains, playgrounds, I was overwhelmed with joy. This is the place where my talents will blossom…where my worthy professors will ignite the spark of scientific quest and empower me with knowledge and learning…make me a scholar, an academic worthy of respect and admiration…What pure joy it would be to hear brilliant, thought-provoking lectures from them, and participate in steamy, stimulating discussions, debates and discourses to delve deeper into the mysteries, puzzles and wonders of biology... Thus would the cobwebs of my ignorance be removed from my poor rusty mind…Thus would the sunshine of scientific temper light up the dark recesses of my inner self and broaden my mental horizons to take on and embrace the whole world. With such fantasies flooding my mind, for a few days I walked the hallowed corridors of PU’s science departments with a sense of pride and exultation.

But my dream was short-lived.

As the classes commenced and we settled into a regular routine, my fantasy-world began to crumble; optimism began giving way to mounting disappointment with each passing day, week, month and year.

There we were: a batch of 30-some huddled in a classroom with boys and girls perched in distinctly separate clusters. Soon a grave, ponderous professor would enter with an old musty file tucked under his arm. He/She (mostly he) would open the file and on cue, in hushed silence, we would open our notebooks and pens and get (battle)-ready. Then there would follow a marathon, non-stop, 1-hour dictation from out of the mouldy, yellowing, dog-eared pages stashed in the file. Sometimes our aching, tired fingers failed to catch up with the professor’s  dull but fast paced drone. But who would dare ask him/ her to repeat the missed word or line? At times some words or sentences remained inaudible or improperly heard. But it didn’t matter…we had to march on doughtily, regardless. This went on class after class, teacher after teacher.

Classes over, we would tuck our note-books away in some corner of  a shelf in our hostel rooms. These were meant to be opened only at the time of house exams, and the final annuals in peak summer. Come exam days and sweating and fretting we sat long hours late into the nights in our fan-less rooms, mugging up a few select topics out of the many scribbled in our notebooks. It was sheer gamble, but if lucky, we found questions relating to the stuff learnt by rote in the question paper and belched it out feverishly on answer-sheet after answer-sheet.

That was how we were taught, trained, nourished and groomed as future zoologists at PU Chandigarh!

In the evenings, to get away from the day’s dull, uninspiring rigmarole, some of us wandered off either to the  theatres to watch Bollywood movies ('Rekhas' and 'Hema Malinis!) or to the sector 17 shopping complex to ogle at (only furtively and from a safe distance) buxom Sikhnis strolling about leisurely there, mostly accompanied by handsome brawny Sikh hunks. Another exciting diversion for some of us was to meander off to the arts blocks bubbling with life and energy with sprightly, vivacious ‘arts girls’ to ogle and salivate at - unlike the ponderous, introverted, reticent, glued-to-the-microscopes, romanceless girls of our science departments.

Naseeruddin Shah had at least the cigarette-smoking, 'feisty' lady-professor Zahida Zaidi in the English department at the AMU to recognize his latent talents and show him the way. Later he had an erudite teacher Ebrahim Alkazi (may his tribe increase) at the National School of Drama (NSD) to take him under his wing to inspire and guide him through. But sadly, I had none at any stage of my  formative, learning years.

But having said that, it would be very dishonest and unfair of me to lay the entire blame for my poor innings at PU on the teachers alone. Some of the blame must rest on me too for having been casual and careless about my classes with Epicurean tendencies having a greater sway over me than commitment to studies.

Be that as it may, when I came home with the degree under my arm, I had no clue at all where to go. And it was with great effort that I had to de- and re-learn zoology entirely on my own to pass muster as a teacher in a college later on, with a secret vow NEVER to replicate the follies of  vain worthies who (mis-) taught me at the university.

Perhaps I bored you with my personal outpouring above. Well, coming back to Naseeruddin’s book, if you like this genre of writing, which I personally find the most inspirational reading of all, I strongly recommend this gem of a memoir.

        

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