Research in India ! …. Part 3

So here I am again lambasting the way research is done in India. If you haven’t seen part 1 and 2 please find the links below. I assure you, you will be totally on the floor laughing at how amazing research is done in exceptional India !

The following anecdote, although not experienced first hand, totally blew my mind away and left me in titters. It is about a deemed faculty from a prominent  German University. The person in question is actually Indian born (Benaras)  and spent the better part of his life doing protein related research in Germany. Thus he arrived in our deemed Indian university to give a lecture on how they had discovered a novel software method to make predictions of protein functions etc. An email had been circulating for the week leading up to the lecture – so I was kind of waiting to hear the guy.

Unfortunately on D-Day, one of my friends came over and we decided to do nothing and just chill around. I met him at the university and had a few cups of coffee, spending the bright sunny winter afternoon  in a park. In the course of our “doing nothing” I decided I should just snick in and give my ear to the deemed German faculty. So both of us headed back to the department and entered a small conference room – the venue for the lecture. We sat there for about fifteen minutes, trying to understand the guy – but failed. Having gotten totally bored we quietly excused ourselves and left for the park.

A few days later I met one of my research colleagues on the lawn and the topic veered towards the aforementioned lecture. He was the one who had been assigned to “help out the gentleman from Germany” and proceeded to tell me the whole story. From here on is his account, with him referred to as P and the visiting faculty as Prof G.

When the honorable Prof G came to our university, the first thing he asked for in chaste English, was a Prof R of our university. Since R was unavailable, he then wanted to meet one of R’s students. However even that was not possible – so he, a little irritatedly, asked to be shown to conference room.

The conference room is a small affair with a heavily virus infected PC connected to a projector. Prof  G had his own laptop so he went ahead and started connecting it. P stood looking, trying to look as dumb as possible – so that he wouldn’t have to break his brains over the projector setup. After connecting his laptop and switching on “everything”, there was still no “light”. So Prof G looked at P and said “Is this thing working?”.

P replied “I think so … ” and kept quite. For the next few minutes Prof G and P fought with the projector and got it working. After this Prof G asked for some water, and P came back with about a glass full of water. His language had changed from English to native Hindi by now. Since we are having a “water problem” in the department, Prof G was told that this was about as much he would get in the next few hours. After drinking the water Prof G wanted to go the toilet.

P let him to the toilet and again reminded him that we have a “water problem”. So Prof G asked for an alternative in a belligerent tone – using “tum” to address P. “Tum” which is pronounced as toom, was the familiar way of addressing people in Hindi. P told him about the locations of the various other toilets in the department and left him to decide his next course of action. After which Prof G for the next few minutes tried the other three toilets, but his luck had run out and so had the water.

P met Prof G again a few minutes later – quite worked up and desperately needing to go to the loo. Now he was frantically asking P questions, starting them with “aap” which was the formal and respectful way of addressing people in India. P told him another option – “There is a toilet in the hostel which always has water, but it is a fifteen minute walk”  . Prof  G tried to follow him to the hostel but about twenty meters from starting point decided that he would not make it !

By this time the situation was really bad. At this point the gardener came and started watering the rose bushes in the lawn. P had an idea. He told Prof G that if he did not mind “gardening water’ he could use a bucket in the toilet to help himself. At this point Prof G was desperate enough to try “anything”, so he rushed to the toilet got the bucket and filled it with water from the gardening hose. He was back in the toilet in no time and stayed there for the next half hour !

Afterwards P met Prof G at the conference room looking quite relieved. He continued with his lecture – of which I had managed to witness fifteen boring minutes.

After P told this amazing tale of the Prof G’s woes – I wondered. I wondered if there was one good reason why any Indian born faculty would like to come back here to teach in our universities. Probably the next time Prof G came he would bring a water tanker in tow !