Scumbag Teachers!

A part of growing up is realizing that your high-school teachers were about just as good you are ever going to get. A teacher is supposed to be a person who knows more than you, is humble despite knowing he can f*** you over whenever he/she wants (just because you can, doesn’t mean you should), and mentors you towards greater excellence. Alas, if things were as they were supposed to be, the world would be a very, very different place.

I study in a college, supposedly one of the premier institutions in the country, and yet a professor/lecturer’s definition for me is, ‘A psychotic narcissist with the knowledge of a retard and an inflated ego, built upon some forged degree or some below-the-table-cash-exchange!’ Only two kinds of people become teachers – ones who want to pass on their knowledge to the next generation, and ones who could not find a better job. I must clarify that I have met some great and honorable teachers throughout my life, but sadly the ratio is infinitesimally small.

I am confident that I am not alone, and you feel the same. Anyway, let me give you some examples of the kind of teachers I have come across in my life:

1) A female teacher in her thirties walked into our classroom, looked straight at an innocent student, and howled at him to leave the class. When he politely asked what the problem was, she claimed that, ‘I don’t like your face!’

2) In our first year, students asked the Physics teacher to explain the question. He gave it a try, recited loudly the first two lines, and forgot the rest of the question (four more lines). He casually said OK and proceeded to the next topic. How does Ghajini get a job as a teacher, I have no fricking idea!

3) We reached our first lab of the semester at 9.01 am, late my one goddamn minute. The teacher proceeded to abuse us, calling adjectives like, ‘rascals, shameless bloody fools etc’, comparing us to Kalmadi and Raja, and continued on with his shit for an hour. And, at the end, blamed us for wasting his one precious hour!

4) Someone who looked like he had just come out of a gutter and was checking engineering drawing sheets by comparing them to a printout, bellowed at me for drawing a full circle instead of a quarter circle, like in his printout. He then accused me of cheating, by comparing my sketches and said, ‘Tumhare circles match nahi ho rahe!’ OMG! I had heard of handwriting recognition, but this guy is a genius, he can compare circles! WOW!

5) I once happened to enter a lab, when a teacher was checking some answer papers. He looked down at the paper, spoke ‘Who will read all these paragraphs?’, struck a line through the page, put 1/20 as the marks, and threw it away in disgust. You are supposed to read all those paragraphs, it’s your job, you moron!

No, this is not a History paper. It's a B-Tech Question Paper. Seriously, WTF?

6) A History teacher came to our class, and taught us ‘The Revolt of 1857’, dictating the ‘impacts, causes etc’. A week later, he taught us the whole thing again, and told us new totally different impacts, causes. When asked about the discrepancy, he causally said, ‘Forget the last points.’ He did this again at least three times, each time assuring, ‘Forget the last points’. The weird part is that no two points ever matched.

7) I knew a lecturer, who when teaching the subject would speak at 0.00001 decibel, and yet when giving us shit for not being quiet to hear his lecture would raise it to 999999 decibels. He would often receive phone calls in the middle of the class, and switch on the speakerphone and howl at the top of his voice, ‘Haan, aaloo pyaaz le aunga main!’

8) Once, a mathematics teacher came to our class for substitution, and asked us if we had any doubts about the subject. We asked a question, being the smart-asses that we were. He said, ‘Trying to test me, eh? But, wait and watch. I will solve this question.’ As luck would have it, he couldn’t, even after our hints and support.

9) Giving us a lecture on binary digits, a professor caught a boy staring out of the window. He proclaimed that he had eyes even at the back of his head, and could watch every single one of the seventy students in the class all at the same time. Meanwhile, I snacked on a sandwich, seated on the first bench, right below his nose.

While we are on the topic, I think invigilators are morons! Often heard saying clichéd one liners in high-pitched voice as running commentary, while snacking on samosas and garam chai–

# Don’t write anything on the question paper. (If we knew something worth writing, wouldn’t we just write on our answer sheets? It is empty, for Christ’s sake.)

# Don’t keep mobile phones with you. (Come on, man. My imaginary girlfriend might call.)

# Sign the attendance sheet. SIGN THE ATTENDANCE SHEET! (Dude, we are trying to concentrate here.)

# 5 minutes left. 4minutes left now. 3 minutes…..(We get it, you can count. Now STFU!)

Haven’t you ever come across such jerks? If yes, I share your pain, and you share mine.

PS: A curious reader claimed that this post was ‘exaggerated, albeit funny and worth a read’. I must state that all events mentioned here are true to the word, except a couple of fine details here and there.

This article was also published at The Indian Fusion.