India’s burning summer is now upon us. Our brains are addled. New thoughts and significant
political alliances are taking place. Students of political science are puzzled at the inroads made by new political terms like fair-weather friends. V GANGADHAR, in a study mood, goes researching and comes across this new species of friends.
We Indians know of the saying everything comes to him who waits. During the past week, the most important visitor to India was Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seldom available in India (touring foreign nations), Mr Bach had to wait for six months to seek an appointment with Modi.
The peak of summer often coincides with the peak summer heat. As May dawns we are into yet another burning summer hell. We sweat all the time, our clothes cling to our bodies all the time, our throats are parched and all we long for are gusts of breeze from the Arabian Sea. In this hellish summer weather, some are more fortunate and others are not so. We have to pity students of Mumbai University, who, even this blinding heat and hellish humidity had to cram their books. Yes, the university examinations are not yet over.
Normally, the university examinations should be over by the end of April. But we live in unusual times. The examination cycle goes on and on due to various reasons. Wrong sets of question papers are distributed to students, dates and timings are mixed up, examiners set questions which are not included in the syllabus, questions for most of the examinations leak and re-exams are routine. Added to these problems, strange words and phrases are used in the questions papers which puzzle ever the brightest students.
The university is helpless. It blames the paper setters who blame the system which blames everyone for not taking adequate precautions in the holding of examinations. Two young students of Political Science had just completed their TYBA ‘Political Science and come out looking depressed. Let us listen to their conversation:
“Terrible, yaar! I could not attempt the 10 mark question on ‘Fair-Weather Friends’. Was it a full question of just a short notes one? Terrible, confusing questions. Paper after paper follows the same pattern. What was your answer for this question?”
“You are right! As usual, I did not study any of the prescribed texts for this paper but read the market guide for Political Science. None of them contained the word, ‘Fair-Feather Friend’. Then a thought struck me. Was it included wrongly in this paper? Perhaps it was meant for some Industrial Metereology paper. I argued with the guy who was supervising in our hall. Created a ruckus and he went on fumbling for an answer. Most probably we will some 6 0r 7 grace marks for this question. That will be okay with me.”
The twosome were joined by some of their friends and continued to discuss the issue. One of them, who had appeared for the BMM (advertising) thought over the question. “Look, this query should not be in the Political Science paper. It is meant for us, the BMM (advertising). Now that the monsoon is due from next four month and we can expect rains, who is your fair-weather’ friend? The Umbrella! We can be asked to write a catchy slogan on the umbrella being our best fair-weather friend. I checked with my ‘Sir’ who agreed with me.”
“I guess so,” agreed the Political Science student. “Let me think of a logical slogan “Stick to ‘Hathi brand Umbrella/ Make it your fair-weather friend’ Damn good, know. Even with a BA in political science, I could branch out to be a master copywriter!”
(V Gangadhar writes satire, a special form of humour. Incidents and anecdotes in his column are purely imaginary)
