Subra Times – 2nd Edition

Prof Subra (PS) is teaching in class when suddenly someone’s mobile phone rings. Here is PS’s reaction: “Arey … gaane bajaao yaar … aur mazaa aayega … yeh kya puraane ringtone bajaate rehte ho … kuch nayaa download karo naa …. kajraare kajraare mere kaare kaare naina” (roughly translated into English: play some songs dude … it will be more fun … why do you have these old ringtones …. download something new … like the song kajraare kajraare ….)

************ End of 2nd edition of Subra Times ***********************

I had to attend today’s MO lecture with another section (Section C) because of some other ELP (project) related commitments during the time our lecture was scheduled to happen today. Every section here has these CP kings and queens who are renowned for their class participation. Had heard a lot about some people in section C. Got to experience them first hand today. But I still think nobody can beat our section in the time spent in discussions in class, be it in useful ones or not.

There is this course called SAIT (Strategic Analysis of Information Technology) this term where the prof has a very minimal role to play. Most of the lecture time goes in seeing fellow classmates doing presentations on topics allotted to them. As soon as a presentation ends, some 70 hands shoot up in the air to ask questions. You might think – “wow …. how interested people are in what is going on”. Well … this might be true to some extent with some people … but the majority are just asking questions because there is a TA sitting there who puts a tick mark against their name if they just speak something in class without giving a shit as to whether it is relevant to the discussion happening and whether at all there is any value addition to the class. These tick marks count to a big chunk of the total marks allocated to the course. Its pathetic to see some people do such silly things just for the sake of some additional marks. There are of course some who are really impressive when they speak and almost always add something new to the discussion or ask some very relevant questions. One such person is Y. The two questions he asked in last lecture of GSB were really good and were not the ones that would come to anyone’s mind on just listening to the topic in discussion.

Prof. Tina Dacin, who is teaching us MO this term is very humorous. Here is an incident that happened in the class with Section C today …..

Prof: What do you think might be some reasons people might be uncomfortable with having power?
N(student): With power comes responsibility ….
Prof: Oh … so you have seen “Spiderman 2” !!

(In Spiderman 2, Uncle Ben tells Peter Parker, the spiderman – “With great power comes great responsibility”)