12 May 2004

Predisposed

Posted by krits in Hyderabad! | 1:35pm

Someone was mentioning early-morning GRE classes somewhere, and it brought on some particularly ‘fond’ memories.
I took up the above-mentioned sure shot to instant verbosity, with the long-term dream of traveling to distant shores and making a… well, making a damn good 2-year holiday of it! Needless to say, the word ‘career growth’ also came to mind while taking the plunge.
Anyways, so I signed up for this GRE class. (And that’s also because I had no intentioned of playing the role of ‘mathematics-dunce’ for much longer.) GRE comes with a certain opportunity to ‘build character’, as Calvin’s dad would put it.

It requires you to drag yourself out of bed at as early as 5.30 am, and you would think you would be well-rewarded for this ultimate sacrifice. Nopes, no such luck – the morning is as cruel as cruel can be.
The receptionist, who (to give him his due) is seated dutifully behind the impossible large desk at 6 am. You would think he would continue to play his part and cheerfully greet you a ‘good morning’ (whatever that means), and direct you to the pre- A/C-ed temple of education. Ha! The only word I ever managed to get out of him at that hour is a guttural threat, and a self-satisfied grin born out a dreamless-slumber.
Scene 2: You’re seated in a class which the sad innards of an A/C hang rusting on a wall, and the sad whirring of a table-fan that’s been forced to circulate air in a king-sized room.
After this particularly painful ordeal, you would think the faculty would provide some respite with their pearly-pearls of wisdom. Wisdom, you get, but with a forced lesson in the vernacular language (Read: Telugu). Nothing particularly wrong with that, except Maths does tend to sound a wee-bit weird when the intricacies of LCM and HCF are being explained with equally confusing concepts of Telugu grammar.
Scene 3: Lesson in Verbal skill: So, there was this teacher who came with all the meanings listed down in her exercise book, and any deviation from the ordinary was met with an ‘I’ll throw you out’ stare.
I was comfortably drifting in and out of a pleasant reverie, and had even managed to keep my eyes open for effect, when what she said bolted me out of the blue. Now, what would YOU do if you heard the lecturer say that ‘predisposed’ meant ‘disposing in advance’?
I’ve come to the conclusion that these are some of the ploys they use to wake students up at that hour, and trust me; they did a damn good job of it. And there ends the tale.



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