While I was in Siliguri, I had made a call to the Bengal ASM from a PCO informing him of my progress. After making the call, I proceeded to the market only to realize a couple of minutes later that I had forgotten my diary at the shop. When I came back to the shop, the PCO owner was on the phone and returned the diary to me once the call was over. "That call was for you - the person you had called wanted to know the location of this PCO," he said as he handed me the diary. To crosscheck my claims, I thought. I felt absolutely infuriated. When I had sought his help on the buses from Asansol to Siliguri, the ASM hadn't had time and here he was playing Sherlock Holmes. Obviously, he was doing this on Vivek's behalf, and I felt completely betrayed. I consoled myself that as soon as this was over I would never set foot in an FMCG firm again.

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To me such a system was unacceptable. I wanted to screw the curve. I believed I was above it purely because it was just another human creation. To me the curve was important as a hawai chappal (bathroom slipper). Just like a hawai chappal, a human creation, is used when needed and then shown its place in the rack, similar treatment ought to be offered to the normal curve. I, The Shekhar Verma, carried this belief. On campus, everyone was a number. The students had come to despise the system within 3 months. Just spare a thought for the professors.

They lived on the campus with their families and were a part of an even worse quagmire for an even longer duration. They came to classes, taught their papers and went back. The students also looked at them as full-credit or half-credit entities. A half-credit professor got half the respect as that of a full-credit one. And this respect was limited to the term in which they were teaching the paper. Thus, it wasn't respect. It was just a business relationship. One batch came, one went, then another, and another, the professors remained there, seeing the same things happening to a new set of students.

The other problem was their "friend circle". Having lived in a sarkari colony where most of the residents were dad's fellow officers, I knew the horrible mess implied by such a lifestyle. The professors were in a similar soup. They lived on campus with their families and their friends were families of fellow professors. The problem with such a setup is that the rank always defines the relationship. If you are a guy who walks up to his buddies and says "Saale, kya haal hain tere?" then this lifestyle is not for you. You have to talk to your "friend" keeping in mind whether he's a senior professor, a junior professor, someone with a higher pay-scale and so on. A basic minimum degree of political correctness is mandatory. It can be stifling if you are subject to it for a long duration.

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