My Last Day at IIT Madras
I had a first hour class, starting at eight. With the help of the alarm on the cell phone clock, I got up at 6.30, made myself some tea. Mukta had not slept well. She was reading some Hindi book in the drawing room. I took my tea and joined her. Don’t begin reading / writing, she said, if you have to be in class at eight. As if I did not know. I let that pass. We had some conversation, mainly regarding the forthcoming wedding in the family. Mukta wanted me to drink my tea faster. Tell me how, I wanted to ask her, but then I let that pass too. Washed, muttered some mantras, lighted an incense stick, got into some starched clothes that Mukta had in the meanwhile laid out, had no time for breakfast, took a few brickbats from Mukta, returned a few, and without waiting for more took my bicycle and was in the class within a few minutes past eight. As Lord Mountbatten said, too much insistence on punctuality can be a fetish. It is not that learning, ...