We would have come across quite a lot of teachers/lecturers who were very good and kind, some torturers ("LEC-tor-TURERS" as some of my friends called them) , some very strict and some "damn cool". Apart from these categories, i've a special one called "the rare bunch of weirdos". ;)

In PU, there was this chem lecturer called S.Y (for simplicity purposes i shall only use their initials ;) ) who spoke the typical "urdu" accented English. And yeah, she was a part of all those jokes like "princy just 'passed away'... both of the two of you get out of the class... open the windows, let the atmosphere come in(when in chem lab)..." etc... Now coming to the weird thing about her... She was so much inclined to the college that i always felt, "the college" was her first home... The staff room was her sleeping room, the chem lab was her kitchen. Believe it or not, every afternoon she used to make egg omlets and tea using the "bunsen burner" in the lab!!!! I guess she even carried them back home to feed her husband and children... :P I still wonder if my princy, ever found out about this.

The next was our comp sci lecturer. It was the 1st time tht PCMCs was introduced in my college. We had atleast 4-5 lecturers for our 1st year who handled computer science. The 1st and the last were the weirdos in this case. The 1st guy was a "hi-tech" guy who always talked about internet, video conferencing, virtual classrooms etc etc. He made sure he always prefixed an "e" to almost every word he spoke. Like e-class, e-lab, e-exams etc.. So there was this "e-guy" who apparently thought we were all "born e-kids". The fact was that there were students who hardly had worked in a computer and let alone used or even heard about internet. (Well this e-thing has a connection with another chem lecturer about whom i will talk about shortly). He always insisted on e-classrooms every saturdays and we make the e-notes for which purpose he made us create e-mail ids and distributed floppies. Once all this setup was done, the lecturer absconded.. :-S

Now about the 4th lecturer. The guy was a youngster, supposedly smart and handsome to look at and lasted the longest of all other comp sci lecturers (arnd 5-6 months). Gals from other sections went gaga about this Dino Morea look-alike and used to literally gather outside our classrom just to have a glimpse of him. The corridors echoed his name. Ask any gal about the whereabouts of this guy, they were all eagerly ready to tell you. I wonder how they did that as the coll was very rigid in terms of attendance. Without bunking classes, gathering info about him was astonishing. I suspect if they were into some kind of espionage deal with someone... :P There was also a rumour those days that a gal in the neighbouring class ditch her BF for this guy. You might be wondering whats so weird about this. Well, its the fact that this guy always wore the same "grass green T-shirt" daily for 6 long months!!! (Like a self imposed rule of being in an uniform) And the gals................................................. ONLY GREW FONDER OF HIM!!! :(

This is a lady/woman lecturer in chem dept called MG, a north indian basically and the only lecturer who had a Dr. prefix to her name. The first time i saw her, i thought she was someone who did "black magic" as she had a tall bulky appearance with heavily made eyebrows and eyelashes and a maroon colored round bindi with diameter as long as 5cm and highly curled hair which she often let loose and a bright red glaring lipstick. Unlike all other lecturers she followed a technique for teaching. As soon as she entered the class, she made it a point to deliver an introductory note - "We are all friends. I am here to help you. Feel free to approach me anytime". Since she had a Ph.D to her name, she was the next contender for the "princy's post". She firmly believed that "north indian english is different from e-south indian english". Now, here comes the e-connection. ;) As i told you she followed a technique in her lectures. She first dictated notes, made one of us stand up and read it aloud and ask if the rest understood. If we said yes, that was the end of the story and if you said no, then she made the person who said "no" to re-read it till he/she said yes. Now coming to the dictation part of it and the e-connection. Her dictation would sound something like this - "The e-stationary e-states are the different e-states to which the atoms transit to when excited. The highest e-state is level 4 and the lowest e-state is level 0". The fundu here was the she always pronounced those words starting with an "s" with the sound of "e". And since we never bought text books in 1st PU and relied entirely on the lectures delivered, what we wrote down was something like this - "the estationary estates.... " some even wrote - "is-stationary is-states.." and what not... It took about a month to realize what it actually was when we had to prepare for our 1st class test. Then on, students started mimicking her, teasing her so badly that she changed her introductory note to - "I know each one of you. Looking at your faces i can tell about your fathers and mothers (notice the plural there), your pasts and presents and i will decide your futures. Don't act too e-smart with me." :) :)

To be continued......