Tuesday, November 09, 2010

I cannot stop laughing...you will see why. 
Exams have begun in earnest and everyday, one sees children and older part-time students hogging private space all over the campus and pouring over their books. 
One must know that ever since a set of students, caught for malpractice, were punished by having to appear for the entire set of exams, students have been quite cautious about indulging in malpractice. 
However, things took a serious turn at one of the halls where our part-time students were giving their exams. Invigilators were quite busy, castor-oiled eyeballs nearly popping out from trying to find if there were students copying. Suddenly, two professors of the institution on squad duty, descended upon the candidates like the fury of Hades. They turned hall tickets, id cards and wallets, inside out, with the precision of a computer. One of them seemed to magnetically draw out 'bits' from shirt sleeves, pockets and even wallets, where 100 and 500 rupee notes had entire processes and equations crammed into the small spaces available. Invigilators watched in open mouthed awe at the uncanny ability of the Professor to spot out the violators. And, funnily enough, when all this going on, one of the older candidates, quietly folded his answer booklet and scooted out of the hall, like he had the Furies at his tail. I still wonder why he did that! 
There were requests to the Professor to  offer a workshop on how to spot out violators and to draw out the bits from the likely hiding spaces. He calmly revealed that only experience and a sharp eye to observe body language were needed.
The humour was a nice little distraction from the mundane and terribly tiring duty of invigilation.

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