Bangalore University is my Alma Mater. I studied from PUC to BA in one of the evening colleges affiliated to it (from 6 pm to 9 pm, often without classes!), and did my MA in the Central College (again from 6 pm to 9 pm, often without classes!!), which is part of the University. For doing my Ph D, I was on the distant University campus from 1978 to 1981 (I first did my M Phil, the first M Phil course the Department introduced with the best of intentions, under some UGC scheme of Faculty Improvement Programme, and I was the only non-teacher student among experienced teachers from various UG colleges).
The University has a sprawling campus, with all facilities, especially spacious quarters for the faculty. In the scenic Bangalore, the University looks very beautiful in star-lit nights, with a lot lighting above, and lush and lovely greenery below.
I was on a UGC Fellowship for doing my Ph D, and having resigned my job for doing Ph D, my Fellowship (a meagre amount then!) was the only means I had to sustain my family (then mother and sisters). I did well in my M Phil, and was probably the first. As I was about to start my fieldwork my Ph D Supervisor, a highly understanding and amiable person, left for the U.S. for one year, though some of his colleagues were very friendly and helpful to me in his absence.
As I went for my fieldwork, I had a terribly bad experience with the University. I had a letter from a friend (who by then was appointed as Lecturer in the University) that the University had withheld my Fellowship as I had registered for two courses (M Phil and Ph D). Withholding my Fellowship was administrative decision arbitrarily taken by some blockhead without any basis. As my family and I were surviving on this Fellowship, I took up the matter with the UGC directly, first through a telegram, and then a detailed letter.
The UGC was prompt in its response. If my understanding is correct, it admonished the University for withholding my Fellowship without its knowledge and consent, said the University should not have done so as Fellowship is essentially a subsistence allowance, and stated that since M Phil is the first step to Ph D, the first research degree, there is no need to treat it as a separate course. The UGC directed the University to pay me all my arrears immediately. This was some kind of loss of face to the person who stopped my Fellowship, one Superintendent, whom I characterised as “blockhead” earlier.
Though I was in the University for about four and a half years for my M Phil and Ph D combined, apart from the staff of the department where I was pursuing my studies, some friends in one or two other departments and in the library, I found the University’s ambience highly un-academic and even hostile.
It was very difficult to deal with the administration where I had to go to get my bus pass, my Fellowship, and other related things. It was a kind of crude and cruel
manifestation of a bureaucracy, which is inconceivable in a University setup.
When I was about to submit my Ph thesis, a job was waiting for me in a far off place. As the institution gave me an ultimatum to join, my Guide advised me to leave the
completed chapters with a reliable person, along with all the formalities, which I have to complete in a thesis, and send him the remaining chapters by post. I did this, and left for my first destination to get my foothold in
academic profession.
To my relief, its Chairman, (who is no more, and who, if my understanding is correct, bequeathed his body to a nearby college for anatomical research, which is rather unusual in Indian conditions, and was some variant of what, again if I remember right, a philosopher said in his
Will, I bequest my body to the earth, my soul to the heaven, and my writings to the posterity). As I had no accommodation, and the institution had two guest rooms of which one was the resident of its Chairman (the founder of the institution), I was in the next room.
I borrowed his portable typewriter and started typing the Introduction and Conclusion of the thesis, which alone were remaining for completion.
I was a good typist, used to type very fast, and was then known as AK-47 (though I still have a portable typewriter, after my continuous use of computer for about 15 years or so, I am not in a position to use it now).
With a sense of humour and with his old-age pranks, he used to suddenly peep into my room and say, “I have asked so and so not to give you any tea today”, and ten minutes later, I will get a nice, steaming cup of tea. Occasionally he used to peep in just to “complain” (in a lighter vein) that “you don’t allow me rest and sleep, when you stop your “non-stop typing, you start your “non-stop sneezing”: I was then indeed a non-stop sneezer because of allergy and sinusitis and I sneeze unusually loudly! I do this now also when I have occasional ''attacks'').
The above digression from the University has a purpose A small institution could accommodate a stranger as its employee, and treat him well, whereas a much bigger
institution, the University, was blocking his growth. Not that the former was a paragon of perfection. It has had, and it still has its limitations; but that is endemic to most academic institutions in India.
In about two weeks after I joined this institution I sent the remaining chapters of my thesis, and I continued with this institution. When the thesis was to be sent to the examiners, I gathered from my Guide that the University was causing problems. The concerned official first claimed that I had not submitted any thesis.
When later the acknowledgment was shown to him, his response was “you may be having the acknowledgment, but I do not have the thesis”, though somehow the my friend whom my Guide sent for the work somehow managed to get the thesis “retrieved” by the clerk. I later gathered that the clerk and of his ilk in the University were using Ph D dissertations, packed and kept for despatch as “foot-rest”!
Despite the best efforts of my Guide, I had to wait for about 18 months to get my thesis adjudicated. By that time I had shifted to Chennai. Considering the long delay, when the reports arrived my Guide hurriedly arranged for the viva-voce. Despite being down with malaria, I somehow managed to reach Bangalore and sit through the viva, which was held in the Central College. This was in 1983 or so.
I have visited Bangalore several times after this (my mother and sisters are settled in Bangalore) and I had occasional invitations from the University for some work or the other, but I never felt like visiting it, though I am still in touch with some of the faculty of the department.
I do not know if the University has at all improved after my harrowing encounters and experience with it. But I cannot deny that I was its Alma Mater. All that I can tell its students and faculty now is these are some of the tragedies and ironies of life, which often have a positive effects on the victims, who, in the light of his own experience, would often if not always see others with empathy.
[PS. Answering to the question whether I would recommend this University to others as YES or NO is difficult. For, I believe in the adage “in the land of the blind one-eyed is the king”, and in a “no-choice” situation which students often face in India, the question of alternatives does not arise.]
