Padma Devkota
Letter to the Editor
Dr. Beerendra Pandey's "Mocking at Mediocrity: A Disclaimer" (November 20, 2005) has revealed to every intelligent reader the academic quality of a university teacher who also tutors students on how to write. On the one hand, the tone of the write-up speaks for the sensibility of its writer. On the other hand, his claim that my "mischievous use" of his "Message" in the KMC prospectus turns it out to be "inflammatory" only proves the point that he does not understand what he writes.
Rather than be personal like Dr. Pandey, let me draw the readers' attention to the major issues of the debate. Ajit Baral's question on the sincerity of university professors in the blurbs of Yubraj Aryal's collection of short stories is still a burning issue. My article "Celebration of Mediocrity" (KTM Post October 9, 2005) highlights the fawning attitude of university teachers that functions elsewhere too. To prove that it doesn't Dr. Pandey has adopted the strategy of flattering his boss and some others from whom he probably has something to gain. He hopes to please some of his "respectable colleagues including the current HOD, whom I respect very much, both as an administrator and as a person" by slandering me in public. Such intellectual servility is simply another form of sycophancy.
Dr. Pandey's confidence that his dishonest, unethical and unprofessional act of undermining the Central Department of English, TU, Kirtipur, can be washed or waved away simply by chiding me in public and by ludicrously apologizing for what he once sturdily upheld among critical colleagues is really pitiable. He has indeed disclaimed his own institution, Tribhuvan University, because KMC bought his service with money. No, not all the perfumes of Arabia will wash the stain away!
Finally, Dr. Pandey has made his choice clear: to wallow in the sewage, which is worse than to be mediocre. Mediocres can be wonderfully civilized and sociable people despite their intellectual dimness. I cannot say the same thing about Dr. Pandey. Therefore, I am left with no choice but to dismiss and ignore his ranting.
The Kathmandu Post
November 23, 2005
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Quest (Poem)
From: Frosty Breath in the Wilderness
by Padma Devkota
Part IV: "Quest"
3.
Teacher:
What a glorious morning this is.
Students, earth has not anything to show
more fair than this mighty heart
of a growing civilization.
First Student:
What civilization, Sir?
Teacher:
Waking up
is the finest moment of life.
Once awake, human intellect
cuts through ignorance like a knife
and serves the main dish of values
that build up civilizations.
Second Student:
Is value a dish, Sir?
Teacher:
Values
and priorities are the basis
of systems that must function well
to maintain civilization.
When we watch the sunrise, we see
that nature too obeys all rules
to maintain her holy practice
of eternal regeneration.
First Student:
Is not nature uncivilized?
Teacher:
Only those who break rules do not
promote civilization.
Those who break rules and upturn values
create their own demonic worlds.
Second Student:
And which is better, Sir?
Teacher:
Better?
That I do not know. But the best
is to follow the morning sun
like a lover, to yearn for it
throughout the night, to take delight
in its presence and to say,
"Sun, may you teach me to wake up
each morning, to brighten others
like you brighten all, and to shed
the light of life upon this world."
First Student:
Sir, what is "the light of life"?
Teacher:
It is not smashing peoples' shins
or quartering off all their limbs,
nor even hurting them with words.
The light of life shines best where we
care for each other's happiness
and tread with sensitive steps the ground
where people's hearts are strewn around,
for hearts are living, hearts are quick
to softest brush of voice and tone.
Of course, we need this crowd on earth;
"Beyond all this, the wish to be alone."
by Padma Devkota
Part IV: "Quest"
3.
Teacher:
What a glorious morning this is.
Students, earth has not anything to show
more fair than this mighty heart
of a growing civilization.
First Student:
What civilization, Sir?
Teacher:
Waking up
is the finest moment of life.
Once awake, human intellect
cuts through ignorance like a knife
and serves the main dish of values
that build up civilizations.
Second Student:
Is value a dish, Sir?
Teacher:
Values
and priorities are the basis
of systems that must function well
to maintain civilization.
When we watch the sunrise, we see
that nature too obeys all rules
to maintain her holy practice
of eternal regeneration.
First Student:
Is not nature uncivilized?
Teacher:
Only those who break rules do not
promote civilization.
Those who break rules and upturn values
create their own demonic worlds.
Second Student:
And which is better, Sir?
Teacher:
Better?
That I do not know. But the best
is to follow the morning sun
like a lover, to yearn for it
throughout the night, to take delight
in its presence and to say,
"Sun, may you teach me to wake up
each morning, to brighten others
like you brighten all, and to shed
the light of life upon this world."
First Student:
Sir, what is "the light of life"?
Teacher:
It is not smashing peoples' shins
or quartering off all their limbs,
nor even hurting them with words.
The light of life shines best where we
care for each other's happiness
and tread with sensitive steps the ground
where people's hearts are strewn around,
for hearts are living, hearts are quick
to softest brush of voice and tone.
Of course, we need this crowd on earth;
"Beyond all this, the wish to be alone."
Faction (Poem)
From: Frosty Breath in the Wilderness
by Padma Devkota
"Faction"
2.
Old Sage:
Aum! May the Goddess Vak grant tongues to you all!
Now listen to the gospel of the Sky.
We are all in essence one. What flows down
from the source is not changed by the nature
of the terrain that encloses it. Aum!
Pupils:
Aum! We are all in essence one. Aum!
Old Sage:
Aum! We, the children of Nature, are fed
by father Infinite Space who loves us.
What love begets must not kick with anger.
Rebellion is a slow suicide.
Submit to ancestral wisdom. Aum!
Pupils:
Aum! We submit to ancestral wisdom. Aum!
Old Sage:
Aum! Upon the altar of Earth, like butter
the clouds melt with the fire of the Sun
to create heat, which is life. Without heat
there can be no life. Pour butter into
the holy pit each morning to appease
Agni, the fire that sustains life. Aum!
Pupils:
Aum! Without heat there can be no life. Aum!
Old Sage:
Aum! Upon the altar of life, shed actions
that melt like pure butter without residue
of greed, or lust, or desire. Appease
the Creator with pure devotion
to Him through nature and through gods. Aum!
Pupils:
Aum! We shall not desire nor lust. Aum!
Old Sage:
Aum! Listen to the gospel of the Sky.
It is a sea of individual minds.
The drop that refuses to lose itself
in the water of the palm shall dry dead.
Mingling with the rest it shall survive. Aum!
Pupils:
Aum! We shall merge like drops with other pools. Aum!
Old Sage:
Blessings upon you all! May Goddess Vak,
too, bless you with learning.
Dismiss. Now go
and leave me to my solitude where I
may with closed eyes read the gospel of the Sky.
by Padma Devkota
"Faction"
2.
Old Sage:
Aum! May the Goddess Vak grant tongues to you all!
Now listen to the gospel of the Sky.
We are all in essence one. What flows down
from the source is not changed by the nature
of the terrain that encloses it. Aum!
Pupils:
Aum! We are all in essence one. Aum!
Old Sage:
Aum! We, the children of Nature, are fed
by father Infinite Space who loves us.
What love begets must not kick with anger.
Rebellion is a slow suicide.
Submit to ancestral wisdom. Aum!
Pupils:
Aum! We submit to ancestral wisdom. Aum!
Old Sage:
Aum! Upon the altar of Earth, like butter
the clouds melt with the fire of the Sun
to create heat, which is life. Without heat
there can be no life. Pour butter into
the holy pit each morning to appease
Agni, the fire that sustains life. Aum!
Pupils:
Aum! Without heat there can be no life. Aum!
Old Sage:
Aum! Upon the altar of life, shed actions
that melt like pure butter without residue
of greed, or lust, or desire. Appease
the Creator with pure devotion
to Him through nature and through gods. Aum!
Pupils:
Aum! We shall not desire nor lust. Aum!
Old Sage:
Aum! Listen to the gospel of the Sky.
It is a sea of individual minds.
The drop that refuses to lose itself
in the water of the palm shall dry dead.
Mingling with the rest it shall survive. Aum!
Pupils:
Aum! We shall merge like drops with other pools. Aum!
Old Sage:
Blessings upon you all! May Goddess Vak,
too, bless you with learning.
Dismiss. Now go
and leave me to my solitude where I
may with closed eyes read the gospel of the Sky.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Congratulations in Retrospect
Padma Devkota
Congratulations in Retrospect!
Immediately after the then Rector of Tribhuvan University Professor Dr. Mahendra Prasad Singh announced on TV the twenty percent internal assessment marks policy I congratulated him in advance in The Kathmandu Post of November 26, 2005. Once again, I take this opportunity to congratulate him in retrospect for his pragmatically successful policy. TU has indeed succeeded in diluting the academic strength of private colleges, too.
Since it is time for colleges to submit the twenty percent internal assessment marks to the examination section at Balkhu, private colleges are obviously worried about their students’ grades. They have only the Central Department of English (CDE) at Kirtipur to look up to as a model. CDE, however, has remained as blunt as ever to the requirements of academic culture. Unable to function in any other way, it has conducted a test for its registered crowd and has decided upon a specific policy of grading: everyone will be given marks between twelve and eighteen out of twenty for the internal assessment. This means that any student who has signed the exam attendance sheet will receive nothing below twelve out of twenty, which is 60%. What a luxury for fortunate students who don’t have to write a single word to receive a first division mark! And, of course, students need not be all present for the test at the same time. Anyone who misses the test will be given a chance to appear for it on demand.
And, if they do write something, they will receive a maximum of eighteen out of twenty, which is 90%. A real distinction! No one is going to get anything more than this despite their extra brilliance. And, examiners don’t have to be too careful in reading and grading student papers (which is generally not their habit anyway) because the marks students receive are determined less on the basis of academic performance than on the basis of a collusion between the Head of the Department, a few senior teachers and the representatives of the students themselves. These people sit down together and decide which student gets what.
Against this practice, private colleges are helpless. Throughout the year, teachers have properly monitored the academic performance of their students. Grades received for each class or home assignment are meaningful. And, students have written real research papers! Most of them have attended classes regularly unlike many of their counterparts in TU colleges. They have participated in class discussions, raised intelligent questions, and made serious attempts to learn. Even during long periods of time when TU campuses were shut down for political and other reasons, students of private colleges were attending classes and their teachers were constantly challenging them to excel themselves.
Given this reality, do students of private colleges deserve anything less than what their counterparts at CDE receive? Examination marks are academic signifiers, not gift parcels. If teachers of private campuses go by the rules of TU (that CDE itself does not follow), distinction is a mark of excellence. The five slots into which TU examinees of the Masters Level may fall are: Fail (0-39), Third Division (40-49), Second Division (50-59), First Division (60-74), and Distinction (75 and above). However, Tribhuvan University, and specially CDE, has made it their noble practice of offering marks as gifts to students out of love for the poor non-metropolitans (this democratically includes the metropolitans!) who have not had a chance to go to good private schools in their poverty-ridden villages. This is how the teaching faculty of CDE broke into three factions in the recent past: a group of teachers who artfully professed love for their students and slandered other colleagues as teachers who did not love their students even as a third group of teachers lost their voice out of fear of having to speak up.
Ironically, teachers who were not supposed to have loved their students were academically more demanding than those who loved their students. This resulted in the student-loving faction attempting to slander the non-student-loving teachers in various ways. One of the strategies was to befriend students and fill their ears against the academically more demanding colleagues. What is a greater crime than when a scholar colleague leaves the examination room after the thesis viva-voce of a student is over and, out of holy love for the student, tells him or her outside the examination hall that, although s/he wanted to give the student eighty-five percent, so-and-so objected to such high marks and gave him only seventy-two. And, what authority does this colleague assume to announce TU examination marks to the student before the Examination Board does so?
I explained the transparency of the policy of the Rector’s Office in my article of November 26, 2005: “since TU is unable to uplift its academic face, why not use the cosmetics of marks! And this too against the backdrop of competitions with younger universities that have a different grading system that marks down from one hundred rather than up from zero. After all, marks don't really have to stand for academic achievement; they may stand for various levels of ignorance or even for the intensity of ‘love’ the teachers profess for their students.” Today, it is clear that private colleges, too, are expected to play the “loving teachers” for the sake of justifying the malpractice of the central departments of Tribhuvan University. They too have been forced to say: “We will give first division marks to anyone who was present at the internal assessment exam even if that student has written nothing on the answer paper. We will not give anything over 90% to anyone.”
I am sure teachers are happy because they do not have to read any answer papers to give first division or distinction marks to students. And students are happy because they don’t have to write anything sensible to obtain first division or distinction marks. This is the present reality of our oldest university.
I must congratulate the Rector’s Office of Tribhuvan University for such a wonderful decision, which has led to the happiness of the majority.
Sarve bhavantu shukhina… May everyone (unconcerned for the morrow) be happy!
From: The Kathmandu Post Thursday, December 21, 2006
Congratulations in Retrospect!
Immediately after the then Rector of Tribhuvan University Professor Dr. Mahendra Prasad Singh announced on TV the twenty percent internal assessment marks policy I congratulated him in advance in The Kathmandu Post of November 26, 2005. Once again, I take this opportunity to congratulate him in retrospect for his pragmatically successful policy. TU has indeed succeeded in diluting the academic strength of private colleges, too.
Since it is time for colleges to submit the twenty percent internal assessment marks to the examination section at Balkhu, private colleges are obviously worried about their students’ grades. They have only the Central Department of English (CDE) at Kirtipur to look up to as a model. CDE, however, has remained as blunt as ever to the requirements of academic culture. Unable to function in any other way, it has conducted a test for its registered crowd and has decided upon a specific policy of grading: everyone will be given marks between twelve and eighteen out of twenty for the internal assessment. This means that any student who has signed the exam attendance sheet will receive nothing below twelve out of twenty, which is 60%. What a luxury for fortunate students who don’t have to write a single word to receive a first division mark! And, of course, students need not be all present for the test at the same time. Anyone who misses the test will be given a chance to appear for it on demand.
And, if they do write something, they will receive a maximum of eighteen out of twenty, which is 90%. A real distinction! No one is going to get anything more than this despite their extra brilliance. And, examiners don’t have to be too careful in reading and grading student papers (which is generally not their habit anyway) because the marks students receive are determined less on the basis of academic performance than on the basis of a collusion between the Head of the Department, a few senior teachers and the representatives of the students themselves. These people sit down together and decide which student gets what.
Against this practice, private colleges are helpless. Throughout the year, teachers have properly monitored the academic performance of their students. Grades received for each class or home assignment are meaningful. And, students have written real research papers! Most of them have attended classes regularly unlike many of their counterparts in TU colleges. They have participated in class discussions, raised intelligent questions, and made serious attempts to learn. Even during long periods of time when TU campuses were shut down for political and other reasons, students of private colleges were attending classes and their teachers were constantly challenging them to excel themselves.
Given this reality, do students of private colleges deserve anything less than what their counterparts at CDE receive? Examination marks are academic signifiers, not gift parcels. If teachers of private campuses go by the rules of TU (that CDE itself does not follow), distinction is a mark of excellence. The five slots into which TU examinees of the Masters Level may fall are: Fail (0-39), Third Division (40-49), Second Division (50-59), First Division (60-74), and Distinction (75 and above). However, Tribhuvan University, and specially CDE, has made it their noble practice of offering marks as gifts to students out of love for the poor non-metropolitans (this democratically includes the metropolitans!) who have not had a chance to go to good private schools in their poverty-ridden villages. This is how the teaching faculty of CDE broke into three factions in the recent past: a group of teachers who artfully professed love for their students and slandered other colleagues as teachers who did not love their students even as a third group of teachers lost their voice out of fear of having to speak up.
Ironically, teachers who were not supposed to have loved their students were academically more demanding than those who loved their students. This resulted in the student-loving faction attempting to slander the non-student-loving teachers in various ways. One of the strategies was to befriend students and fill their ears against the academically more demanding colleagues. What is a greater crime than when a scholar colleague leaves the examination room after the thesis viva-voce of a student is over and, out of holy love for the student, tells him or her outside the examination hall that, although s/he wanted to give the student eighty-five percent, so-and-so objected to such high marks and gave him only seventy-two. And, what authority does this colleague assume to announce TU examination marks to the student before the Examination Board does so?
I explained the transparency of the policy of the Rector’s Office in my article of November 26, 2005: “since TU is unable to uplift its academic face, why not use the cosmetics of marks! And this too against the backdrop of competitions with younger universities that have a different grading system that marks down from one hundred rather than up from zero. After all, marks don't really have to stand for academic achievement; they may stand for various levels of ignorance or even for the intensity of ‘love’ the teachers profess for their students.” Today, it is clear that private colleges, too, are expected to play the “loving teachers” for the sake of justifying the malpractice of the central departments of Tribhuvan University. They too have been forced to say: “We will give first division marks to anyone who was present at the internal assessment exam even if that student has written nothing on the answer paper. We will not give anything over 90% to anyone.”
I am sure teachers are happy because they do not have to read any answer papers to give first division or distinction marks to students. And students are happy because they don’t have to write anything sensible to obtain first division or distinction marks. This is the present reality of our oldest university.
I must congratulate the Rector’s Office of Tribhuvan University for such a wonderful decision, which has led to the happiness of the majority.
Sarve bhavantu shukhina… May everyone (unconcerned for the morrow) be happy!
From: The Kathmandu Post Thursday, December 21, 2006
Congratulations in Advance
Congratulations in Advance!
Padma Devkota
Our impatience to share joys with our loved ones almost always gushes uncontrollably forth prior to the event or the occasion that is supposed to cause such joys, thereby inverting the causal universe on its head. At such moments, we live in Alice's Wonderland where characters bleed before the needle pricks them, where fallacies of causal relationships overtake our rationality and render us into a bundle of emotions. Long before the wedding day, we offer our felicitations to the bride or the groom. We extend our best wishes to those who are about to venture into a new space of adventure. We wish a very Happy New Year to each other before the old year is out or a very Happy Vijaya Dashami before the festival is in. Our longing for such moments of joy circulates torrentially in our veins to reduce our competence of expression to a mere utterance of joy.
After listening to the Rector of Tribhuvan University on TV, I am so overwhelmed with excitement that I must congratulate him for his recent announcement of the twenty percent internal assessment marks policy. According to this policy, TU will allow campuses to conduct an internal assessment worth twenty percent out of a centralised one hundred percent at all academic levels if they want to do so, but will immediately and compulsorily implement this policy at the degree level with the help of the subject teacher. This mark of trust by the TU academic head in the competence of all its teachers is a dawn of civilization on campus for it certainly offers academic respect to all who deserve it. I, for one, would have appreciated it even more had subject teachers been trusted to handle not just the twenty percent but the whole one hundred percent of the examination marks. This would have been of greater advantage to both the students and the academic policy makers of the university.
I say so because the policy of the Rector's Office is transparent: since TU is unable to uplift its academic face, why not use the cosmetics of marks! And this too against the backdrop of competitions with younger universities that have a different grading system that marks down from one hundred rather than up from zero. After all, marks don't really have to stand for academic achievement; they may stand for various levels of ignorance or even for the intensity of "love" the teachers profess for their students.
And, how does this policy work? If Dharahara does not grow taller after whitewashing and renovation, it will at least look more presentable. That is the effect of cosmetics. That is why the burden of whitewashing TU academics has been partly decentralised to naïve teachers whose seats (if they have any) are bound to be set on fire (if they are just that lucky!) by demands for twenty out of twenty in the internal assessment marks. Any refusal to comply will surely be met with threats and abuses or even actual violence. This is a prediction, not an assumption.
History has told sadder tales than this. The hasty, failed experiment of the mid-seventies points a warning index at this new policy. During a politically more stable and better disciplined decade, the internal assessment system collapsed because TU could not offer any means of resisting student pressure upon teachers to give them twenty out of twenty for the internal assessment. Students threatened resisting teachers with knives and muscles, with threats and abuses, even as the university forgave them all like Christ on the cross. How does TU expect its teachers to resist the pressure of students who have adopted violence and incendiary techniques to score better marks today?
I do not believe that the Rector's Office expects teachers to resist such pressures, except at the theoretical level. It cannot, because it has already confessed to me that it cannot offer work with dignity to its academic staff. So, it has fallen into the rut of accepting the incapacity of individuals (including medical doctors) to change the ugly reality of the university's diseased system. Because this much is clear, I have attempted a calculation of the present pass marks for the degree level examination. On paper, it is forty percent. In practice, it is approximately five marks out of eighty, which is 6.25%.
How does this happen? First, since any exam (theses, for instance) handled individually by the subject teacher is not normally scored below ninety percent for obvious reasons that I have discussed in earlier articles, I discount the possibility of any student receiving anything below eighteen out of twenty in the internal assessment marks. This already brings the Master's level pass marks down to twenty to twenty-two percent. Second, the university has a tradition of offering a five percent grace marks to students for any exam. This brings the pass marks down to fifteen to seventeen percent. And, finally, the trend in some departments is to give students an additional ten to fifteen percent grace marks on their own discretion. Let us suppose that the five percent grace offered by the university is included in this range. Even then, this will bring the pass marks for the degree level examinations down to something between five to twelve percent. This pass percentage descends even lower at the hands of teachers who "love" their students. If one may obtain a Master's degree by scoring even twenty percent, who wouldn't?
The private student will certainly lose twenty percent of the total score simply by not registering as a regular student. Since attendance, like pass marks, has a double face by TU standards, it is academically suicidal to remain a private student. Therefore, my suggestions in "Admissions Open" (KTM Post Nov 12, 2005) stand even stronger than before.
The only question that nags me is this: Why does TU not switch over form its present marking system to a grading system instead of using cosmetics to uplift its face? It is daylight clear to the whole world that students who received a mere fifty percent five years ago were better products than students who receive sixty percent today. If the university continues merely whitewashing its face, there will soon come a time when employers and other universities of the world will reject its products as being academically underqualified. TU alone cannot define academics. It has to comply with the academic standard set by many other universities of the world if it wants to carry any conviction at all. Any refusal to do so is anti-nationalistic.
Contrary to the requirements of academic promotion, the Rector's Office has decided what it has decided: to whitewash its academic face even if that means to fall from the academic standard. The cosmetic effect has already brightened the faces of the policy makers and the students of TU. Students obviously understand only marks. The Rector also seems to understand only his term in office, which has to pass smoothly and without any untoward event. Even as I foresee the consequences of this decision, I must congratulate the policy makers in advance for the whitewash that has uplifted the academic face of TU, for the better scores that students will inevitably receive in the next exam as a testimony to their academic ability, and for the garlanding and honours the Rector may receive for his presumably innovative idea.
From: The Kathmandu Post Saturday, November 26, 2005
Padma Devkota
Our impatience to share joys with our loved ones almost always gushes uncontrollably forth prior to the event or the occasion that is supposed to cause such joys, thereby inverting the causal universe on its head. At such moments, we live in Alice's Wonderland where characters bleed before the needle pricks them, where fallacies of causal relationships overtake our rationality and render us into a bundle of emotions. Long before the wedding day, we offer our felicitations to the bride or the groom. We extend our best wishes to those who are about to venture into a new space of adventure. We wish a very Happy New Year to each other before the old year is out or a very Happy Vijaya Dashami before the festival is in. Our longing for such moments of joy circulates torrentially in our veins to reduce our competence of expression to a mere utterance of joy.
After listening to the Rector of Tribhuvan University on TV, I am so overwhelmed with excitement that I must congratulate him for his recent announcement of the twenty percent internal assessment marks policy. According to this policy, TU will allow campuses to conduct an internal assessment worth twenty percent out of a centralised one hundred percent at all academic levels if they want to do so, but will immediately and compulsorily implement this policy at the degree level with the help of the subject teacher. This mark of trust by the TU academic head in the competence of all its teachers is a dawn of civilization on campus for it certainly offers academic respect to all who deserve it. I, for one, would have appreciated it even more had subject teachers been trusted to handle not just the twenty percent but the whole one hundred percent of the examination marks. This would have been of greater advantage to both the students and the academic policy makers of the university.
I say so because the policy of the Rector's Office is transparent: since TU is unable to uplift its academic face, why not use the cosmetics of marks! And this too against the backdrop of competitions with younger universities that have a different grading system that marks down from one hundred rather than up from zero. After all, marks don't really have to stand for academic achievement; they may stand for various levels of ignorance or even for the intensity of "love" the teachers profess for their students.
And, how does this policy work? If Dharahara does not grow taller after whitewashing and renovation, it will at least look more presentable. That is the effect of cosmetics. That is why the burden of whitewashing TU academics has been partly decentralised to naïve teachers whose seats (if they have any) are bound to be set on fire (if they are just that lucky!) by demands for twenty out of twenty in the internal assessment marks. Any refusal to comply will surely be met with threats and abuses or even actual violence. This is a prediction, not an assumption.
History has told sadder tales than this. The hasty, failed experiment of the mid-seventies points a warning index at this new policy. During a politically more stable and better disciplined decade, the internal assessment system collapsed because TU could not offer any means of resisting student pressure upon teachers to give them twenty out of twenty for the internal assessment. Students threatened resisting teachers with knives and muscles, with threats and abuses, even as the university forgave them all like Christ on the cross. How does TU expect its teachers to resist the pressure of students who have adopted violence and incendiary techniques to score better marks today?
I do not believe that the Rector's Office expects teachers to resist such pressures, except at the theoretical level. It cannot, because it has already confessed to me that it cannot offer work with dignity to its academic staff. So, it has fallen into the rut of accepting the incapacity of individuals (including medical doctors) to change the ugly reality of the university's diseased system. Because this much is clear, I have attempted a calculation of the present pass marks for the degree level examination. On paper, it is forty percent. In practice, it is approximately five marks out of eighty, which is 6.25%.
How does this happen? First, since any exam (theses, for instance) handled individually by the subject teacher is not normally scored below ninety percent for obvious reasons that I have discussed in earlier articles, I discount the possibility of any student receiving anything below eighteen out of twenty in the internal assessment marks. This already brings the Master's level pass marks down to twenty to twenty-two percent. Second, the university has a tradition of offering a five percent grace marks to students for any exam. This brings the pass marks down to fifteen to seventeen percent. And, finally, the trend in some departments is to give students an additional ten to fifteen percent grace marks on their own discretion. Let us suppose that the five percent grace offered by the university is included in this range. Even then, this will bring the pass marks for the degree level examinations down to something between five to twelve percent. This pass percentage descends even lower at the hands of teachers who "love" their students. If one may obtain a Master's degree by scoring even twenty percent, who wouldn't?
The private student will certainly lose twenty percent of the total score simply by not registering as a regular student. Since attendance, like pass marks, has a double face by TU standards, it is academically suicidal to remain a private student. Therefore, my suggestions in "Admissions Open" (KTM Post Nov 12, 2005) stand even stronger than before.
The only question that nags me is this: Why does TU not switch over form its present marking system to a grading system instead of using cosmetics to uplift its face? It is daylight clear to the whole world that students who received a mere fifty percent five years ago were better products than students who receive sixty percent today. If the university continues merely whitewashing its face, there will soon come a time when employers and other universities of the world will reject its products as being academically underqualified. TU alone cannot define academics. It has to comply with the academic standard set by many other universities of the world if it wants to carry any conviction at all. Any refusal to do so is anti-nationalistic.
Contrary to the requirements of academic promotion, the Rector's Office has decided what it has decided: to whitewash its academic face even if that means to fall from the academic standard. The cosmetic effect has already brightened the faces of the policy makers and the students of TU. Students obviously understand only marks. The Rector also seems to understand only his term in office, which has to pass smoothly and without any untoward event. Even as I foresee the consequences of this decision, I must congratulate the policy makers in advance for the whitewash that has uplifted the academic face of TU, for the better scores that students will inevitably receive in the next exam as a testimony to their academic ability, and for the garlanding and honours the Rector may receive for his presumably innovative idea.
From: The Kathmandu Post Saturday, November 26, 2005
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Gem of Union (Poem)
X. The Gem of Union
From: A Flame for a Moth by Padma Devkota
The king retrieved the gem of union
and asked Urvasi why she had not said
a word about his child, to which the nymph
replied, “Lord Indra gave me leave to come
to you with special instruction that I
return to heaven the day you beheld
the face of your child. So I hid him well
in a proper ashram to be raised up
with love and care. And, king, now that you have
seen the face of your son, I have to leave!”
Fierce lightning struck from darkest clouds, a storm
brewed in the heart of King Pururava
tearing leaves of sweet, happy days ahead
and strewing them upon the sinking floor.
He stood astounded by this new knowledge
of strangest fate that with a single stroke
had stolen his lover and bestowed a child.
He reeled with anxiety and concern,
turned pale with feeling of a vice-like grip
inside his chest which he held with both hands
and uttered a single denial, “No!”
As if a royal order were not enough,
but needs be repeated as a request,
“No!” he said. “This cannot be! Do not go!”
And, regaining strength, he called upon love
to weigh the propriety of action
taken in conformity with a command:
“Can you profess me love and leave me thus
because a king commands? Love is our king!
This Supreme King of Love commands that we
always remain in each other’s embrace.
O, how can you, Urvasi, ever forget
this higher command and leave me alone?
Day is not day without the sun and moon,
chariots don’t run on a single wheel,
no streams of tear would deck the face of earth
should vapours not be lifted up by air,
no moth will flutter around a dead flame,
nor flame flicker towards an absent moth,
the two in copulative energy
sustain the living beauty of this world.
Go not, Urvasi! Leave me not alone!”
“I’m not of this world, my love, I obey
a different set of laws in heaven made.
I cannot disobey Indra, although
I wish I could not disobey you too.
Thus bound by superior laws, I fly
to heaven on heavy wings and submit
myself to what must be. You do the same.
You have a whole kingdom to regulate,
busy yourself in the people’s affairs
so that you have no time to think of us.”
With these words the nymph, ready to depart,
paused a while because the king grasped her hand
like a drowning man grasps a floating straw
and said, “These are cruel words, Urvasi!
Not a language of love! If you leave me
to my lonely fate, ...” The king looked around
and ordered his minister to prepare
for the coronation of the new king,
his just found son, for he would forsake all
and wander in the wilderness abroad
like a madman seeking to catch a dream.
Pearly beads rolled down the quivering cheeks
and summoned pearly beads in angel eyes
that felt a strange mortal link: soul to soul
and flesh to flesh. Parting like the tearing
of wedded souls oozed painful tears and sobs
on both sides of the mortal wound. The nymph,
still attempting to clutch the finger tips
of the king, still rose higher in the air.
The king, still attempting to draw her down
with finger tips yet in contact with her,
felt himself sinking in the underworld.
She met his pleading upward gaze with eyes
that wished themselves blind for seeing a man
so miserable that his gloom perhaps
would now render heaven forever dark.
Thus did they tarry for a brief moment
and were like a painted canvas, which each
of them desired would never fade.
From: A Flame for a Moth by Padma Devkota
The king retrieved the gem of union
and asked Urvasi why she had not said
a word about his child, to which the nymph
replied, “Lord Indra gave me leave to come
to you with special instruction that I
return to heaven the day you beheld
the face of your child. So I hid him well
in a proper ashram to be raised up
with love and care. And, king, now that you have
seen the face of your son, I have to leave!”
Fierce lightning struck from darkest clouds, a storm
brewed in the heart of King Pururava
tearing leaves of sweet, happy days ahead
and strewing them upon the sinking floor.
He stood astounded by this new knowledge
of strangest fate that with a single stroke
had stolen his lover and bestowed a child.
He reeled with anxiety and concern,
turned pale with feeling of a vice-like grip
inside his chest which he held with both hands
and uttered a single denial, “No!”
As if a royal order were not enough,
but needs be repeated as a request,
“No!” he said. “This cannot be! Do not go!”
And, regaining strength, he called upon love
to weigh the propriety of action
taken in conformity with a command:
“Can you profess me love and leave me thus
because a king commands? Love is our king!
This Supreme King of Love commands that we
always remain in each other’s embrace.
O, how can you, Urvasi, ever forget
this higher command and leave me alone?
Day is not day without the sun and moon,
chariots don’t run on a single wheel,
no streams of tear would deck the face of earth
should vapours not be lifted up by air,
no moth will flutter around a dead flame,
nor flame flicker towards an absent moth,
the two in copulative energy
sustain the living beauty of this world.
Go not, Urvasi! Leave me not alone!”
“I’m not of this world, my love, I obey
a different set of laws in heaven made.
I cannot disobey Indra, although
I wish I could not disobey you too.
Thus bound by superior laws, I fly
to heaven on heavy wings and submit
myself to what must be. You do the same.
You have a whole kingdom to regulate,
busy yourself in the people’s affairs
so that you have no time to think of us.”
With these words the nymph, ready to depart,
paused a while because the king grasped her hand
like a drowning man grasps a floating straw
and said, “These are cruel words, Urvasi!
Not a language of love! If you leave me
to my lonely fate, ...” The king looked around
and ordered his minister to prepare
for the coronation of the new king,
his just found son, for he would forsake all
and wander in the wilderness abroad
like a madman seeking to catch a dream.
Pearly beads rolled down the quivering cheeks
and summoned pearly beads in angel eyes
that felt a strange mortal link: soul to soul
and flesh to flesh. Parting like the tearing
of wedded souls oozed painful tears and sobs
on both sides of the mortal wound. The nymph,
still attempting to clutch the finger tips
of the king, still rose higher in the air.
The king, still attempting to draw her down
with finger tips yet in contact with her,
felt himself sinking in the underworld.
She met his pleading upward gaze with eyes
that wished themselves blind for seeing a man
so miserable that his gloom perhaps
would now render heaven forever dark.
Thus did they tarry for a brief moment
and were like a painted canvas, which each
of them desired would never fade.
The Hero and the Nymph (Poem)
V The Hero and the Nymph From: A Flame for a Moth by Padma Devkota
“The court awaits your pleasure,” a bowed head
addressed the king. “Grave matters of the state
need to be addressed, my Lord! Will you come?”
the solemn Minister voiced his concern,
which His Majesty did not seem to hear,
but lost in painful reveries of love
he sighed his soul out like a rooted tree.
“O Urvashi!” he cried, “How can I live
alone in this palace without my love?
It's like an empty hole dug in the ground,
cold and dark and stifling that suffocates
the life breath out of me. Designed to kill,
infested with unctuous fools who like ants
swarm around their great honey-trickling lord
and smile their disgust with an envious heart,
rich in pompous vanity, envious
of power and wealth, stratified in rank,
it knows not serene peace nor harmony
of genuine soul to soul relation, which
embracing all embraces greatest bliss.
No, it is not such flattering company
but genuine friendship that thrives on love
most strongly nourishes our life with joy.
And I, quite close to such a joyous life
in the company of my honest queen,
having found greater joy in Urvashi,
am torn like a river by a boulder
that will not yield an easy path to joy,
so that divided into two currents
it must gush beyond this dark obstacle
to seek wholeness of a divided self.
Yet, the unequal currents of water
on either side of the obstructing rock
gush with different force towards the bend
in their life's journey, intoning a truth
spelled out clearly in the book of nature.
Thus am I torn, but why should I dispel
a greater joy with one of lesser kind?
Why should I so unlike the river be
and force a greater volume to one side
than it can lend an easy passage to
and let the other thirsty bed go dry?
This would be madness! And if mad I am,
I owe no obligation to the world
and seek no favour from it. Instead, I
enchanted by unearthly beauty will
here meditate upon a form that holds
the single key to my sad existence
in the frosty winter of her absence
that colours all I do. O Urvashi!
Commander of my heart! When will you come
to spouse me by the singing riverside?”
“And the people,” complained the Minister,
“shall I tell them that King Pururava
once true and just and loving and beloved
has drawn the curtains of the Golden Age
over his self, which now is blind to all
but what possesses him demonically
with its power of fatal seduction?
Shall I tell them that you love them no more
because another claim upon your heart
is so potent that you, forgetting all,
permit yourself from duty thus to fall?”
“Go, Minister, ascertain that the state
does not miss me. Perform your duty well.
See that the systems of the state run smooth,
lubricate the rust, replace broken cogs,
and, should you need more vision, come to me.
I have a personal need of solitude,
which you should learn to respect. Go hence
and let me dream a while of heaven’s gate
that swings a thousand times to release
its greatest beauty for a dreamer’s ease.”
So spoke the king and with his dreamy eyes
he sought the vision of his fevered heart
within the farthest reaches of the sky.
The Minister his concern expressed again:
“Your noble Majesty! Half-witted love!
You seek to own the moon whose lunar charm
has cast a spell upon the woodcock, you!
O, wake up to the smell of earth and trees
that surround you. Urvashi is a dream.
She is a fantasy beyond your grasp.
The queen at your disposal should outweigh
a million dreams of fairies on their wings
and since all kings are husband to the state
they should firmly grasp more relevant things.”
To which the king replied as if from far:
“Urvashi is the poem of my heart.
She is the lunar gleam with argent touch
that embalms the world in joyful repose,
she is the vision that creates the throb
of a devoted heart, she is the joy
of the woodcock, she is the cynosure
of heaven and earth, the only being
that can dispel the gloom both here and there
the light of heaven and earth is Urvashi!
Is there a beauty resides in oceans' depths?
In its snaky dazzles of broad daylight?
In snow-capped peaks of primordial dawn?
Or moon-blanched heights that open mysteries
of poppy-drugged fields to vague yearning hearts?
She is a decanted drop of beauty,
of fulfilling love, of true harmony.
Go Minister, see to the state's affairs,
rimeless hearts should not roam the gardens here.
So, leave me in peace to warm my hoarfrost
with sweetest reveries of happy days.”
“The court awaits your pleasure,” a bowed head
addressed the king. “Grave matters of the state
need to be addressed, my Lord! Will you come?”
the solemn Minister voiced his concern,
which His Majesty did not seem to hear,
but lost in painful reveries of love
he sighed his soul out like a rooted tree.
“O Urvashi!” he cried, “How can I live
alone in this palace without my love?
It's like an empty hole dug in the ground,
cold and dark and stifling that suffocates
the life breath out of me. Designed to kill,
infested with unctuous fools who like ants
swarm around their great honey-trickling lord
and smile their disgust with an envious heart,
rich in pompous vanity, envious
of power and wealth, stratified in rank,
it knows not serene peace nor harmony
of genuine soul to soul relation, which
embracing all embraces greatest bliss.
No, it is not such flattering company
but genuine friendship that thrives on love
most strongly nourishes our life with joy.
And I, quite close to such a joyous life
in the company of my honest queen,
having found greater joy in Urvashi,
am torn like a river by a boulder
that will not yield an easy path to joy,
so that divided into two currents
it must gush beyond this dark obstacle
to seek wholeness of a divided self.
Yet, the unequal currents of water
on either side of the obstructing rock
gush with different force towards the bend
in their life's journey, intoning a truth
spelled out clearly in the book of nature.
Thus am I torn, but why should I dispel
a greater joy with one of lesser kind?
Why should I so unlike the river be
and force a greater volume to one side
than it can lend an easy passage to
and let the other thirsty bed go dry?
This would be madness! And if mad I am,
I owe no obligation to the world
and seek no favour from it. Instead, I
enchanted by unearthly beauty will
here meditate upon a form that holds
the single key to my sad existence
in the frosty winter of her absence
that colours all I do. O Urvashi!
Commander of my heart! When will you come
to spouse me by the singing riverside?”
“And the people,” complained the Minister,
“shall I tell them that King Pururava
once true and just and loving and beloved
has drawn the curtains of the Golden Age
over his self, which now is blind to all
but what possesses him demonically
with its power of fatal seduction?
Shall I tell them that you love them no more
because another claim upon your heart
is so potent that you, forgetting all,
permit yourself from duty thus to fall?”
“Go, Minister, ascertain that the state
does not miss me. Perform your duty well.
See that the systems of the state run smooth,
lubricate the rust, replace broken cogs,
and, should you need more vision, come to me.
I have a personal need of solitude,
which you should learn to respect. Go hence
and let me dream a while of heaven’s gate
that swings a thousand times to release
its greatest beauty for a dreamer’s ease.”
So spoke the king and with his dreamy eyes
he sought the vision of his fevered heart
within the farthest reaches of the sky.
The Minister his concern expressed again:
“Your noble Majesty! Half-witted love!
You seek to own the moon whose lunar charm
has cast a spell upon the woodcock, you!
O, wake up to the smell of earth and trees
that surround you. Urvashi is a dream.
She is a fantasy beyond your grasp.
The queen at your disposal should outweigh
a million dreams of fairies on their wings
and since all kings are husband to the state
they should firmly grasp more relevant things.”
To which the king replied as if from far:
“Urvashi is the poem of my heart.
She is the lunar gleam with argent touch
that embalms the world in joyful repose,
she is the vision that creates the throb
of a devoted heart, she is the joy
of the woodcock, she is the cynosure
of heaven and earth, the only being
that can dispel the gloom both here and there
the light of heaven and earth is Urvashi!
Is there a beauty resides in oceans' depths?
In its snaky dazzles of broad daylight?
In snow-capped peaks of primordial dawn?
Or moon-blanched heights that open mysteries
of poppy-drugged fields to vague yearning hearts?
She is a decanted drop of beauty,
of fulfilling love, of true harmony.
Go Minister, see to the state's affairs,
rimeless hearts should not roam the gardens here.
So, leave me in peace to warm my hoarfrost
with sweetest reveries of happy days.”
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