Rottingbrain Rolls On

-- The Merchant of Venice

Chapter 1

The life of a father is at all times a pretty miserable business. This misery assumes a frightfully devastating aspect, however, when the poor devil is confronted by the question of sending up his boy to a university college. There are as many colleges as there are hair-cutting shops in the land. Perhaps more. What particular place will he go to ? It's so difficult to choose!

Well, I'd advise all such puzzled and perplexed fathers to choose Rottingbrain. That's the place. I am prepared to swallow my wig and mortar-board, with or without water, if you can find a better one. There's none. I ought to know. I have the honour and distinction of being a member of the Rottingbrain College staff. I can confidently, and even proudly, recommend Rottingbrain as a unique all-round training-ground for any man's offspring, and can assure for that offspring the very brightest prospects in life. Rottingbrain is an ideal seat of learning. I very much regret to have to admit that the latest Rottingbrain prospectus describes the great institution as an 'idle feat of yearning'. Professor Z is to blame for this perpetration. He is the most near-sighted hoodlum on earth, and the principal of Rottingbrain ought never to have trusted him with the job of seeing the booklet through the press.

Author Bio Professor M. A. Majmundar was known for his typical inimitable style of subtle British humour. He was a well known professor of English at Bhavan's College, Mumbai. His literary freelancing across a span of two decades rendered him a very affectionate recognition amongst his readers who could never afford to miss him and were always keen to read and treasure his contributions in Shankar's Weekly (New Delhi) and Amritabazar Patrika (Calcutta). Professor Majmundar has made appearances in almost all contemporary newspapers and periodicals in India. He had the honour of being reproduced in the British digest 'Parade' (London). He is also translated into number of Indian languages .

Rottingbrain buildings lie carelessly sprawled about in one of the quieter suburbs of a screaming metropolis. You have here neither the deadening stupor of the country, nor the jangling restlessness of the big city. You feel yourself in some old-world spot with a peaceful and soothing atmosphere. A newspaper man once dubbed Rottingbrain 'a sleepy hollow'. The calumnious young thug still goes about unhung.

Soon after his arrival, the Rottingbrain freshman finds himself very comfortably installed in a snug little room. This room is one of a row of many rooms. The row bears a resounding appellation of 'The Rottingbrain College Hostels'. The room is a ten by twelve affair. That is to say, it is a roomlet. But the freshman is not its sole occupant. There are three other freshmen to keep him company. Four strapping youths and the necessary furniture and other impediments may seem a wee bit too much for a ten by twelve roomlet. But then you must look at the posture of affairs from the Rottingbrain point of view. Man is progressively multiplying; the planet he inhabits is, therefore, getting progressively cramped. What is the earthly good of higher education if it does not fit out progressively proliferating man for his progressively shrinking abode? Rottingbrain is keenly conscious of its duties and responsibilities as a seat of Higher Education. We go out of our way to subject our charges to a methodically cribbed, cabined and confined existence. We thus discipline them for the wild and frenzied crush that is modern civilised life.

The R. C. Hostel is a rare fine relic of the past. It boasts a leaky roof, mouldering walls, dilapidated doors and windows, and dank fusty, musty, cobwebbed and mildewed innards. The young Rottingbrainian is thus vouchsafed the great good fortune of actually inhabiting a matchless archaeological monument. Furthermore, being scientifically exposed to all the winds and waters of heaven, he has the double advantage of leading a domestic and an open-air life together. During rains, his roof being something of a sieve, he is enabled to enjoy the supreme pleasure of a hundred-carat shower-bath in his own intimate cot. He is thus systematically hardened, toughened and seasoned against all kinds of bad weather. Life is one long nasty weather itself. And no Rottingbrainian can ever be troubled by it in future.

If the Rottingbrain accommodation takes care to toughen the exterior of a student, Rottingbrain food toughens, takes care to toughen, his interior. The Rottingbrain mess personnel invests this food with a lot of sound educational value by adulterating it with grit and vermin and other such health-promoting ingredients, and by under- or over-cooking it, and by serving it out in metal dishes and bowls and cups previously licked clean by dogs at the scrubbing-place. The lay public can have no idea of the immense good which this technically perfect nourishment does to the human system. After a four-year go at this truly scientific fare, the Rottingbrain alumnus is able to digest and assimilate and turn into red blood anything from a shredded tomato to a salad of discarded foot-ball, old razor-blades, ultra-modern literary criticism, a diplomatic speech, some election promises and rusty area-railing. Educational theorists have laid down that education is a preparation for life. I venture to declare that no educational institution in existence follows this high principle so closely and so thoroughly as does Rottingbrain. The man in charge of the R. C. Hostels is Professor P, Head of the Department of Logic and Moral Philosophy, Rottingbrain College. This learned gentleman is paid a substantial monthly allowance over and above his monthly salary for the noble and uplifting purpose of neglecting his appointed duties and overlooking the regular and studied violation of all his rules and regulations by his wards. You couldn't hope to have a more logical, more moral and more philosophical hostels-superintendent than this worthy. He leaves the hostelite completely free to behave as he pleases. No rule, no restriction, no repression, no inhibition. Total and unconditional liberty of thought, speech and action. This is one of the pivotal principles of modern education, and this is one of the pivotal principles of Rottingbrain. We condition our student to the rigours of the modern life. At the same time, we allow him the widest possible latitude for the free and unhampered expression and development of his personality. And so it comes about that this lucky Rottingbrainian gets up when he likes, turns in when he likes, smokes like a chimney, drinks enormous quantities of tea, destroys crockery, tears up bed-sheets, bangs metal dishes against metal cups at dead of night, sings himself hoarse and other people deaf at any hour of day or night, engages in ruinous internecine warfare, worships the alluring prints of the silver-screen queens and, on occasions, secures the hostel-superintendent to his cot and leaves the cot in the centre of the bazaar-square in the middle of a moonless night. To the eternal credit of Professor P be it said that he takes all such expressions of animal-spirits in a remarkably sporting light. Last time this great man was in the bazaar-square, a pitifully illogical, immoral and unphilosophical cow elected to chew off approximately three-fourths of his striped night-wear. But he emerged from the ordeal laughing.

This freedom is to be observed no less in the class-room than in the hostels. the young Rottingbrainian can get into and out of the class-room in accordance with his own individual taste and fancy (through the door or the windows), boo at his professor, make faces at him, throw paper-darts at him, put his tongue out at him, pour ink down the backs of his class-mates, smoke, play the pocket radio, stamp, clap, jump, shout, and jig around. It is on record that when Professor M, the Einstein of Rottingbrain, once threatened a restive student with expulsion from the class-room, that young man and four of his stalwart chums marched up to the irate mathematician, lifted him up bodily, hauled him into the water-room, deposited him under the tap, gave him a thorough drenching and locked him up there. On his release from the prison after the lapse of a considerable time, the maltreated man demanded of the principal that exemplary disciplinary action be taken against the miscreants. But the tactful head of Rottingbrain succeeded in persuading him to take it all as a delightful joke.

We did never think of having a roll-call. Rottingbrain does not attach any importance to roll-call. Every one is always present. Indeed, slender attendance always gladdens us. It means a little quiet and peace. We have a very thin library. The latest book in it is dated 1923. There is no danger whatever of a Rottingbrain boy turning a book-worm and becoming useless for practical life. Our reading-room is flooded with cinema journals. The Rottingbrainian is always up-to-date in the silver screen. We do not burden our students with extra-curricular activities. We do not encourage any sports. And so our students are able to patronise the local picture-houses and we are able to divert the gym funds to other profitable channels.

The Rottingbrain First Year student need never be afraid of getting ploughed at the annual exam. We allow him to run wild for the best part of the year. At the fag-end, however, we suggest to him likely questions We dictate the answers to these questions. Our question-papers embody those identical questions. Once, a Rottingbrain professor forgot to set the questions he had suggested. The boys refused to take the examination. They went on strike. The professor was forced to apologise for his error. A fresh question-paper was handed out ten days later. Our humane and broad-minded invigilators always help halting examinees over the stile. We assess the answer-books with the utmost leniency. We award grace marks to the deficient cases. If still a boy fails in one or more heads, we promote him. If promotion is not possible, we re-examine him and finally see him through. If a boy doesn't get through, we push him through. If he cannot be pushed through, we kick him through. It would be difficult for the most abandoned dullard to fail at Rottingbrain.

And now I suppose you wish to know something about the Rottingbrain staff. Well, if you continue your perusal of this monumental work, you will come to know a lot about this illustrious fraternity. You will doubtless continue if you have purchased the book with money earned with the sweat of your brow. I shall content myself here with the bare statement that Rottingbrain has one principal, eight professors, ten lecturers, one typist, eleven clerks and twenty-nine peons.