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Professor L is Head of the Department of English Language and Literature,
Rottingbrain College.
Throughout the length and breath of Rottingbrain, he is recognised as the
greatest living authority on everything English. He is the author of no
less than 11 guide-books for the use of university students.
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 .
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What he said about guide-book writers and what Professor Z said about him
in the preceding account must not be taken as the literal truth.
Rottingbrain in the heat of an argument, is always magnificently liberal
in its interpretation of fact and truth.
The aids to text-books penned by Professor L give copious and exhaustive
notes, fully answer all expected questions, and guarantee success.
They are bulkier and costlier than the original text-books prescribed. But
students prefer to buy them rather than the text-books.
They cram up the annotations and manage to scrape through the university
exams.
One fine morning, this Annotator Royal entered the First Year Arts division
class-room with his usual pomp and fuss. Of course he had nothing to do
with this room.
At the moment he was due in the Intermediate Arts Division III class-room. But
he thought this was the IA Division. III class-room. He waddled up to the
platform, panting and puffing.
He heaved himself onto it with some effort. This profound personage owns a
solid and substantial bulk, don't you know. The said bulk turns the scale
at a hundred and seventy-nine pounds avoirdupois.
"Take down!" the learned man bellowed, his glasses trained on a sheaf of
notes. I happened to be in the passage outside the thumping big room at
the time.
From my vantage-point I could enjoy the highly diverting proceeding to the
full.
"Ahem." Professor L sniffed. Some sixth sense seemed to be telling him
that all was not right about him.
Indeed, something was wrong somewhere. He gave a mild scratch to his
marbled dome. He pushed the slipping glasses up his nose. He frowned.
He was missing something. There was no doubt about it. But what? Ah, yes.
There wasn't that din and confusion such as would be kicked up by 150
well-fed and well-grown anthropoid apes if they were all suddenly and
without any previous notice separated from their caudal appendages by
sharp-bladed instruments.
How strange! How very strange!
The mystified savant looked up from his notes. What he saw made him gulp
twice in quick succession.
He doubled his evidence of his glasses. He deposited the notes on the
table, took off the glasses and polished them vigorously with a corner of
his bush-shirt.
Then he clamped them on again, and peered through them. He gulped four
times in quicker succession. For, the spacious class-room was starkly
empty save for the extra-ordinary presence of a well-nourished baby. I,
too, took an involuntary swallow. Rottingbrain does not welcome babies.
And no right-minded baby would care to waste his precious time at
Rottingbrain. We are a college, not a creche. The presence here of this
lusty young beggar was absolutely unaccountable.
It was stupefying. The young citizen was muffled up in bright-hued woollen
things. He looked about a year old. He sat quite happily on top of a
desk, dangling his lumpy little legs; sublimely unaware of the sensation
he was causing. One of his chubby little hands was raised up, as if he
wished very urgently to propound to the professor an important question in
connection with the Metaphysical School of Poets.
"Hoy!" Professor L yelled out through sheer habit. "What d'you think
you're doing there, young man? You have simply no business to be there,
d'you hear? I won't stand that sort of monkey-trick, I won't, that's flat
and final. Get out. Are you going out, or shall I report you to the
Principal? Where have all those gibbering baboons gone? You are an
insufferable incubus, sir. I'll have you expelled from college, sir. What
the..." The outraged scholar pulled himself up short. He suddenly became
conscious of the real state of affairs. He stared at the baby. The baby
ogled at him.
The little gate-crasher cut a pitifully insignificant and forlorn figure
in that big empty room. The man in the pundit was stirred to his depths.
The strong professorial front had broken down. Professor L showed signs of
deep concern. He was clearly afraid that the child might fall down and
injure himself grievously. He struggled down the platform.
He scuffled up to the bonny youngster. He picked him up lovingly. He
rested him in both his pudgy arms. He went to the rather unprofessorial
extremity of rocking him gently and carefully. The man had melted like
lard on wood-fire. I never saw him so thoroughly liquefied before.
"Goo' boy! Goo' l'le boy!" he crooned in the soft and dulcet tones of an
overloaded freight-train negotiating points. He'd decided the infant was a
baby boy. And so, it seemed, had I.
"Prof. L!" a voice of the nature and constitution of a shipyard hooter
broke in upon the crooner. All the hundred and seventy-nine pounds of the
baby-rocker plus those of the baby jumped.
"Professor L!" the voice blew out more violently. Professor L slowly
rotated on his axis. He nearly lost hold of his tiny charge, and his jaw
dropped. For he had seen the principal filling up the other doorway. I
thanked the Lord I wasn't standing in Prof. L's shoes at the time.
The principal of Rottingbrain has been designed and constructed on the
lines of one of India's major irrigation projects. And his temper is as
gigantic and as erratic.
"Sir?" Prof. L blubbered, trembling in every limb. Nature finds it a
pretty hard task to make an academician of Prof. L's proportions and
poundage first jump, and then, a couple of seconds later, tremble in every
limb. But on this occasion she proved herself equal to the task.
"You were supposed to engage the Intermediate Arts Div III class " the
Head of Rottingbrain snarled like one of Jim Corbett's Kumaon man-eaters.
"I came here to engage that class, sir, but I found not a single student."
The Professor bleated like one of Jim Corbett's goats tethered in the
Tarai to attract the man-eater.
"I must say it's high time the college did something about the gradually
deteriorating discipline, sir. If we go on at this rate..."
"Prof. L, when I come to stand in need of your advice in the matter of
Rottingbrain discipline, I shall ask for it."
"Thank you, sir."
"You got into this room to engage the Intermediate Div. III class?"
"I did, sir, as you can very well see for yourself, sir."
"Then I'm afraid it's high time the college did something about the fast
degenerating reason and sanity of its staff."
"Sir?"
"Allow me to draw your attention to the fact that this is the First Year
Arts Div I class-room. You have blundered into a wrong room. Your
Intermediate students waited in vain for you down below, and have
stampeded home now most riotously."
"I am sorry, sir."
"Rottingbrain pays you to do your appointed work in a conscientious and
efficient manner. Prof. L."
"Yes, sir."
"Rottingbrain does not pay you to potter about in empty class-rooms to the
shameful neglect of big and important classes."
"No, sir."
"Good God, what's that in your arms?"
"It's a b-b-baby, sir."
"A what?"
"Baby, that is to say, an infant, sir. The young one of a human being. A
rather prosaic description, sir. Let me seek the assistance of the poet
Wordsworth, sir. Wordsworth would have called youngster 'the father of
the man' sir. An eminently readable poet, Wordsworth. One of the
romantics. His nature-poetry is wonderful. Simply wonderful. With your
permission, I shall proceed to recite a lovely passage from his..."
"Drivel?"
"Stop that drivel, sir!"
"This is preposterous, scandalous!"
"What is, sir?"
"A professor fondling a baby in a college class-room!"
"But it's a most loveable little baby boy, sir. One can't help fondling
him, whatever one is."
"What arrant nonsense."
"Would you like to cuddle this baby, sir? I find it a heart-warming
experience, sir. I am prepared to share it with you, sir. I must request
you to hasten to take this baby in your arms and subject him to your
endearments. You may not have another such opportunity, sir. This may
easily be the first and last baby to visit Rottingbrain, sir."
"You have gone off your nut, Prof. L."
"Strong language that, sir."
"Rottingbrain does not pay you to dandle babies in class-rooms."
"That's easily granted, sir."
"What the devil do you mean by lugging in your child here, sir?"
"My child, sir?"
"You heard me, sir."
"I am not a married man, sir."
"That makes it infinitely worse, sir. Your position calls for a lot of
explanation. There sure is more in this matter than meets the eye."
"Are you insinuating, sir..."
"I am affirming, sir, that this situation is far shadier than it looks."
"This child is not mine, sir."
"Then whose child is it, sir?"
"I have no idea, sir."
"Well, well, well!"
By this time the principal had slowly sailed within two and half feet of
Prof. L's nose, and he evinced all the known symptoms of an ungovernable
itch to bash in that feature. A goodly consignment of the Rottingbrain
staff tumbled into the room at this juncture.
"What's the matter, sir?" Prof. E asked the Principal.
"That cretin has brought his child here" the Principal sizzled, breaking
off his contemplation of Prof. L's
nose, taking a few steps back, and aiming an accusing finger at the
culprit.
"What a shame."
"This story will get about and play havoc with our reputation."
"It positively is a real, red-hot, honest-to-goodness baby."
"How are we going to explain that brat away?"
"Prof. L is a bachelor, sir," Prof. S pointed out with rare relish and
gusto.
"My! Whoever could have thought that of him?" Prof. H wondered, a
sanctimoniously shocked expression on his sallow, doughy, pimply face.
"The fellow always did look shifty and secretive," observed Prof. P,
sagely.
"The man must be dismissed. Instantly and unceremoniously dismissed,"
hammered out Prof. E.
All this while the flushed and inarticulate baby-holder had been inching
dazedly away from the professorial shafts towards the big open window
overlooking the street eighty feet below. He had lost control over
himself. He was thoroughly deflated and demoralised. It had all proved too
much for him. He made the window. He faced it to take a gasp of clean
fresh air.
And then he staggered, hit one of the glass panes, and sank down all in a
heap with a wordless gurgle on his lips, not dead, but very nearly so. A
concerted groan went up simultaneously, from the rest of the luminaries,
as they, too, slumped down on the floor. The baby had been dropped clean
out of the window!
My system had felt a terrific jar, but strangely enough my consciousness
remained uncannily clear and took in every little detail of the scene of
horror.
"What's all this?" came a sweet chime.
It was Miss X, the Rottingbrain typist. A whirlwind of professorial sighs
greeted her.
"What's come over Rottingbrain today?" lamented the fairest of the fair.
"First some young scamp steals baby I bought for my little niece, away
from me the costly celluloid and then this!"
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