Tasteful tastes

I always liked Mohra's "tu cheez badi hai mast":



Especially the verse bit. But this is extremely embarrassing to admit, for the same reason that I find it hard to say in the company I keep in these older days that I like Iron Maiden.

As proof that my taste is "good", it turns out - thank you Pandora! - that tu cheez is nothing but a bollywood-isation of



Note for note! I knew my taste is tasteful! (But notice how cacophonous the cover is, how they cheapen the whole affair).

Memmy-Deddy

I missed my parents yesterday for the first time in my life. It felt strange. I wanted to sit with them in IIC eating fish and chips, drinking Kingfisher beer (with cell phones on silent, because "guests are requested" to do so in "consideration of others"). Being a saturday, I spoke with them, my mother was talking about a friend of theirs who passed away, at the age of 62 and "that age seems far to you but to us it is very near".

I remember this friend, I wasn't too fond of them, I don't think my parents were either, but I do remember she once said about me that I was a handsome young man. My mother replied to that, putting me in my place, "handsome is what handsome does."


The thing about my parents friends is that I usually like them. They're older, have seen more of life etc. and are usually more than glad to have a young 'un at their disposal.

My father's friends are all buddies from the civil service, and while bureaucrats can be very very egotistical, they are usually pretty open minded. (Though it takes a while to convince them). But I like them - they are usually well read, with deep knowledge of many things Indian, and there is a certain class that such education + experience imparts. Conversations with them are always fun.

Mother's friends are typically high school English schoolteachers - again a demographic I have no problems talking with. Conversations are less high brow than with Papa's dost, but more fun. (And we need that as well). Plus, there's usually some Wordsworth or TS Eliot thrown in  at random intervals.

Why talk about memmy-deddy's dost log? Birds of a feather, flock together, is one theory.

I believe the real reason is that I like how my parents are with their friends. I see how they would have been before they became parents, if this makes sense. They're usually more relaxed, allow themselves an additional glass of whiskey (Papa) or rum'n'cola (Mummy), and momentarily forget I am their son.

***

 

Bitten nails

Advisor hasn't replied to my last two emails...! Makes me want to sing:



ulp!

The LIBOR scandal

Assume a scenario as follows:

You're a teaching assistant, your only job is to grade assignments and tests. A student comes up to you one day, after a mid-term, asking about the marks you gave in his/her last test. You explain what you did.

The student is generally accepting, except that he/she says at the end "Thanks for your time. I'm worried that I won't get an A, which means I lose my fellowship and will be forced to leave the program, so that's why I am worried." You check this later on, and find it is true.

Now the next test comes up, and the student makes exactly the same mistake as before. It is however very slight but nevertheless implies a B grade. If you give the student just a marginal, tiny amount of more marks, he/she will keep the fellowship and be able to finish their course.

What would you do?

There are certainly costs associated with the minor inflation - one, where do you stop when you start. Two, it violates a personal code of grading. Three, the student will maybe not learn from the mistake.

If you don't carry out the inflation, the student is forced to drop the program, or perhaps suffer an extended delay of graduation. There is substantial harm imposed on the student.

How do you compare these costs? Either the student never learns, or learns the really hard way; so hard possibly that the lesson is no longer relevant. (The student gives up hope and goes home to work on a farm).