When Haste Makes Waste

For four nights now I have been grading, adding four more sleep deprived nights to the preceding string of six, as I averaged four hours of sleep for the past nine days or so.  The old bones and aging nerves don’t take as well as they used to sleep deprivation.  I have had to resort to sneaky sips of Red Bull, away from the ever-watchful eyes of my sons, to keep going the reluctant heap that my body seems to be.

For all the fun and joy that teaching is, grading is the comeuppance.  It is intense, lonely and painful, all at the same time.  Let me explain. 

It is intense because you have got to process so many different forms of answer to the same question.  Many of them are the result of truly bright minds that improvise in the exam hall as they deal with questions that they have not come across before.

It is lonely because one shuts oneself up while grading to be able to give the undivided attention it deserves.  Remember, most of these answers are unique and often bright?  They deserve to be examined carefully.  I help myself to get to that level of focus by putting on a headset and listening to some music that shuts the world off and locks me up in a cocoon of melodies.

It is painful because it is also a feedback to you as an instructor.  It is the moment of truth.  The answers tell you the extent you have communicated to your class.  And the brilliance of the students aside these are not always comforting or reassuring.

As I struggled with these nights of grading, with no idea of how much longer it will go on, I heard this voice from the not so distant past, after a long time in the form of a text message.  It set me off on a painful journey of reminiscence.

I was reminded of something that I wrote in a letter some time back.  And I realized soon later that I had been hasty in pouring out my heart the way I did.  I reproduce below a version of that letter, sanitized to hide the context of space, time and objects that might affect the privacy of those involved.

That, in turn, made me think of the title of this post: Haste Makes Waste.

Within a short while, all but two from this small band of people that the letter was addressed to were gone.  What is more we seem to have lost interest in each other faster than I had apprehended. 

As I locked myself in this virtual world of Youtube with my powerful headphones confining me inside an infinite loop of Malayalam movie melodies, I could not help thinking of those few days and the many events associated with those days.  

Associations of the kind that motivated me to write that letter, associations that I hoped for, clearly seem to be the kind of stuff that movies are made of.  Or if they do exist in real life I do not seem to have in me what it takes to make it happen or work.  My unseemly haste in forming those inadequately thought-through associations led to mountains of emotional waste.

In my struggle to get my mind off those answer scripts and the many thoughts that kept popping up like weeds like in my garden of playlists  I thought of writing this post.

The text of the letter that I wrote to my new-found and fleet-footed friends follows.

Nanni....Namaskaaram...

*********************************TEXT OF LETTER***********************************

As I get ready to leave on my vacation, my first in many years, my mind is filled with thoughts and memories of my many meetings with each one of you and your families in the past few days.

This has been an unusual experience for me.  For decades now, since I started working, I have been comfortable in the small reclusive emotional shell I built around myself.  It allowed me to pursue my career, unaffected by human considerations, to take decisions that were entirely consistent with the demands of my business, without being too burdened by the human dimensions or implications of what I did.  If you run into any of my colleagues from industry there is a high chance that they would describe me as cold, aloof and rather arrogant.  All these years I reserved my emotions for those that life cast into a family relationship with me. Even there often I try to go about life more with a sense of duty.

I built that shell early on in my life when I realized that I do not take well to the comings and goings of life.  I was raised in a large joint family, always full of people visiting and returning.  As a child I used to be in misery when relations visited on holidays and went back.  Over time I taught myself not to look forward to reunions because they always meant that there would be separation at the end.  The impermanence of life and relationships has always tormented me, in spite of my growing philosophical inclination towards life.  My shell was my answer to life cocking a snook at my sentimentality with its inexorability.

I carried that shell with me to my academic life, maintaining a fairly clinical relationship with my students too, although I have always tried to be pleasant and treated everyone with dignity.  I have helped a few students who approached me for something or the other.  But then just as soon as I completed the "engagement" I moved on emotionally, after wishing them good luck, not allowing any thoughts or feelings to linger on.

Each one of you on this email changed that approach for me in your own distinct ways.  In a pleasant way, you broke into my shell with your warmth and friendliness.  I am touched by your effort to reach out to me as an individual. 

In a strange irony the thoughts and recollections of these past few days make me realize how unprepared I still am to break out of my reclusive shell.  I have not been able to take well to the fact that you folks will all soon be gone.  Which makes me realize that I cannot afford these luxuries of friendship and emotional bonding, beyond my professional relationships.  Like a sluice gate that was opened temporarily to let a few people in I think I need to shut the door quickly, making me watchful not to allow similar connections to repeat.

But now that you are all on board and squarely inside the gates I look forward to keeping in touch. :-)