Spent a good few hours with Mr. Pk today, interviewing students for the student council. The gentleman heads the media studies department in the college and has a certain calming charisma to him. A has a big school girl on him, but that’s no major news. Who wouldn’t fall for the salt and pepper hair, a smile to die for and those teenage boy-like eye lashes? My previous conversations with him made me realize that he was different, very different, from the head of my department. The head of my department reacted to the Bangalore New Year molestation news by mocking the girl’s clothes and blaming it all on the way she dressed. Enough information to judge his character.
PK was very sober throughout our interviews. Not uppity enough to be tight lipped, cracked a joke or two, drank water from our bottles and shared sandwiches with the students. He was definitely reachable, unlike a lot of professors that walk two feet above the ground, on their own little pedestal.
What impressed me about the man was not his buying us food or cracking jokes. The first was when he was visibly hurt when this student brought us all snacks and drinks in a plastic poly bag. He reprimanded himself for not reminding the student to not bring plastic, and for not giving him his bag to bring back food. I have seen few in mainstream academia from PK’s generation who are really worried about saving the planet.
The second thing that left a much deeper impression was his chiding a student for stereotyping men. She was presenting her case about some bad teachers in her department and kept referring to the unnamed offender in the contexts of the masculine gender. Pk gently asked her if the particular teacher was a male teacher, and the student clarified that it was a general observation. He immediately asked her to switch to the neutral gender or the dual reference to both. He clarified his stand by stating how stereotypes are formed and how we should be conscious to not further it.
It got me thinking about stereotypes that are forced on men and how the education sector is always abundant with its own bag full. In a profession that’s largely dominated by women, the few men would seem marginalized. Most staff room conversations would center around the meals to be cooked and the fevers to be handled. While men should worry about the above aspects too, there would rarely be cricket and football talk in a staff room, would there? Men are automatically rejected by some schools, and for some age groups, because of their insensitivity. Images of male teachers always seem complete only when a large cane and a frown are added in. Did I just stereotype men again?
“Enough talk about men and women and stereotypes. Can we go out now, please?” Scotch
GRAAwl!!
A piece of my mind 