The Professor (I must ask him whether using “the” before “professor” is correct) does not believe in caste or religion (anti-Brahmanic and secular are his favourite words). He has a problem with his name as well. He argues that his surname is the tail of the caste. At the same time, the Professor dreams about equality. Once, he declared that “professor” is a secular term and therefore everyone can call him “Professor.” He further argued that it has nothing to do with the hierarchy within educational institutions.
The Professor usually claims that he has turned into an ascetic after his retirement from a public university. He uploads old photos of his public university quarters on social media. Most of the time, he criticises private universities. At the same time, he considers himself a critical insider within neoliberal-capitalist educational institutions and exhorts that one has to fight within the system. Therefore, he joined a private university after his retirement. He asserted that revolution first comes through public universities and later becomes a mature revolution through private universities.
The Professor argues that he is a vegetarian by birth. However, he does not believe in caste. He eats beef to challenge his caste and analyses caste as part of the past. He describes himself as modern, postmodern, retromodern, etc. Yet, once, he did not allow me to enter his kitchen. Sometimes, he attempts to imitate his forefathers. He told me that there are good and bad things in tradition. Recently, he delivered a long lecture on purity, pollution, and the politics of food culture.
The Professor is against any form of slavery. He considers himself politically correct in his approach to others. He has friends who are Pandits and Muslims. His servants are Adivasis, and his driver is a Dalit. Sometimes, he walks with queer groups during pride parades. His ex-partner was a radical Marxist. His current girlfriend is a feminist, and he supports her, even when she called her colleague a “bitch.” The Professor says mothers alone can understand the pain of the nation. He is attending some online courses on queer rights to strengthen his solidarity with queer movements. Whenever he visits Delhi airport, he shouts, “Patriarchy and homophobia murdabad!” He was, however, against his niece’s marriage to an Afro-American person. Yet, whenever he travels abroad, he presents himself as a crusader against racism. He also claims that caste hardly exists in India and asserts that he is no longer a Brahmin but a de-Brahminised, beef-eating comrade.
The Professor is also an advocate of merit. He constantly speaks about an equal society. Occasionally, he shares updates about his son’s new books on Facebook. He has even asked some professors and activists to write prefaces and blurbs for his son’s books. He told me that he and his son oppose all forms of nepotism. At the same time, he told his Dalit driver and Adivasi servants that education kills innocence and creativity. The Professor’s son studied at leading schools, colleges, and universities. The Professor also criticised educational institutions and compared them to prisons. Thus, he positioned himself as a prisoner-professor who liberates students from such prisons.
The Professor imagines himself a public intellectual. He talks to everyone, including himself. The postman often delivers books in regional languages to his home. The Professor is against citations. Like some musicians, he is immediately inspired by books written in regional languages but does not cite those writers. He shouts at anyone who speaks about plagiarism. According to him, knowledge belongs to everyone. He is confident that his academic friends will quote his writings without checking the original sources. According to the Professor, inspiration or plagiarism of a different sort adds new colour to academic freedom.
The Professor says we must accept death as a reality. He sat with a beatific smile and told me that his country is full of deaths and that we must wait and analyse the multiple dimensions of death. So, the Professor is not going to die. Therefore, I must wait to write a sequel to this short story.
DoubleSpeak 