Light Elements
With the advent of mandatory CPE hours there is mushroom
growth of faculties in the country. Thanks to the Institute of Chartered
Accountants of India. Well, faculties are growing from grassroot to local, state
and national levels. In the past the organisers would be facing the problem of
audience. But now due to mandatory CPE hours there is no shortage of audience,
morning, afternoon, evening, I mean at any point of time. Really, CPE hours has
made magical impact on the professional fraternity. We have ‘back-to-the-school’
kind of feeling. No ‘bunking’ of CPE hours.
Introduction of faculty — one of the organisers does this job
with a smiling face and turning his head incessantly towards the faculty to
check his beaming face, who is adjusting himself in the chair and whispering in
the ear of the next to him. He begins “Ladies and gentleman, today’s faculty,
none other than bla bla bla, . . . . all of us know him very well, he doesn’t
need introduction . . . .”, but still he continues for next 5 to 10 minutes or
more [testing your patience] . . . . faculty’s record-breaking academic career,
then comes his professional and social contributions in terms of books he
authored, lectures at various forums he delivered, chairmanship, membership,
directorship he held in various prominent organisations, companies, cooperative
banks, cooperative societies [excluding the housing society where he lives]
public trusts, NGOs of local, state, national or international repute, his
career as visiting faculty . . . . , his extra curricular activities like
mountaineering, cycling, singing, dancing, yoga, his love for birds and animals
[once in fact I heard the faculty having purchased a ‘race horse’] so on so
forth . . . . eventually asking the faculty to take charge of the proceedings
[perhaps having realised that he is encroaching upon the time allotted to the
faculty of the day], he ends the introduction. Thank God ! Indeed the audience
breathes a sigh of relief.
At the end of the introduction there is a loud applause till
the faculty reaches the podium. Then come corrections by the faculty in his ‘bio
data’ rehearsed by the overenthusiastic curtain-raiser. It brings cheers in the
auditorium.
Generally our national game ‘cricket’ comes handy for the
faculty to begin with. For example, if there are two lectures in succession and
the faculty happens to deliver the first lecture, he invariably compares himself
with ‘opening batsman’ [most of the time Sachin Tendulkar or Sunil Gavaskar] or
compares his lecture as ‘first inning’. Sometimes the faculty being an ardent
fan of cricket keeps on referring cricketing terms like one day, test match,
20-twenty, slog overs, bouncers, googly, silly point, etc. during the course of
his lecture. However, ironically the audience experiences the fatigue of a test
match ended in ‘draw’ at the end of the lecture.
Some faculties are not techno-savvy and some are
techno-savvy, they resort to PowerPoint presentation. What they do is simply go
on explaining contents of image after image on the screen with the help of a
laptop on the podium. [it may sound harsh to read . . . . it is just like
‘copying’ from book in the examination]. Tight rope walk for the audience, to
read the contents of the image on the screen as well as digest what the faculty
is explaining in his most clumsy language, further to note down the citation
thrown by the faculty ‘out of his pocket’ as a special bonus. [Note that you
need to activate your physical ‘faculties’ like hearing, seeing, reasoning and
writing at a time to absorb what the ‘faculty’ is conveying.] It is a regular
practice of asking for ‘once more’ to the citation referred by the faculty on
the lines of ‘once more’ to filmy song in the orchestra. I wonder what they do
with the citation so noted down on the chit of the paper back home.
More often than not when the learned faculty is explaining
the ‘judicial view or trend’ in the country, he refers decisions of various High
Courts and the Supreme Court, obviously on the same ‘issue’ (note that any Court
is referred and addressed as ‘Honorable Court’ without fail even while
ridiculing the ‘decision’ of such Court) right from Kashmir to Kanyakumari one
after another, that too with chronological antecedents spanning from British
rule to Mahatma Gandhi Rule (at present we are under “Mahatma Gandhi Rule) I
mean pre- and post-Independence. It reminds me of Hanuman jumping from one
palace to another palace in the kingdom of Ravana in his effort to douse his
tail on fire. Eventually Hanuman burns the entire Lanka of Ravana. So does the
faculty, I mean the audience experiences a total ‘washout’.
At the end of the lecture there is ‘Sawal-Jabab’, I mean
question-answer session. It is like ‘dare show’ either for the faculty or for
the audience depending upon the nature of subject dealt with by the faculty. If
the subject is a general subject like capital gain, business expenditure,
depreciation or MAT, etc. the question-answer session turns out to be ‘dare
show’ for the faculty, because most of the questions are hypothetical one
sprouting from ‘instant imagination’ of the members of the audience. On the
contrary, if the subject is a ‘special’ subject like transfer pricing,
derivative transaction, or cross-border transactions, any accounting standard,
etc., the question-answer session ‘if at all’ takes place [more particularly in
mofussil area] it is ‘dare show’ for the audience. This ‘dare show’ bares the
importance of CPE hours in a true sense, look at the quality of queries raised.
Handling of question-answer session is a skilled job for the
faculty. Well, normally he wants to wind it up quickly, so at the outset, he
declares “Due to time constraint I would not be able to answer all questions”.
What few questions he answers he answers in ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ style. For some
questions he complains about illegibility of handwriting of the queriest, so
those questions remain unanswered. Looking at some questions he is shrewd enough
to declare that “I have replied this question in my lecture, I think the
queriest was sleeping or was not in the hall”. Next few questions he prefers to
reply in writing, obviously replies would be sent to the organisers in couple of
weeks. Sometimes the faculty cross-questions the queriest to answer, so that the
queriest gets embarrassed, consequently the original question dissolves in the
air. Mischievous queries are left out deliberately in consultation with the
organiser sitting next to the faculty.
