Surface embellishments

It had been over a month and a half and I had forgotten about the "credit", said the author

It was a call that had taken me by surprise. A faculty member attached to Shilpa Sadan, the vocational training part of the Visva Bharati University, called me in early May. Tagore, an early believer in rural reconstruction, had in addition to creating science and humanities teaching facilities had also created Shilpa Sadan where the courses offered were in textile, leather, paper or ceramic craft.

The faculty member had asked me whether I would be in Santiniketan mid May. When I said I would, he told me that he would like to invite me as an external examiner for a fourth semester practical examination for graduate students in textile design. Considering that in my chequered career, in journalism, the financial sector and now in crafts, nobody had ever asked me to be an examiner, I was rather tickled. Although, I soon told myself that the invite was probably because as a resident of Santiniketan, I would not need to be reimbursed for travel or stay.

Between the phone call and the day of the examination, I received a letter from the assistant registrar (examinations) of Visva Bharati University that said that I had been appointed examiner but little else. In fact, the letter talked about a form of acceptance and disclosures being enclosed, but there were none. I was a bit surprised at the documentation levels of a Central University but didn’t really pay much attention.

On the appointed day, I went to the university and met the faculty member. The department was a sprawling campus with massive classrooms. The gentleman showed me around rather proudly and also made me meet some of his fellow faculty. That was the first time that I learnt that I was going to examine the students’ work in “surface embellishment”. I realised that my 15 years of working in craft, ever since I came to Santiniketan, could be described so succinctly!

I had to judge the work of a dozen students, who had “surface embellished” bedroom linen in different corners of the classroom. There were curtains and bedspreads and cushions done up in interesting textures.

Some of the work, I must admit was rather interesting. What threw me however was when I got into conversations with each of them — as they were trying to explain to me their inspiration, mood palette, colour palette etc. Most of the students seemed from modest backgrounds for whom this design exercise had no connect with their lives. So any question that went beyond dyeing or embroidery techniques drew a complete blank.

My marking over, and after a little sermonising to the students, I was back in the car to drive home. Soon I got a call from the faculty member who had invited me. He wanted me to text him my bank account details. “So that we can credit the fees,” he explained. “Of course it won’t be very much,” he added probably realising that this was my first such experience.

It had been over a month and a half and I had forgotten about the “credit”. Till this Thursday, when I got a message from my bank to say that I had received a credit into my account from Visva Bharati University. The amount was Rs 100! 

Since the university does not believe in communication, I have no way of knowing whether this payment was for local travel (although it would not even cover an electronic auto fare) and the examiner fee is yet to come. Or whether this was it.