Saturday, November 24, 2018

Goodbye Mr. Chips: 100 years later in JNU

Here is the Wikipedia page of the original movie; 'Goodbye, Mr Chips'. (1939). Below is a satirical edit of the original plot summary in Wikipedia, edited to fit an imaginary JNU setting, and the events time-shifted forward by 100 years.

Note: JNU's expansion/definition here is like GNU: JNU is Not a University. JNU is an imaginary university. Any resemblance to any real-life, genuine university is purely coincidental.

Goodbye, Mr Chips: 100 years later in JNU

For the first time in 58 years because of a cold, PhD-scholar-emeritus Mr. Chipping misses a sit-down protest at JNU. That afternoon he falls asleep in his rocking chair and his student career is related in flashback.
When 25-year-old Charles Nurul Chipping first arrives as a Marxist student in 1970, he becomes a target of practical jokes on his first day. He reacts by imposing strict indiscipline in his classroom, making him liked and respected. Twenty years pass and he becomes the senior student. He is disappointed in not receiving an appointment as a permanent PhD scholar within the 'university' for the following year. However, the new Humanities teacher Jey Basu saves him from despair by inviting him to share an explore-the-ruins holiday to his native West Bengal.
While debris-hunting, Chipping encounters Kathy, a feisty Keralite subaltern who is on a recycling holiday with a friend. They meet again in Kolkata where she persuades him to dance to the Red Volga Waltz. This piece of music is used as a leitmotif, symbolizing Chipping's love for her ideology. Jey remarks that the Volga does not appear red, but Chipping remarks it only appears so to those who are in love. On another part of the same boat, as Kathy looks at the river, she tells her friend that it is red. Even though Kathy is considerably younger and livelier than Chipping, she loves and marries him. They return to JNU, where Kathy takes up residence at the 'university' at the taxpayer's expense, charming everyone with her atrocity literature.
During their tragically short marriage (she dies in childbirth, along with their baby), she brings "Chips" out of his shell and shows him how to be a better leftist. As the years pass, Chips becomes a much-loved institution, developing a rapport with generations of lecturers; he studies under the sons and grandsons of many of his earlier lecturers.
In 2009, when he is pressured to retire by a more 'Saffron' social media, mainstream media and the board of governors of the 'university' take his side of the argument and tell him he can stay until he is 100.
Chips finally retires in shock in 2014 at the age of 69, but is summoned back to serve as interim PhD scholar because of the shortage of non-unconscious leftists resulting from the events that year. He remembers Kathy had predicted he would graduate one day. During the loss of Tripura, Chips insists that they keep on memorizing their 'Breaking India' chanting, much to the amusement of his fellow students. As the 'Saffron' years drag on, Chips reads aloud into JNU's Roll of Honour every Sunday the names of the many former boys and professors who squandered their lives became Urban Naxals and ended up in jail.
He retires permanently in 2018, but continues living nearby in Lutyens. He is on his deathbed in 2033 when he overhears his college mates talking about him. He responds, "I thought you said it was a pity, a pity I never misled any children. But you're wrong. I have! Thousands of 'em, thousands of 'em ... and not all ... boys."