Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Professor Bhatt

BHATT LIMERICK
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There was an old man by the name of Bhatt

Who lectured whilst scratching his butt
His nails were long
So when he taught for long
He ended up with his butt cut.

- TJC 23 Sep,2003
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PCP Bhatt was my professor in iiit-b (where I had a brief stint). He used to teach us Operating Systems and Foundations Of Computing. Professor Bhatt was an excellent teacher, with plenty of wit, but had a strange habit - his hand inevitably crept into his pants when writing on the whiteboard, when his back faced the class...in full view!This limerick was reportedly leaked to Professor Bhatt! I wonder what he thought.

I remember an interesting conversation that I had with him in class when he was explaining schedulers - the component of an OS that decides what should be done when. I detected a chicken-and-egg problem : who or what schedules the scheduler? I decided to be cryptic. The exchange, unforgettable for anyone who was present in that class, went verbatim-

TJC: Professor, but who cuts the barber's hair?
(pause of 5 seconds)
PCP: What if the barber is a Sardarji?




3 comments:

  1. That reminded me about a paradox.

    If a barber cuts the hair of exactly those who do not cut their own hair, will the barber cut his own hair? - Russell's paradox.

    The whole thing becomes even better when put in this context, scheduler. Oh.. Sardar.

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  2. That limerick of yours had us in splits at the time. Don't remember the Sardarji barber episode though. Must have been one of those classes when I wasn't let in for being late. :D

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