The Fun and Toil of a PhD!

Recently a leading Kannada Newspaper ran a series on the colourful golmaals that take place in the acquiring and granting of a PhD. But that’s not everybody’s story you know.

A PhD, if done sincerely needs many years of single-minded devotion. No Sunday. And nothing like a weekend. As is well-known, 3-4 years are required minimally and one would be constantly questioned on the thesis, its relevance and originality. Reading, grasping, writing and multiple other skills are required for a successful PhD, apart from discipline, patience, perseverance and a genuine quest for knowledge. 

The only danger, of course is that although you may not be a born-nerd, you could end up one! I was telling a friend, just the other day, how you slowly forget that fine balance of making (normal) conversation, since you have stretched you attention-span for so much longer than others would. Or that your obsession about precise sentences/words bugs friends and family.

A European scholar once told me that if someone had done a PhD, he/she could do anything, anything at all! The stress and strain that one undergoes in a PhD and the challenges one has met, are things that hone one into a fine piece of sculpture. Yes, that was the metaphor that my elders would compare the business of learning to…sculpting! 

But a wealthy-PhD student is a misnomer. And I cannot help but take refuge in that other famous Indian dictum “Where Saraswati dwells, Lakshmi does not.” In Bangalore, I did not even get access to the cheaper student Bus pass because I wasn’t doing my PhD from a government institution. 

Actually, no-money, no-job, even no-marriage and the other related problems of a PhD-life are known beforehand to one who embarks upon it. What continues to trouble one is: the endless amounts of justification that needs to be provided to relatives and friends. Be sure, you have either risen to the highest or the lowest rung on their-very-own-personal scale of success the moment it has been revealed that you are doing a PhD. But the real test is when people, quite promptly pose to you the question, “What is your topic?” When the topic is mentioned, the asker of the question will immediately launch into everything he/she knows about the topic, taken from good sources like Newspapers, Magazines, Internet websites, hearsay and such like, until you are made to realize (all over again) what exactly you got yourself into! 

What most people don’t understand is that the most difficult thing for a PhD student to come up with is his/her topic; and to put it succinctly and precisely in a sentence or two. Once one knows what one is doing, a PhD is actually easy; you just have to do it! 

But why would anyone get into a PhD really? A friend once told me the existential question “Who Am I?” drove him into taking up a PhD in the Humanities. Now that’s something, is it not?                        

You might have barely escaped the self-obsession that a PhD generously bestows upon you, but what remains is the precarious balance of humility and assertiveness you would have to achieve. You cannot say “Eureka, I found it!” No. You just cannot. Common, are you God? And then, you cannot allow anyone to think the world would turneth the way it does, sans your PhD. If you don’t believe me on this, go to www.phdcomics.com.

A friend once asked me when I was describing the work of a scholar on the Indian Traditions, “You mean, this guy is enlightened? Has he seen God?” But wait, the other favourite that friends with IT and MBA degrees throw at you is: “you mean you know everything?” The assumption here is that “things are OK” and that no new knowledge, in any discipline can question the OKness of this life and world. I think there is something peculiarly Indian about this assumption. One is not allowed even the bargained notion of ‘expertise’ in one’s field. This made me retaliate to the MBA guys once, “Do I ever claim expertise in your field, why do you claim in mine?” But hey, this could happen only if you are doing a PhD in the Humanities or Social Sciences. No one would ever treat a stem-cell researcher or a particle physicist with anything but a worshipful gaze, full of awe! 

And there is more to the fate of those of caught in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. It seems that all men-on-the-street already know what this knowledge is supposed to look like. If you started to describe your thesis, you will catch them saying with supreme confidence that only contrasts your own diffidence: “That is not how it is.” Or “That’s a wrong analysis”. Occasionally, a man-on-the-street will ask you a question that you will realize is far better than the ones your peers have been throwing at you. 

Friends from the US and Europe generally have a better sense of their own discipline, which probably helps them claim some expertise, but students here are actually a little lost. And not for some trivial reason, but a historical one. The Social Sciences and the Natural Sciences did not emerge here and the way we encounter it today is estranging. They are not a product of this culture and the attempt is still one that wants to get you to reflect in a mode that is not entirely your own. 

Is the troubled nature of intellectual life in India the result of colonialism? And the confusions it has caused? Well, no quick answers to this one. It’s a PhD topic for sure!