Brilliant Fat Guy!

I was doing masters in Mysore. One day I received an e-mail from one of my students, “Sir, Finally I cleared Fields Theory in my 4th attempt. It was possible only because of you Sir. That day if you have not given me the average, it was impossible to complete my engineering degree. Thanks a lot sir…..”
I went to my flash back. That time I was teaching Field theory. One day a fat guy was begging for average. He was absent for the first sessional . in the second he scored 10 marks and in the third again absent due to Malaria. He was still suffering from fever and said “Sir, I can’t write one more sessional please give me some assignment otherwise my average will be 5 and It is impossible to score 45 in Fields. “
Very next day was the last working day and I was in an ambiguity whether to give marks or not. I was not sure that he will submit the assignment. His innocent face gave me the confidence and I gave him 15 marks. After a week he came with the assignment. He had solved some 20 problems!!
Next year I came to Mysore and forgot the incident. Now his mail brought back my memorable teaching experiences. After my masters I joined back and one day Fat guy came with 3 of his friends asking for a project. I gave them an idea to build a portable device which analyses ECG. After a lot of struggle one day they were able to see the ECG in a computer using LABVIEW interfacing card. That day they called HOD also to show the running ECG waveform. He also impressed and said, “after completion of your project you can take my ECG and can analyze it!!”. The project got the “Best project of the year” award. Even now when I meet the fat guy, he doesn’t talk about the project, he still remembers that 15 mark. Only VTU student knows the importance of 15 and 35!!
--ESKE