The COVID-19 has enforced unprecedented distances between human beings that have in turn rekindled the art of writing letters. Below is a letter that I wrote to my professors who have had to wait woefully long for my submissions.

Dear Professor

There are things a student isn’t supposed to say to their teacher, and this is one of them. But there is no similar negative sanction on writing such things, and hence I proceed. Good things take time, and like most things that we believe in for no apparent good reason, I believe the paper I had been holding back for the longest eternity, much to your wrath and irritation, is a good thing. Besides, paper writing is an art, one of the subtle yet potent kinds that is slowly getting depleted from the face of this planet only to be replaced by other loud, obscenely expressive and advertising modes of expression. If you have ever had the misfortune of bestowing upon an artist the responsibility of delivering a product by a stipulated time, I am sympathetic to the harrowing harassment you have had to go through, past their arrogance, audacity and absolute disregard for time – lines or frames. 

Artists, unlike mechanical producers, undergo swings in their moods and dispositions, to the point of being completely paralyzed to do the needful. On the other hand, scientists are way more efficient. So much so that they go to unbelievable extents unknown to man, woman and child to procure the perfect ingredients required for an experiment. Dear, professor, as a practitioner of a discipline that is in perpetual limbo between the arts and sciences, I suffer from both moody proficiency and uncompromising efficiency. Thus the paper took more time than you had wanted and I had hoped. Apologies are due and I shall not flinch from apologizing with utter sincerity.

Now that in my understanding I have completed all academic requirements of the semester, I shall take the liberty to work on some thoughts I had collected over the courses and stored for later, and might bombard you with the same through the vacation, while simultaneously working on my deplorable work ethic that I am so embarrassed of.

Best regards,
Mahashewta Bhattacharya

Mahashewta Bhattacharya is an MPhil research scholar in the Centre for Media Studies (CMS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).