Higher Education

"There is a humor," he says.

The round little professor had been patiently waiting for us when we breathlessly arrived from our harried journey across Delhi.  After being stuck in meetings in Noida, we had all but given up on making our four o'clock meeting, until he let us know he would be available until five.  We slung our laptop bags over our shoulders and hit the road, stewing in traffic until we reached his campus and were able to climb the three flights of stairs to his office.

He takes a moment to fish out his card, then sits back in his chair and says simply, "Tell." We discuss the new sales curriculum he's been developing, a chance for me to see how universities work from the inside out.  It's not until we're standing up to leave that he finally turns to me and asks, "You are from what office?"

When he learns I'm based in Boston, he smiles and says, "There is a humor..."

He goes on to tell a classic Harvard vs. MIT joke (although instead of MIT, he calls it "Massachusetts"): It seems that one of them is qualitative, one of them is quantitative.  A professor walks up to the 10-items-or-less aisle at a supermarket. The cashier asks, "Are you from Harvard or MIT?"  When the professor doesn't understand, she explains, "Are you from the school who can't read, or the school who can't see?"

 ----

On our way out of the meeting, my coworker makes a hurried detour to the elementary school next door to campus.  I'm unsure why, until I notice a small list posted on a stand just outside the front gate.  It's a list of students to be admitted to its preschool the following year.

We scan the paper together until I notice his last name.  "Your daughter?" I ask.  He grins mightily.

"Proud papa," I say.  "Yes," he agrees.  "Proud papa."

Some things are the same no matter where you go.