This Business Of Ph.D.-Doing Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

This business of the Ph.D. degree, what to say about it,
People doing Ph.Ds.,
Doing or getting done,
Purchasing or selling
And how the seller, the giver
And how the taker, the buyer
Buying from which market?

Do not ask me, do not ask me please,
Who the Ph.D.-giver,
The Ph.D.-taker,
Who is giving to whom
And what it in the degree?

The degree is not a degree,
Was
And what it had will not remain
In the times to come,
All bargaining for to have it.

There was a time
When a few used to do
And now many are after it
As for the U.G.C. binding
And the scale jump.

I have also seen Mr.Bogus guiding
Mr.Bluff-Master as for the degree
And the ways of bluffing many
Which the U.G.C. cannot catch it
In a big country like India.

As because his Ph.D. my Ph.D.,
My Ph.D. his Ph.D.,
The vegetable-bringer of the professor too a Ph.D.,
The typist of the guide too a Ph.D.,
The third-classer primary schoolteacher too a Ph.D.
And what more do you want to hear from me?

Many bluff-masters as guides,
Many bluff-masters as research scholars,
Many bluff-masters as editors of journals
For to be get university officer ship.

There was a time
When a selected few used to get it
And thereafter many started doing as for job and employment
And placement
As could not have been professors
Without Ph.Ds.

Many used to ask,
Will you write it yourself
Or I shall as for buying a scooter?
And I used to mark the guide changing
The title and the chapters of his thesis
For to produce two Ph.Ds.

The guides,
I have seen,
Failing to write the report in English,
Seeking permission as for to submit in Hindi
The thesis on social science.

I have seen the guide
Writing the thesis of Alexander Pope’s Belinda,
The bobby-cut belle
Without charging for,
Just for a cup of coffee.

I know it that both of them,
The guide and the scholar are altogether different,
The sly scholar will run away definitely
And will not remember his genuine guide.

The scholars too give to them who ask for
Or compel to give,
But not to those
Who do not ask for anything else
Or expect from them.

Many simpletons after their M.As.
In philosophy, psychology and Sanskrit,
Call they themselves big guides;
Many villagerly rustics
After their somehow M.As. in English
Call themselves guides in linguistics and phonetics,
Just a little bit of French-cut beards on the chin
And for gravity.