This Business Of Ph.D.-Doing

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.