An Indictment

Class presentations, rituals that marked the closure of each course of a term bored us to death or were minefields of inane laughter. With exams usually a week or two away and a few more Projects to be wrapped up, who wants to stay alive in darkened rooms to listen to power point presentations which earn only
disdain-ah, don't I know how he did his Project-all gas, no substance-he simply started working on his Project last evening. And hence everyone wanted to go to sleep. Generals of a losing side would have an easier job of stopping their troops retreating from the warfront-never the presentors from rousing us from sleep. They had an audience of one, the professor, the poor soul who had ordered the whole affair in the first place.

The other day Satyan was presenting the Pharma industry to us. His father was a Doctor and Satyan, not being able to study Medicine, always nursed a soft corner for the Pharma sector. He could hold his own on IPRs, process and product patents, the impact of WTO on Indian Pharma industry and he peppered his talk with a lot of relevant examples...Poor Satyan, that day he was putting up one of his best performances but there was none to savor it. He would be finally shown his seat with a round of customary applause which was done more for breaking the audience's monotony than for pepping up the speaker.

Satyan was using the example of Viagra to illustrate how the lack of product patents in India gave the local companies enough room to reverse-engineer the final molecule and rebuild them using different processes. He took up Viagra as a point in case. Viagra he said was very costly for an average Indian. So the local companies cashed in with reverse-engineered verisons such as Penagra, Cinagra (add up three such rhyming names, dear readers). Medically safe and effective, he said, but definitely bending international patent regimes!!

The lights at the back and the corners of the classroom had been switched off to falicitate relaxation and scores of silent snores. The class was deadeningly silent-not of a rapt attention, but of a deep sedation. From one dark corner arose an innocent voice, 'You seem to know so much about this...!'

It was as if the class was waiting to pounce on something and shred it with laughter. The dropped bomb created waves after waves of laughter. The professor couldn't help smiling, neither could Satyan searching as he was the owner of that nasty voice!