Russell Peters Again: "Are Wee Goool?"

Watching Russell Peters's mocking of Indian accent brought me back a fond memory.

Freshly minted at the graduate school years ago, I was pondering which courses to take at the beginning of the semester. A fellow Chinese student, who was half way through his Ph.D. program, offered his advice. The way he delivered it, however, sounded more like a stern warning: "Whatever you take, just keep one thing in mind: skip the course taught by any professor whose last name is Singh or longer than 12 letters".

He was dead serious. But, what a hell, I was young and full of myself then. A week later, I was sitting at the back row in a class called Fluid Dynamics, taught by Associate Prof. Singh, who, at the first glance, seemed amicable and smart.

The problem was, he spoke in a rapid fire, as if he's always in a hurry; on top of that, his accent was so thick that I wondered whether he was speaking Hindi with an English accent. By the end of the class, I was sure that some sort of fluid had flooded my ears dynamically; almost nothing the professor lectured came across.

I should have heeded warning.

But I stuck out. It turned out Prof. Singh was indeed amicable and very smart. That's how I recall him now. Otherwise, I can't explain why I didn't drop his class. I also remember, somehow along the way, the dynamic fluid receded, and my ears started to tune into his English, to the degree that I was quite fond of his unique accent.

I got A in the end. I thought Prof. Singh was very "goool".