Back in urbana, i got to the report on our preliminary investigations and agreements with the three researchers in the countries concerned. Seymour and Dr. F vetted it and sent it off to USAID and the funders of our trip. Then i sat back to await news of the grant approval though not too anxiously, as it was USAID itself that had wanted the project and SRL was not in the habit of having its projects rejected. It had passed through Seymour's and RF's keen scrutiny, and that was good enough, i thought. So one day, when Dr. F came around with a rather sympathetic look and broke the news to Seymour and me that the project had not been approved, we were stunned. The reasons had nothing to do with the intrinsic merits of our proposal, but two events that changed the whole scenario. Nixon axed USAID's budget suddenly, and so some projects on the anvil had to go. On top of that, the head of whatever section it was that had wanted this project was replaced, and the new person was not at all interested in the subject, and he happily gave it up!
Landing me in the soup! I had invested so much of my hopes, energies and time in the proposal with the full expectation that it would be my thesis topic that I felt totally deflated. I just could not countenance the idea of working on a new topic from scratch. This was not only my own brainchild to begin with, and one that fortuitously coincided with a donor's interests, but our preliminary trip and contacts and agreements had gone far beyond the usual first steps for any thesis.
I bluntly told Seymour that no way was I was going to do any more primary research or hypothesising. I would delve into SRL data and fit what i could find to suit my tailor-made hypothesis. He was not too happy or even sanguine i would be able to do it. But somehow twisting and turning the data, I did produce a relationship. I found it quite difficult to convince my committee to accept this poor substitute, but more due to verbal jousting than logic, I now feel, i did manage to pass through that very respectable array of professors. It was a cop-out and I did not care!
I hated my new topic – it was so puerile, I am even now ashamed of it! i did use some trends in consumer choices of household durable purchases in lieu of my sociologically and developmentally worthy probe that was planned on adoption of new foods. i am sure this dislike had a lot to do with my dragging out the entire process. I was finally able to defend my thesis only eight years later! But there were other factors too.
Ramu's thesis topic was also accepted by his committee but at this point he decided we had to return to India the next semester, i.e. by the beginning of 71. This was partly due to his leave period expiring about that time, and partly due to a feeling that we could write up our dissertations on our own and submit for approval. Our respective guides tried to dissuade us, warning that students who planned to complete their dissertations in absentia generally never did so, due to the competing pressures in the outer world. I was a bit swayed by this argument and suggested that Ramu could explain to the govt. and get an extension. But he was keen and so we assured them blithely, we had more will power and would soon finish our work to their satisfaction.
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