Interview with the Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Faisal Masud

Interview with the Vice Chancellor

Prof. Dr. Faisal Masud

* Kemcol English Section Sneak Peek *

Let me cultivate you first: That reminds me of a Chinese proverb, “Once there were five blind men who wanted to “experience” an elephant – having heard of one. Reaching there they felt it, as best they could; One of them felt its leg, one its tail, one its ears, one its trunk and last its abdomen. When they returned they asked each other what the elephant was like.

The one who “saw” its leg said it’s like a pillar, which felt the tail perceived it as a rope, the one who got hold of his trunk reported it to be like a pipe, for the one who could only manage his ear rightly thought of a winnowing fan (chagh) and so on. What do you think – which one of the five is telling the truth? …

Sir, you talked about going beyond the rules of reason but this world rests on logic and rationality. How to cope with that?

This reminds me of a joke: Two English men went to the pub after consuming pints of lager, flushed and inebriated they started chatting. ‘John I was wondering last night that if earth is revolving around the sun then why it doesn’t fall down’. Other said ‘well pretty relevant question, I was thinking the same. Somebody told me that it is drifting on the back of a big turtle’. ‘O great. But John, what is that great turtle standing on’. ‘It is standing on another great turtle” ‘And by the way where is that second turtle standing on’ ‘Silly, it is the turtles all the way down’ (laughter) …

Sir, please give a comparative analysis of introvertism and extrovertism, the goods and harms of each

I am not an introvert person. But even if I somehow become an extrovert, I will not be able to communicate properly with people – it has more to do with the reality in which I live. In fact extrovertism and introvertism are the two extreme ends of a single continuum. Socializing and being able to communicate well require commonality of experience so we can engage each other - needless to say then, you have to live in the same sphere of experience -Nothing good or bad about it …

Sir, how would you establish the bridge between religious fundamentalism and spirituality? ‘Betrayal by worldly love is the first step to divine love’, how much do you believe in this?

One may fall in love when one is an idiot. Remember falling in love is indeed a “fall”…

Any message you would like to give to your medical students as lovers of art and literature.

There is no real difference between art and science. At a lower level they appear very divergent but go higher and they merge together …

This was just a sneak peek of the 4+ hours long session we had with our worthy Vice Chancellor.Read the complete interview in English Section Kemcol 2013 !