'Cambridge: A place where I had a bloody good time!'

Television presenter Karan Thapar looks back at his Cambridge days and talks about the late Benazir Bhutto, his contemporary, selling tickets for a Pandit Ravishankar concert and what it takes to be an alumnus of the world's best university.

He may be 'the devil's advocate' now, but back in the '70s Dr Karan Thapar was just another impressionable young boy overawed by the sheer magic and majesty of Cambridge.

Thapar, who studied at the Pembroke College in Cambridge from October 1974 to June 1977 graduated in Economics and Political Philosophy and went on to get a doctorate from its rival university -- Oxford.

At our request, Dr Thapar graciously slips into nostalgia mode and narrates experiences from his university days.

...

Although I moved to Oxford to do my PhD, my first loyalty will always be towards Cambridge, where I did my undergraduate studies and because (there) I was younger, more impressionable and probably sillier too. Nonetheless it was also the place where I had a bloody good time.

The fondest memories I have of Cambridge are related to the Cambridge Union Society, of which I became the President.

Now the Union is not a students' union but rather the University's debating society (which was founded in 1815).

On the first day though, as I was walking around the campus in awe, I met someone who told me that he'd joined the Union.

Now, I was not sure what the Union, least of all its history or what it would mean to be the President but I joined it nonetheless just to keep up with the Joneses.

So there I was, participating in the undergraduate debating competition for freshmen. And I still remember very clearly the motion for the debate that day: 'This house prefers Marks & Spencer over Spencer and Marx'.

It was a brilliant motion! Because as serious as the topic was, it was evident that they also wanted you to be witty!

There were about 100 students who had participated and it eventually came down to six finalists, of which I was one.

...

The moment came when they were announcing the winners in reverse order and I was expecting to be the sixth.

When it came to the top three I began getting excited and when the final two names were to be announced I was ecstatic because I realised that I would either be number one or two!

Finally, when the name of the first runner-up was announced I was over the moon! I had won the competition!

No one had expected an Indian to win it. I hadn't expected to win either!

Sooner rather than later, I realised that I had a career at the Union. There were elections to the Union's standing committee and rather presumptuously I decided to contest them and I won.

...

In retrospect, I realised that three factors may have led to people voting for me:

The name Karan reads like an English girl's name -- Karen. So I suppose a lot of them must've voted thinking that I was a girl.

They realised (by my name again) that I was a wog -- as Indians were called then -- and voted for me because it was a good thing to vote for a wog.

And finally there must have been a small minority of voters who'd seen me speak.

So anyway I finally got on to the committee, spent three terms there, became the secretary and finally the President.

...

When I moved on to Oxford, my contemporary at the time was the 19-year-old Benazir Bhutto.

At her Presidential, which was the time when the outgoing president (Bhutto) was handing over charge to the new one, I remember deciding to do at Oxford what we do at Cambridge -- sing a song.

And so at her farewell, I sang 'Don't cry for me, Islamabad' (a take-off on Don't Cry for Me Argentina from the musical Evita). The Oxford Union loved it!

Much after Benazir was no longer the president of the Oxford Union and I wasn't the president of the Cambridge Union, she came visiting us over the Easter Weekend with a friend of hers.

It was the time when her father was losing power in Pakistan but nowhere did she let us know what she might have been feeling. We were trying to protect her in our own way because every time we switched on the television, news of the situation in Pakistan would be flashing on the screen.

So Benazir and her friend decided to cook for us and after a lovely meal, as we sat sipping wine, she suggested we go have ice cream.

Into her car we hopped, thinking we'd probably be driving around the corner to Baskin-Robbins. But Benazir kept driving and we ended up at the Baskin-Robbins in London, which she said was much, much better!

That was Benazir.

...

On another occasion when I was at Cambridge, we invited Pt Ravi Shankar to perform at the King's College chapel. Ustad Allah Rakha was of course the tabaljee (one who plays the tabla) and I was quite excited about having them over.

We told him that the Cambridge Union could not afford his fees but we would love to donate every single penny we earned through the concert to a charity of his choice.

He agreed and charged us some 1,000 pounds. Even though it was a reduced fee, it was a lot of money for us. Everyone in the Union thought I was foolish to organise an Indian classical music concert in the middle of winter, in the evening at Kings College Chapel, which had no heating!

I remember going about personally selling tickets to people and looking for sponsors. Finally, some 3,000 people showed up and just because of the sheer number we didn't require any heating and the concert was a hit!

Pt Ravi Shankar played from about 7 pm to 12:30 am and everyone enjoyed it thoroughly. We made a fair amount, which went to the village he had chosen.

...

There are two more memories of Cambridge that I must share with you:

I was to be interviewed by Michael Posner, the Professor of Economics, before being granted admission into the University (Posner went on to become an advisor to the government and worked to safeguard social science research in the UK).

As I knocked at the door of his study, I heard a deep voice from somewhere inside asking me to come in.

When I stepped in and looked around, I realised that there was not a soul in the room! I stood there wondering what to do when I heard Posner's voice again: 'With you in a moment. I'm having a bath!'

When you're 16 and you're standing in the middle of a grand study of a professor who is having a bath, you are a little unsure of what to do.

So I decided to walk to the bookshelf, which went all the way from the floor to the ceiling, pulled out a random book and pretended to read and show off how intelligent and serious a student I was.

Incidentally, it was a book on Indian economics.

Professor Posner walked in, greeted me, saw the book I was reading and tossed it over the chair and said, "Reading about economy, are you? So why do you want to do economics?"

I blabbered some reason, which was obviously not convincing enough. So he asked me to tell him something about the Indian economy.

And then I started off jabbering like an idiot for a good few minutes. He let me carry on and finally when I was done he said this: "Even if you don't know what you're talking about, you're pretty fluent with it."

I walked out of his study unsure about whether it was a compliment or not, but quite sure that I would never get into Cambridge.

...

But I did and on my first evening, as I wandered into the common room, I realised it was the same building in which Professor Posner had his office.

As it happened, he spotted me. Much to my surprise he remembered me and said, "You're the chap that's never been stopped by ignorance."

And that was when I realised that when they interview you before admitting you into Cambridge, they're not testing your knowledge of the subject -- because that is what you are here to learn -- but your intelligence and your ability to think on your feet and your poise.

Sadly, Professor Posner never taught me. But I do remember yet another incident involving another of my professors -- Michael Kuczynski -- who was the most excellent tutor I had.

Professor Kuczynski once used a quaint turn of phrase that has stayed with me all these years.

When I was leaving Cambridge, I went to visit him only to realise he wasn't there. So I left him a gift, got into my taxi and was about to leave when I saw him running towards me.

As it turned out I had only missed him by a few seconds. He'd got my gift and wanted to thank me.

"Thank you," he said, "That is altogether too kind."

It was such a lovely and archaic way of saying thank you, I could never simply forget.