Opinion Degrees, dabs, and finger hearts: IIT-Ropar director’s pookie moves on convocation day

A pookie, by any other name, is someone who gets it. What it means to be young and vulnerable; to crave joy in unexpected places, or to question why solemnity must always march in step with ceremony. At IIT-Ropar’s recent convocation, director Rajeev Ahuja, professor of Computational Materials Science, showed he hasn’t forgotten the feeling of wavering between hope and anxiety, standing on the cusp of change. The 60-year-old didn’t just hand out degrees. He doled out dabs, fist bumps, and Korean finger hearts. Formal, it wasn’t. But memorable? Absolutely.

The videos of the ceremony on social media, clocking over 30 million views, have earned Ahuja the affectionate moniker of “pookie professor”. His moves may not have had the Gen Z chutzpah — Boomer shoulders can only shimmy so much — but what mattered was the spirit. In a space often weighed down by formality and hierarchy, Ahuja brought presence, play, and a rare emotional intelligence. He didn’t just preside over a convocation, he participated in it. Ahuja met students where they were, and in doing so, made the stage feel a little less daunting and a lot more empathetic.

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The moment may have been light, but its resonance is far from trivial. Higher education in India is often weighed down by stress, burnout and a sense of alienation. In the endless jugglery of exams, deadlines, institutional pressures and existential dread, a small gesture of warmth — a shared laugh, a playful photograph — can feel like a moment of levity; an affirmation that learning isn’t just about instructions, it is also about connections. Ahuja’s gesture symbolised a rare kind of academic leadership that institutions could do more with: One that is committed to creating spaces where students can thrive as more than the sum total of their grades; one that values joy over ceremony. Because long after the degrees are framed and the marks forgotten, what stays with students is someone who made them feel seen and heard. Someone like a pookie, on their side.