CELEBRATING JNU
I must confess and you must agree that there is something intensely erotic about this place. What is it? I don't know exactly. May be the greenery. May be people like Visvanathan and her polar opposites like Sharma [and I have equal respect for both the species]. May be people like Anand Kumar who have mastered the art of conversation.
May be the element of freedom. Inhaling the JNU smoke and getting a hang of it.
Initially one gets easily disgusted because it takes not more than a week to realize how false are all those grand notions that people outside the campus have constructed about this place. So reputations and expectations fall apart. The presence of the dirty check shirt wearing deehaatees landing up in the city for the first time holding the ladders of quota and quartile disgusts one. One gets disgusted by the moustache-wala, IAS-walas all around with their caged definition of success boxed within the white ambassador with red bulb on top.
One gets disgusted by the initial academic pressure.But then something happens; the academic culture can seduce someone like Parul who was least interested in sociology. Two years in this university is just not enough. After the semester you are left with the feeling that two years on this campus are just not enough. One needs to spend more years over here.And of course Baangla cinema and stories,the language and the people.So I am happy to be here.
Eep told me, before i joined this institution that it is a place that can accommodate a hip Hinduite and also some lad from the most remote corner of the country who cant speak the hegemonic language called ENGLISH; a place where people still fight on political and social issues; a place which promises more head space and leg space; literally and metaphorically, where participation and non-participation are equally welcome.
Well we are all welcome to the university, but how welcome are we to each other..what really happens when the hip person and the remote area lad are a part of the same class,Centre and School..
what happens when one wants to go to Barissta for a coffee and the other to ganga dhaba for chai?
what happens when one identifies that his attitude is more bourgeoisie than the more 'in' proletariat one in JNU..
are people really like that,cause i wonder in a megapolis like Delhi how do 21st century younsters survive then..everything is just so attached that, either we have to give up all and be puritans or indulge in only once in a while.
and how do we carry it around then..during elections,on our sleeves.after that,in the dust maybe.
I guess this place has made me more tolerant or may i say..has actually shown me how two worlds exist as one.we can definately choose to be on either sides,however the fun remains to be a mix of a lil bit of this and a lil bit of that as all the people do.
I must confess and you must agree that there is something intensely erotic about this place. What is it? I don't know exactly. May be the greenery. May be people like Visvanathan and her polar opposites like Sharma [and I have equal respect for both the species]. May be people like Anand Kumar who have mastered the art of conversation.
May be the element of freedom. Inhaling the JNU smoke and getting a hang of it.
Initially one gets easily disgusted because it takes not more than a week to realize how false are all those grand notions that people outside the campus have constructed about this place. So reputations and expectations fall apart. The presence of the dirty check shirt wearing deehaatees landing up in the city for the first time holding the ladders of quota and quartile disgusts one. One gets disgusted by the moustache-wala, IAS-walas all around with their caged definition of success boxed within the white ambassador with red bulb on top.
One gets disgusted by the initial academic pressure.But then something happens; the academic culture can seduce someone like Parul who was least interested in sociology. Two years in this university is just not enough. After the semester you are left with the feeling that two years on this campus are just not enough. One needs to spend more years over here.And of course Baangla cinema and stories,the language and the people.So I am happy to be here.
Eep told me, before i joined this institution that it is a place that can accommodate a hip Hinduite and also some lad from the most remote corner of the country who cant speak the hegemonic language called ENGLISH; a place where people still fight on political and social issues; a place which promises more head space and leg space; literally and metaphorically, where participation and non-participation are equally welcome.
Well we are all welcome to the university, but how welcome are we to each other..what really happens when the hip person and the remote area lad are a part of the same class,Centre and School..
what happens when one wants to go to Barissta for a coffee and the other to ganga dhaba for chai?
what happens when one identifies that his attitude is more bourgeoisie than the more 'in' proletariat one in JNU..
are people really like that,cause i wonder in a megapolis like Delhi how do 21st century younsters survive then..everything is just so attached that, either we have to give up all and be puritans or indulge in only once in a while.
and how do we carry it around then..during elections,on our sleeves.after that,in the dust maybe.
I guess this place has made me more tolerant or may i say..has actually shown me how two worlds exist as one.we can definately choose to be on either sides,however the fun remains to be a mix of a lil bit of this and a lil bit of that as all the people do.
Comments
life does tend to become more n more into the jnu world if u aren't careful...just don't do tht to urself....remember the big bad world tht exists outside and tht is reality...we have to face it sometime in life and this truth shouldn't be forgotten!
but then of course enjoy jnu..love it, live it...support what u believe...its not about two sides...