Friday, March 21, 2008

The first few days in AAIDU that changed my life...


THE SENIOR JUNIOR MENACE
It began early. With the ragging and the equally outrageous young professors, things were difficult to comprehend. The whole atmosphere was one of uncertainty and suspense. The girls weren’t special as most of them weren’t their original self. They weren’t as neatly dressed as the guys because the intimidated female seniors wouldn’t let them do that. Later I realised that it is the case with boys as well as once when I shared my feelings about a female senior with a male senior, he quickly snapped me by saying how bad she was in conduct during her first year. She was my immediate senior and my male senior definitely didn’t seem to like me liking her or even thinking about her. So what is it that troubles the seniors so much about certain juniors? I didn’t know. I had found a group of anti ragging seniors from nowhere and they adopted us as their younger brothers or robots. They said,” Now you are in safe hands and we will make sure you are immune from ragging and have a pleasurable stay in this phase of life”. I was told about how the mighty seniors were so active, intelligent, smart, innovative, strong, diligent, committed, experienced, etc. I was also promised that I would be like them one day if I diligently follow them and religiously not discern their orders. I was taken around in their Hero Honda splendours with narration of ragging stories of the past simultaneously. It was a mixed feeling, something that felt like fish prick in your naked arse when you are enjoying your skinny dip in cold water. You realise the element of freedom, but also get reminded of your vulnerability. These bike rides in the campus led to a few hush hush among my awestruck fellow freshers and a few angry seniors. I walked around the campus bravely during those days because my bhaiyya(the anti ragging saviours) is an assistant professor in the College of agricultural engg & technology, my bhaiyya is an assistant professor in the college of agriculture, my bhaiyya works in the registrar’s office. I was told so. But I really didn’t bother to cross check and didn’t know to face read their capabilities. I had three pals with me who will echo my walks of vulnerability to various degrees. These stories from seniors and false promises of many things rosy had given us a sense of disbelief at our lucks. We thought we are going to have the best times of our life. This is the place where we could bring out all our talent and shine like stars. We walked around the near empty campus exploring the directions, distances and dimensions, singing, Maddy, Maddy, Oh Oh Maddy, huh huh, Maddy, Maddy, Oh Oh Maddy. We had arrived. We took it a little too far sometimes when one day my friends taunted a senior who was 190 cm but was riding a Hero Puch. Now that looked something. My friends gave him a heartful of glares and a few words of commentary as a condiment. Shot one. Each one of us must have done many mischieves in our respective lives in the past. But this was team work. The agony of the campus and the incomprehensible mentality of the seniors was taking a toll on us. It was beginning to show on how much solace we took in taunting the seniors. These incidents were monting. Mind you the fresher’s welcome was light years away, and the degree was for 4 years. We didn’t have a clue as to what is life in AAIDU. Our outrageous behaviour led to a few complaints to the seniors that we be taught to respect them. But it only led to us being more dangerously outrageous. The anger was piling on the seniors side, esp. the malayalathans, who couldn’t digest the sight of a bunch of 4 pandi rascals walking with their heads high. I was numero uno again although I was the most subdued after the initial revolt. This is something that I again failed to understand. But eventually it led to those malayalathans passing a message to us saying that “Our hands are tied at the moment because of the supreme court rule on ragging, but the day the ragging will be called off will be the day when you will hear your death knell ! You will be like the lamb being cornered by a hungry pride of lions. ( Well, The whole campus knows who the real lions are. It is the TSSA that are the real lions. We had fought the TSSA off earlier. They ditched us as useless crumbs). We will attack you in all our might and fell you to the ground. We will show you who we are.” That struck me bad for I had gone to Allahabad with academic dreams to accomplish. So, during my long hours of introspection and thought, I decided to go slow on my aggression and find a way out of this senior junior menace. That was a moment of sadness and great learning for me as since then as a boy I had this notion of real life dominance. I thought I was a special character and possessed great abilities. I, this moment still cannot appreciate its consequence on my personality. I had submitted myself to somebody and since then have continued to submit myself in many places. I had lost my confidence badly and have forgotten what I was and where I came from. I had forgotten what I could do and what I could not. Is this wrong or right? Only time can possibly tell in my journey through AAIDU.

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joe said...
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