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Jadavpur, Personal

More of Identity Crisis

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Long years back there was a time when the saying was ‘what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow’. That age is gone. Alongside, the age of the Bengali ‘bada babu’ is also gone. The last batch when a few bongs got into IAS together has reached the fringes of senility. And when I look back at my own university and my own city I can see the reason why. Certainly, partly so. Maybe I will discuss them, but maybe some other time. I shall tell rather tell of an intersting event that happened to me. An incident that confirmed my pity for my Alma Mater.

Those days I was working as a copywriter in Bangalore, and the Mains results had just come out. Preparation for the interview of the Civil Services can be very rigourous, and there you can get a question out of anywhere, or nowhere. Preparing your own background is very essential – background means anything with which you are associated or anything from which you derive your identity. So, you are a Arya Samaji? You should know your Arya Samaj. Are you a Radhasoami? Better know how that is different from mainstream Sikhism. You are a civil engineer? Tell me, why did you join Wipro then when you could have joined L&T and done greater justice to your education. Achha, you are from Kolkata? They tell me that the story of Job Charnock as the founder of Kolkata is all bullshit, and that a prospering and flourishing town had already been in existence when Charnock, by accident, found it? Is it true? You better tell and satisy them properly. The old men and women sitting in Dholpur House can be very fincky. Heard of that recent topper from Orissa who had to give a live Odissi performance to satisfy the curious gazers in the interview room? [Well, this is an Urban legend]. I am just assuming that you get the idea…

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That spring of last year, 2006, was a legend in self discovery for me. For the first time I tried to know about myself, my past, the meaning of my name, about my caste and its history, about my birthplace and its story under the sun, about the schools I have studied in, places I have stayed in, about Bengal, about being Bengali, about Bengali culture, about Rabindra Nath and Rabindra Sangeet, about developmental economics and where Amartya Sen fit in….long list that! Now, a student of literature, especially if he happens to come out of the portals of JU, has a stiff upper lip, a thin skin and a long nose. Even if for the purpose of throwing around names of books and authors, he must read them, or make a pretence of having read them. I remember the previous spring how I had read The City of Joy in anticipation of getting called to Delhi…[of course, I was never called – that year]. One year after and a somewhat more busy with a job of my own now, I wanted to read a few stuff on Kolkata. Now, keep in mind that teachers in JU are not just teachers. They are also enlightened citizens and most of them have their own pet areas, areas where they are acknowledged experts. Many of them have written their books and research papers on them. Kolkata also happens to be the expertise of someone in my department. But if you know the rules of existence in JU, you must be knowing that there are students and there are students. And yet, I needed to get some material on Kolkata. However, not much time back I had my tryst with my own identity about which you can read here…and once bitten twice shy, I did not want to venture into the same folly. As Bush is fond of saying, “fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again“. So, I wrote a mail to a rather close relative of this gentleman, a lady who is herself an illustrious faculty member, and who, I had reason to believe, knew me by name at least. I knew from other people that this lady uses her email as other people have also written to her on this email. As you have second guessed me, I did not receive any reply…

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Now, you must be wondering what is the big fuss about not getting a reply on email. After all, so many emails go unanswered – there are the questions of being net savvy or not, having proper access, server jam, etc. Probably, the mail got lost in transit, a phenomenon I have not heard of so far, but probably technically feasible. Probably, her spam filter deleted my mail before it was scanned by her eyes. Probably there was some mistake – her mouse accidently got clicked while it was hovering precariously over the ‘delete’ button. Probably her inbox was full [yeah, let’s assume that she had filled her 1 GB or 2 GB of inbox, which would mean she was very much net-savvy, or else she won’t be getting so much mail in the first place]. Well, as you can very well see in this paragraph there are too many probabilties we are relying on. I very much fancy a much simpler explanation. The mail reached her email. It did not get deleted accidently. She read it, all right. And she did not reply. Chances are that she was receiving a letter of this kind for the first time. In Jadavpur it is not everyday that a student gets called for the UPSC interview. And I would have expected that my email would find a rather welcome reception and some importance.

Now, as luck would have it there was not a single question on Kolkata. If there were, I am sure, I could handle it easily. I had done my own reading. I never bothered to collect much of knowledge or wisdom while I was in JU, but once when I did try to collect a little bit of it, while I was out of JU, I had this curious misadventure. As you may well expect, it left a bad taste in the mouth…

It is not a surprise why so few make it from this province. Why the IISWBM IAS coaching centre was wrapped up – no successful candidates. Bengal deserves this drought.

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Jadavpur, Personal

Enjoy? What Enjoy?

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Sometime during my PG years when the semester system had not yet been introduced, a student-teacher session regarding change in syllabi was held at the old location of the departmental library. People sat in various positions. Vociferous pitches were made by many as to why one text should be removed and another introduced. It was a long session and lively one at that. I watched with much interest and amusement as one after another made his or her presentation. At the end the teachers, especially those who were responsible for the UGC mandated syllabi change (or whatever; let’s not get too technical here) made their remarks. And it was here that Swapan da made a little speech that somehow took the cake for me. I don’t recall the verbatim speech, but it went something like this:

For too long I am hearing the complaint that the studies are not enjoyable. This text is not enjoyable. That Austen is so boring and what not. I think you should realize the fact that we are here in the university not for enjoyment, but for studies and instruction. And whoever gave you the idea that studies have to be enjoyable? Studies requires steadfast devotion and hardwork, hardly enjoyable fare. Please make substantive suggestions as to how the syllabi can be changed for the betterment of the coming batches. How it will help you actually….

Not much was spoken after that.

 

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Jadavpur, Personal

In the buff after football

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Football was rare for us at Jadavpur. There were not many enthusiasts, or there was no ball. There were some champion footballers who did not bother playing with us (rightly so). No girls would watch us meaning their boyfriends would not bother to play, or meaning few would be inspired enough if there was no show-off. But once in a blue moon we did have our games. Sometimes there were the so-called ‘challenge matches’. With our famed rivalry with the Economics Department, we did have a few intensely competitive matches between us. This was one such match in the MA first year, sometime during the monsoon of 2001.
It had been raining, and the whole football ground was a stretch of mud. With Bengalis playing, it was a free-for-all where all are more intent on hitting someone’s leg than the ball. At some point of the time I was on centre-right at midfield, and from there I hit the ball hard, a la Bobby Charlton, and ‘netted’ (no net, sorry) the ball gloriously. Mouths agape. I think two pretty girls from my class on whom I have weaved a few poems, were watching from the other side. Talk of luck. Huh!

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Splattered in mud, we took our dips in the local lake beside the windmill. Light was falling. We did not have any towels with us, so we were having to change our clothes behind the proverbial bush. From far I saw one of these two women coming towards us. Scared I dropped my pants and ran behind the bush, as she came up and met our group. It transpired later that she was coming to ask me to join the Departmental Tour to Sikkim – somehow I had said that if some other woman was not going, I would not come.
So, this young lady comes to meet me to persuade me to go to Sikkim, and I was in my birthday best behind the bush. Of course, I did have some more memories during this Sikkim tour, with this same lady; but let that remain the recipe for another anecdote later.

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Jadavpur, Personal

My convocation at Jadavpur University

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convocation When I was not even ten years old my favourite song was ‘Papa kehte hain’ from the film Qayamat se Qayamat tak. In this film which created waves among the youth, this particular song was favourite with many, putting into words the aspirations and dreams, as well as the apprehensions of the youth at the threshold of adulthood and responsibility. Aamir Khan, in his first film, sings the song on the occasion of his graduation party. While it would be so much worthwhile to quote not only the lyrics of the song, but also the preface which always accompanies the song, let me do without it, hoping only that my Indian friends would remember the words. In the next twelve years the world changed much, not only for me, but for everyone else. Thus in 2001, in Dil chahta hai the same Aamir Khan sings in another graduation party – ‘Hum hai naye, andaaz kyon ho purana?’. The total change of lyrics and the vocabulary might symbolise the changed perception, the changed mentality, the changed attitude, the increasing optimism and recklessness, or whatever. And believe me, reams have been written on these two contrasting phenomena. My own graduation ceremony, [excuse me, there was no party!] might draw references from the above quoted contexts.

I always thought that graduation ought to be a milestone in one’s [at least academic] career. It is, I still believe. While there was never any doubt that I would reach this stage, perhaps go even further, I had always expected the reaching of this milestone to be accompanied with some symbolic celebration. The graduation years passed by rather too quickly. The first day at college remains fresh still in our minds. College remains an important place in our lives. The degree would mean so much more in concrete terms, given the present employment scenario in this country. Why is it then that when that very graduation ceremony comes [and most agree that they are doing the present course, or did the last course, only for the degree] they are so callous about it? The day before the ceremony I called a few girls with an enquiry, and from them I came to know that none of them were anywhere near excited about the coming day, none were interested in bringing their parents, and in fact some were not interested in coming altogether! The recurring penchant was ‘What the hell is convocation? We’ve already got our marksheets, and we will get our degrees later on, anyway.’ And true to this early promise, many did not come. ‘Hum hai naye, andaaz kyon ho purana?’

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The day there began early. The long queue for convocation robe [sorry, no caps] of colour saffron which made us seem all of the BJP. The slow arrival of classmates. Then the queue again for the graduation pictures. [Of course many of us had got our own cameras, we were not allowed to take snaps on stage- where we would be given our degrees.] The roaming around the university with friends while in the long wait for our scrolls. The getting together of some mates on the steps of the Open Theatre where the ceremony was held. And at long last the queue for getting the degree. At this point it would be so much apt to comment on an aspect of Department and University life which was so much evident not only prior to the ceremony, but also after it [namely, the lack of bonding among classmates, and the dispersing attitude of clustering among small groups], but that calls for a separate article. Plainly, I was very disappointed that even on this very special day we could not find buddies to take snaps with. Some of us were so much desirous of taking snaps in our Department and classes where we spent the last three years, but unfortunately, we found so few of our classmates. As the ceremony ended, all departed. There was no get-together, no party. And I recalled all those graduation parties in films.

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