College
I was returning home from college when I received a phone call from the principal.
“Where are you?”
“I am halfway home. On a bus”
“Can you come back to college? We need to talk in person”
I get off the bus and take another bus back to college. As I arrive and enter the principal room, I notice that a bunch of my classmates and seniors are standing around the entrance — staring daggers at me.
I don't know why I have been called but I have a faint clue about what it might be.
Once I enter, I see the principal sitting behind his desk, surrounded by a few professors.
“Did you send out an email to the Union Grants Commission?”
A few weeks back, when we were exiting college, a bunch of seniors caught us near the entrance. This was within the first few days after college had started and all of us were getting very used to the experience.
The seniors asked 2 of my classmates to take off their belts and tie them up so that it looked like a garland. Then they asked them to stand facing each other. Another classmate was asked to stand alongside them and I was asked to kneel between them.
“You two are getting married”, the senior said as he gestured to the two classmates facing each other.
“You are the priest, say some mantras”, he told the other classmate.
“You are the flame of the marriage. Move like the flames”, he said as he pointed at me.
While this sounds funny as I type it now, it was very uncomfortable then. We finished 7 hours of college and now I had to go back home with my pants dirty from kneeling on the ground.
This wasn’t the first time an incident like this happened in college, but it was the first time I considered complaining to the authorities. I had never been on the complaining end while in school, so I was quite hesitant about it — It felt like the wrong thing to do.
No one else was doing it.
A few days later, the seniors took us into the college canteen. One senior called me and said, “Go to that guy. Say Sambhu is an idiot.”
Sambhu was the name of that senior's father.
This happened a couple of times, where I was being sent as a messenger from one senior to another, passing insults and whatnot. Then one of the seniors, Saurav, instead of continuing on the same track, asked me to do squats while holding my ears.
It was stopped after a few minutes by the other folk there, but the humiliation I felt is difficult to describe.
One of our college professors, Saibal Sir, shared with us an internal email for ragging complaints. Thinking that if I emailed him, this situation would be handled internally, I sent him an email describing the situation but taking no names that day.
Then, a few weeks later, the incident at the principal’s office happened.
I had sent Saibal sir the email, but I had no clue if that was sent to the union grant commission or not.
I told him the details of what I had done and what I had written and then I was sent back home.
The next few weeks were a very different experience in college.
The seniors did not enter the class, but the president of the student union came and asked me to explain myself. He said that this is what everyone goes through in their first few days and doing the complaint, I would alienate myself from all college seniors.
I would get no help to get placed once I graduate.
Everyone would stay away from me while I was in college since I was a tattle-tale.
A lot of my classmates were of similar opinions. That I shouldn’t have done it. Now none of the seniors will intermix with folks in our class.
At that moment in time, I started to regret putting in the complaint. Maybe I had gone too far.
Some folks from UGC came a few weeks later and they along with professors of my college formed a board.
They called me into a big meeting room and asked me questions about what had happened. I hid a lot of details and said that I had done it at the spur of the moment. I wish to withdraw my complaint. They asked me to give it in writing and gave me a sheet to write it out on.
As I said there in the corner of the meeting room, writing out the letter, another classmate of mine entered the room.
He had also mailed the college but seeing nothing happening, he sent a mail to UGC directly. This caused UGC to come down on our college and block all grants till this situation was resolved.
And here I was, half confused and half blaming myself for a situation I had created, everyone in the college under the impression that I had brought forward this situation, while someone else had done it.
But at that moment in time, I felt relief. At least someone else was there with me, who took a similar stand and didn’t conform. I felt less alone for the first time in weeks at that time.