Narrative of Indore

         If Bombay is a crowd, then Indore is dust. Dust rules the city. Roads, houses, vehicles, apartments, highways, dhabas, palace façades, hawker's articles, billboards, showrooms, shopping complexes, temples-premises, sarais, railway station, bus stops, and many more places. Your hair, clothes, skins and faces gather layers of dust within hours. Even on the fifth floor of the clean and posh apartment situated on the rim of the city, your laptop shines with settled layers of dust if you leave it for one day or two uncovered. Ironically, the roadside food is popular in Indore. The land of this Malwa region appears to contain weak soil configuration that causes much dust, powder and dirt on the earth and in environment.

The nameplate of the train. The Rajbada is the palace -converted- museum.

           It was a cold December (2013) morning when I reached Indore railway station. It is a traditional and not modernized station. There are still both types of gauges- meter gauge and broad gauge.  It was still dark and fairly nippy outside. From inside the moving green black auto-rickshaw (CNG driven), I saw empty roads, early tea-selling shops (especially opened for the truck-drivers, daily wagers, and temple-goers), under-construction flyovers, necessary street-lighting and hoardings and billboards mostly written in Hindi. Even the residue banners of the  ruling political party (Bhartiya Janta Party) after the recent assembly elections were in Hindi, though their number, size, magnanimity and influence were not impressive. The reason was the popularity of the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan as I was informed by the auto rickshaw driver. He said that the third successive and massive victory of Mr Chauhan was an account of the development in Madhya Pradesh in recent decades and thus, he did not need much election campaigning among people. Many fly-overs and roads were under construction.

The chilly and women labourers on the outskirts of Indore city

           Indore is traditional and conservative city in spirit and culture, but we can see the recent real estate and information technology boom in certain pockets of the city. Speedy blue metro buses like Ahamedabad city ply in the designated lanes on the wide roads, or else traditional modes of transportation are often available. The heart of the city is the vibrant shopping area called Rajwadi (like Sutlan Bazaar of Hyderabad) where the things are available at reasonably cheaper rates. In December, the warm clothes were piled up on  pulling carts along the sides of the narrow streets. Vegetarian dishes dominates the food culture of Indore. My friend travelled almost another part of the city  near the railway station to find out a good non-vegetarian hotel. Of course, there is some religious or spiritual impact of the Jainism on the people and their life, as the commerce, trade, cultural and religious life of Indore is driven by powerful Jain community to a good extent. The proximity to Ujjain city and many Jain temples (Kanch Mandir is famous), the numerous shops of sweets, and pure vegetarian restaurants and hotels can certainly confirm the vibrant presence, influence and hold of the Jain.

A tea-seller at Mandu (historical place), 100 km away from Indore

           Indore is expanding and stretching. The presence of big shopping malls, tall apartments, vast townships, multi-national companies, five-star hotels, higher education institutions,  the kingly palaces, old inns, congested and busy bazaars,  and welcoming people make the city an impeccable blend of tradition and modernity.

Behind the Smoky Screen: The August Narrative

If you are prohibited to enter the precinct of the women's hostels, if you are almost under the round-the-clock surveillance of CCTV cameras, if you are in a chaotically overcrowded (only) mess, if you share your small hostel room with your fellow(s), though you can see many incomplete rooms above your rooms, if you visit the library and discover the new arrival section empty and the journal section welcoming you with desolated wooden book racks, and if you encounter the Nano-car sized, dusty, rugged, and only playground, then you are in the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.

If you wake up in the morning and are undecided about your daily food arrangement, if you compromise to eat substandard and tasteless food in prehistoric looking cafeteria or the oily breakfast of the roadside vendors, if you walk into the Gothic corridors (littered with stinking garbage) during power-cuts, if you find the back entrance locked at 10.30 pm every night, if you pay around Rs 5000 towards mess deposit and discover it shut down, if you want to watch a cricket match and do not find a TV set for entertainment,  then you are the newly-joined certified boarder of the Basheer Men's Hostel of the same university.  

It hardly matters for us even after three weeks are gone since the commencement of the new academic year at the university. No wonder if the new male students struggle for getting food in time in the only mess that runs for us, because the men's hostel mess is waiting for minimum 100 members to join so that it can function. Those students have to hunt for food and attend the classes in time, so that there should not be attendance shortage at the end of the semester. It is all known to us that since last four years, almost every door of the first two floors of the Basheer hostel is knocked to pull up the internet connections, because the top four floors are not internet-equipped. The state of stagnation in terms of sports and games and cultural activities and the warehouse-type gymnasium fail to keep the general health intact. And the old residents feel that 'the paradise is lost.'

NB- While writing this post, there is no intention to demean the reputation of the university and its various institutions, but the whole idea is to foreground the problems we face. We all know that the discipline and the academic regularization are the achievement of our university in the recent past, but here, the purpose is to persuade the university to shake its resigned torpor.        

I am Reading Room

         I am Reading Room (RR).  I'm a small hall on the first floor of the extended part of the Ramesh Mohan Library in the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. Since last four days I am  living in darkness . I am closed, lonely and suffocating. I have lost my friends, visitors, companions, on duty security guards and some dear staff who visit me every day. I am not able to breath fresh air since the closed windows, doors and gates don't allow any movements, a human being or even a bird. Thus, I am leading a gloomy life that is boring and frustrating. Will you give me a new life?

          I am five years old. I was born to accommodate surging young students of the university since the hostels and other buildings were under construction a couple of years ago. To escape the intolerable disturbance created by construction work and to avoid unneccesary confrontation with their room parters, students came to me. I sheltered them and loved their hard work. Then my relationship developed with research scholars, staffs and some dedicated visitors of other institutions as well. I provided them peaceful study environment round the clock. I also served them with newspapers in four languages (almost all that are published from Hyderabad). They were happy, satisfied and appreciative towards me. In return, I received their smile, satisfaction and success and that made me proud of them and me too. 

          Four days ago, a piece of paper declared my closure permanently citing that I was no longer available to anybody since the library has to be expanded and I would be its internal part. According to the order, I would now served as the Wi-Fi technical room so that the internet can be accessed without using wire connection. My  proprietor the librarian says that the vastu of the library will change since he has increased numbers of books and dissertations. Since then nothing happens in me. Now I am broken, helpless and deserted.  

      All my dear students are concerned with my bad health and pain. They are trying to win me back through raising their voice against the decision. They and the active Students' Union -the statuary body- are trying to dissolve the problem through disciplined protests that are their constitutionally right. They have adopted the democratic means- like staging dharnas, shouting slogans, boycotting classes, and marching around the campus to make aware each and every friend of mine. So far there is no single damage of property of the university. All my friends are sensible protesters and they believe in democratic dialogues with the university officials. But there is no solid solution. Only God knows if I will be able to live my life again. 

      So I sincerely appeal you to save my life. We are friends and I don't want to lose our friendship. I believe you also don't. 

    RR 

Voicing the silence

          Within the area of 32-acres of small piece of land, the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad bravely houses 25 buildings that include the Academic Block, the Administrative Block, the Foreign Language buildings, the library, teachers and staff quarters, the V-C Lounges, five hostels and some other buildings. But there are no adequate and appropriate indoor and  outdoor public spaces. Inside the closed, occasionally-sunlit, stuffy, heavy and damp hostel rooms, we are safe, content and comfortable doing all private things- parties, accessing to internet, watching movies, sleeping, and entertaining ourselves and occasional studies. We believe our day begins when the breakfast timing is almost over and we need to rush for the morning class of the day. After the class we hang out with friends and do some extra-curricular activities. Honestly speakings, some of us are sincere students and they don't deter from their duties. In short, we are provided the essential and basic things we need- food, shelter, entertainment and some dose of academic lessons. Our degrees will prove our talent and will certainly bring nice jobs. We should not worry much about some values that a student acquires during his/her studenthood, though we study humanities. These are someone else's job.

              Our friends often miss the comfort, environment, peace, and learning experiences when they pass out of this premier institution. The obvious reason may be the open spaces- in geographical, physical, intellectual, and academic senses. They say they have enjoyed maximum freedom- of expression and intellectual exercise, harmonious environment, friendly attitude of fellow students and teachers as well. Perhaps, that is the key of their success. In fact, their nostalgia that they believe lives inside their heart. But we are advanced and edited version of their personae. So why we should not enjoy equal freedom that our predecessors have? Should we not think with rational mind about the problems we face in our student career?

             Out university seems to be nicely fortified languid house where we live in metonymic fashion, but we are not much alive. Our biological body functions, but our faculty of reasoning has accumulated rusts. We live as  we are told, kept, managed, and instructed. We have stopped questioning the orders and have started following thing without giving the second thoughts. We must be aware that we are now living in the twenty-first century world and we are most informed generation than our forefathers have been. Let's think of some moot questions.

1. Why our library  is not open round the clock  when other central universities like JNU have this facility?

2. Why don't we have a common public space for reading, discussing, gossiping, debating and hanging out 24x7?

3. Our neighbouring university University of Hyderabad has a reading room open 24x7. But why don't we have on?

4. Why don't we have any auditorium?

5. Why we don't have any TV in our common room?

The list of questions is not exhaustive. We can add on it. 

           I strongly believe that we need to speak up for our rights. We deserve to grow. Let's make a call to our mind and think over it.