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