Sunday, June 04, 2006

FUN(NY) COLLEGE LIFE!

My college is, was and will be a useless place. Actually, for long I've been contemplating writing a letter to the Editor of The Hindu about the stupidity of the ‘management‘ of the college.
Anyway, let me come to my personal experience in the college and then whoever reads this can decide for themselves if there is any truth in my statements.
Taking you people back to my pre-college days:
I had just finished my TNPCEE (another article on the uselessness of that exam coming up) and knew that I had ‘muffed’ it! I did real badly on that and was awaiting my results (wats worse – I belong to the ill fated FC – more on that also coming up). Since I had already failed in trying to step into IIT (Was not smart enuf for that – not hardworking enuf either!!) I started gathering info about the ‘best’ colleges in TN – I had also decided that I wouldn’t stay away from home (another stupidity! – more on that also later – god! When u write on one topic you get sooo many many ideas for others!!). So then the list narrowed down to SVCE, Crescent, SRM, SB. Ok…. So it makes sense to get into the first three colleges – but there were minor problems for all. First of all my cut off was not enuf to obtain even ‘Bachelors in Back Scratching’ from SVCE. And Crescent was too far off so there were commuting problems. And then SRM had hiked its fees that particular year, which meant I’d have to pay double the amount I would be payin in any other coll and so guess what? – I landed up in SB (Since then I STOPPED praying to GOD…… there was no God according to me for those 4 yrs!)
Anyway, so I was all pepped up and excited – u know, first day of college and then I was standing at the ‘hip’ bus stop (for those of you from Chennai – That’s Maharaja Stores) chatting with a lot of exited youngsters (little did we know what was in store for us!) and then comes the first disappointment rolling down the road – GAWD! Wat a BUS!! VOLVO would lose to this!!! Amazing engine noise, silent brakes, smmmmmmooooooooooth ride, wowwww!! Anyway, it was not very different from a PTC bus, only the outer color was (ya! Excellent colour sense the management had!!) Anyway, we trooped into this and got to the exotic college campus (So many trees, so green and cooooool!!! Lovely!!)
Then we were introduced to ‘The Pandal’ – the amazing ‘permanent shamiana’ located on the campus – remote from the classrooms and close to the Chairman’s home. This great thing is our ‘auditorium’ – our open air theater, etc, etc. In fact the college people are so shameless, they conduct inter-college events here! And wats worse they conducted placement interviews here! (for Infy I heard)

Anyway, here our Chairman is supposed to give us the welcome address – ya! It really welcoming us!! The heatedness of the pandal disappear in the sweetenness of the speaking of the highest of the authority of the college of the university! The sayings of the great peoples is somethings very hardened to chew (i.e., watever the great person said was very hard to digest) but it saying in very fun way that all the parents, their wives and sons and gurls are laugh and laugh! They saying – ‘Girl girl jingle jingle no problem, boy boy mingle mingle no problem, but girl boy jingle mingle BIG problem’!!! Then they say some rules and also tell why rules –
Rule No.1 : Gurl - boy no talk
Explanation: Then they run-awaying as lovers!
Rule No.2 : Senior – junior no talk
Explanation: Then the senior boy ask the junior boy ‘Ey, what is the name of that bootiful gurl in your class’ and then after he finding the name, he finding address and going and visitng her, follow her and creation of all the problems!
Rule No.3: Eating only in mess (Really, it’s a MESSSSSS!!!)
Explanation: Then the student bringing lunch from the home, he feel the hungry before and starting to do the eating in the class and the teacher teaching and no listen. Then he feel the hungry at lunch and eat all the junk food like banana, samosa etc.
Rule No. 4: Travel only by college bus
(This was the ONLY sensible thing in the college – cos this helped avoid a lot of accidents – I mean accidents involving college students – of course the bus drivers driving rashly and killing innocent pedestrians is another case entirely!)
Rule No.5: No out going from college campus
Explanation: Students comes in the morning. That time they be very well. But then mid noon they seeing that good film put in the theater. Then what do they? Tell ‘Ayyo, stomach ache and tryin to do the runway from college. This bad!
Rule No.6: No change the bus route
Explanation: Again good looking gurl on bus, so to can able to do the follow they go on the bus and then do the galatta

Then the follow of issuement of ‘Rule Book’.

(At this juncture I put a full stop to my broken english – I need a break, my the sentence formation can do (ability) is goned!!!!!)
Anyone who is reading this, do u happen to have a copy of the Rule Book? (Please pass it on to me if you do…) Really, watever I’ve written above is mentioned in that book – in the same way – Rotten English!!!
See, why can’t he talk in his mother tongue if he‘s comfortable with that??? Its not like the college is full of students from all over the world (puhlease! Not even from all over South India!!) Besides even if they were, they wouldn't understand what he was trying to say!
But anyway, I still can’t forget the way my parents and all the others laffed! Funny!!!! But ofcourse we had to cover our faces and laff cos we knew there would be ‘Spies’ all over!! (This is TRUE!!)

Ok, then after this we went to our respective classes and I noticed that the classrooms were maintained worse than my school classrooms!! And there was also this funny rule that girls should sit only in the first few rows!!! Anyway, then I knew that I was done for, cos throughout my school days I had been a notorious back bencher.
And then they gave out a few measly books and notebooks and charged us 2500/- bucks for that! (hey… only now I realise that my narration is full of ‘!’…..Really…. it’s a wonder how we ppl survived thro college!!!)
The first day got over more or less smoothly….
Come second day and what do we see?? – Three guesses (No way students from decent institutions will b able to guess-) FLYING SQUAD! – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!! There would be this group of 6 – 8 jobless individuals who would come storming into your class to check on u – i.e, checking would include:
FOR GUYS:
Do they shave every morning. (I heard that in future they are planning to send questionnaires to all parents regarding their kids shaving, shitting routines – and parents will be given a prize depending on how much extra information they can volunteer – which includes stuff like ‘how much more time did your kid stay in the toilet on Friday compared to last Monday’)
Are they wearing shoes (If the shoes are not polished and hence as a result look worse than a beggar’s slipper it does not matter – I know cos I used to wear these shoes that even the street dog wouldn’t care to sniff!)
Are they wearing id card? (There s a rule coming up which says that students have to pin up their handkerchiefs to their shirt pockets – so that they don’t tend to wipe their hands on their fellow girl classmates’ dupattas!)
FOR GIRLS:
Have they pinned their dupattas properly? (Sometimes I used to get so scared that one day they’d ask me to wear dupatta over my workshop uniform – pant & shirt)
COMMON:
Have they brought calculator?
Have they brought college calendar? (The cover page has a photo of the Chairman grinning like ‘I-have-done-my-shitting-today,-what-about-u?’ in a very MGR style)
Have the students brought all note books? (i.e if there are 6 subject classes during the day, then you need to have brought 6 notebooks to write down the words of wisdom passed on by the staff)
Is anyone sleeping in class ? (Ha ha!! The very act of checking for ‘sleeping’ students shows what confidence they have in their staffs’ teaching ability!
And the most important – are the guys and girls talking, or look like they are about to start a conversation, or are they staring at each other, etc etc.
*(Anyway in my personal opinion this college would have been a haven for gays! )

Now, don’t wonder if I am going to mention anything more abt my classmates and stuff like that – Sorry, that would take up a whole blog – I’ll dedicate it to my classmates! This will deal only with college rules and stuff….

There were also some ppl named ‘attenders’ or ‘jees’ who would be walkin the beat outside our classrooms. Their job also included:
Checking for id cards
Checking if any student is sleeping in class
Checking for ragging incidents
Checking for ‘girl boy jingling mingling’
Any rowdy behaviour (actually, this behaviour, if exhibited by management will be applauded) – which includes a wide variety of activities from, eating during class hours, trying to bunk college, trying to act smart in class to stabbing your benchmate – and the penalty, I suppose, is the same for everything! He he!!

Ok, then let me move on –
There were also some weird rules regarding class tests and exams (which we’ve been violating from our 4th semester). In our first year, if anyone scored less than 50% marks in any of the exams they’d be forced to stay in college after 3.30pm and ‘study’.
Oh, at this point I also have to mention the even funnier rule reg writing your Mid Sem and Model Exams:
The subject staff will come to check your paper some 2 hours after the exam has started and they’ll evaluate you on the spot as to whether you’ve bullshitted enuf to pass the exam or not. If you haven't then you’ve gotta stay till evening 3.30pm while your luckier co-bullshitters can run away at 12.30 pm. (Hari, do u remember the frequent passing of answer books – esp when we used to write the exam in the GD JP lab, FM lab and stuff???? Ha ha!! I distinctly remember passing on qn papers crammed with answers to Wilfred and co. )

Then the most ridiculous rule when it came to Univ exams. The exam will start only at 10.00 am but the college bus will pick us up at the usual time – 6.45 or 7.00 am and we have to sit in college and study till the start of the exam. And here there was this rule that girls and boys shouldn’t discuss subject matter (they shouldn’t discuss anything else either!) If any student had doubts, they should necessarily contact only the prof (arrey!!! If they knew something we wouldn’t even have doubts right?!!!! He he – Not true of all our staff anyway!! Some of them were good – But u can count them out on one hand)
And no semester breaks – In fact I got a WHOLE weekend to chill out after my First Year in this college! (IMAGINE – 2 Days!!)
And there was also this rule abt attendance. The univ demands 65% and my college demanded 95%.
(U don’t know how many days my friend and I would sit inside the bus and pray fervently that the Chairman or one of his close family should die so that we’d get a few days off!)
Its not even like the teaching is so exemplary that the college cares so much abt u not missing even one class! The teaching was (is, I am sure) sub standard. In fact in many of the classes my classmates used to shout soooo much that the staff would be forced to put an end to his mediocre teaching!

Now coming to the high point of this college – the point that differentiates it from others (ya! I know ure wondering if there arent enuf differences already!!) – This is Office Duty!
Office Duty is a very noble thing – It means u have to stand in front of the Director’s office and wish them everytime they roll past (ya! They r not capable of walking or any other normal human (e)motions!)
And you can stop this sycophancy when they return your id card (My id card used to look like some 10 dogs had fought for it!)
And when will they return your id card?
When you have ass kissed for long enough
When your parents have bothered to come to college and listen to the directors’ words of wisdom and apologised for not having brought u up properly, for not caring enuf abt their kid’s future (which could be really spoilt if the kid continued this dangerous habit of not bringing the college calendar everyday!!)
If you have enough influence to convince everyone that you are hopeless and nothing they do can ever change your natural rowdy behaviour (This is when they identify tht u are ‘one among them’!!)

Hmmm… wat else? This is the college! Wonderful place – Really I didn’t know ppl in Madras were dumb enuf to actually rate this place as a top notch college!
That’s it for now!! Please watch out for my blog on ‘My College Mates’

- Chandrika

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your are Nice. And so is your site! Maybe you need some more pictures. Will return in the near future.
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Anonymous said...

Very pretty site! Keep working. thnx!
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no said...

Awesome is not the word...but thts the only tht comes to my mind..retarted diction tht i have..but seriously..i could just recount college days reading ure blog..was hilarious to think of it..awful to be a part of it...lol..but yeah, college did give some awesome friends like u

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