It was An evening filled with tension and an atmosphere set to turn a passive audience into a compassionate mob, the youth forum had finally embarked on a full fledged journey – a mission to transform the ordinary into the inspired, to feed compassion into the minds of the otherwise numb and to set alight a spark that men of great honour and stature failed to keep alive.
Setting the mood for the hour was Avinash (Final Year IT) with a seemingly crisp insight into his work, its consequences, hurdles strategies and more importantly his undying spirit of resistance, a virtue that very few men seem to inherit, fewer develop and least of them adopt. The message was clear and ringing, “Resist as long as your shoulders can take the weight and your knees the strain, when the pressure cracks you – shift the load onto your back and wait for the next one to carry it on”, something we’ve been taught since kindergarten but yet seem to unheed.
The tone of environmental consciousness continued with the courteous Shreshtha Jain (III Year) advocating vegetarianism and an animal-friendly campus, however my thoughts on the subject are somewhat divided, if plants maybe reared to be slaughtered why not animals ? isn’t the food cycle an entirely natural process ? then why go against it? Setting those questions aside and a few people apart, most were convinced (and so was I ) that the college’s lack of an animal friendly policy was another roadblock to be run down.
When the tone of environmental consciousness had engulfed the forum entirely, and vibes of impending reform were being sent about, a bombshell of a topic was dropped for discussion – “Reservation in educational institutions”.
Although it was specifically stressed that the topic in concern did not relate to the need of reservation, it was obvious that the passive audience had now become a restless mob at the mention of the topic that has been talked about for the last 60 years in millions of institutions,debates,parliamentary sessions, coffee house meetings and numerous interviews. A topic that every kitchen,classroom,office and drawing room’s walls are tired of listening to. But for whatever reason the discussions continue, the ideas resonate and the anger flows. Analysis was stressed upon, but our mob was in no mood to listen. Although segregated into three sufficiently distinct units, the underlying notion seemed to have been, we have to live with it but change it we must. Some resigned to this ‘fact’, many advocated changing its basis and others simply vented on why it is and why it shouldn’t be here.
If you ask me, I was tired of all the drama and the ignorance.
For those who screamed that reservations are pointless and unnecessary since it is a pretty large loophole… perhaps it is, but burning a haystack for a straying rat is plain insane.
Something fascinating however was how 75% of the forum was against reservation 10% neutral and barely 10 of around 75 for reservation. If reservation is a stain on the flowing white robe of justice,exploited by so many how is it that less than 2% of that classroom advocated for it ? Were they reserved candidates ? Nope , none of them. In a class of 75 from various years, not a single student was a reserved candidate and yet 75% of the class was advocating against a cause that barely existed.
Keeping myself in check, let me tell you several (other :P) valid points were also raised – time span of the reservation allotted, economical and academic background of the candidates, the analogy of the bitter pill, and how far we’ve come from the needs of 1949 amongst so much more from the ever enthusiastic crowd.
And now for an honest apology… all those of you who mentioned your names, pardon me for not having taken them down, and those who didn’t - please do!’
Like nearly all parliamentary sessions the forum would convene again to hopefully ‘analyse’ reservation rather than advocate abolishing it or otherwise.
The end of the session signified the beginning of a new chapter in the history of sastra that perhaps may never end.
Cheers, and those who didn’t attend… Go on, attend and realize what YOU feel about anything instead of blindly nodding to Barkha dutt!!!
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