Ludhiana Diaries by Ramit Gulati
“Silence. Silence please,” said the professor in a grave and somber voice to hush down the murmurs in his class. He then once again turned his attention to Rishabh, who true to his word had already sat down on the floor in front of the first row.
Professor Upadhyay continued to stare at him, while ponderously rubbing the sides of his large stomach with his hands, as if not quite sure on how he was supposed to react to the current situation. He kept rubbing his stomach, then momentarily paused in his rubbing to maneuver a lock of his well oiled hair that had fallen across his forehead back atop his head, before rubbing his stomach some more, and then, when still no clear solution presented itself to his mind, he went on to do what he did best. Neatly folding the flyer and tucking it away in the front pocket of his shirt, he stepped back to the podium and once again immersed himself in the fascinating task of narrating the Computer Networks’ text.
Sameer, who had been quietly watching the whole proceedings so far, now left his seat in the last row and began to plod his way to the front, a martyr walking to the gallows with a heavy tread. Once he reached the spot where Rishabh was seated, after hurling at him a few silent curses, Sameer too joined his friend on the floor.
Such is the noble spirit of friendship that after failing to stop a friend from engaging in folly, one ends up joining him in the same, for even craziness in the company of friends is akin to sweet wisdom.
*******
Dr. Pranav Banerjee was the youngest ever Director in the history of this esteemed institution. A thoroughly immaculate man, both in his manner as well as his appearance, he had climbed the rungs of the ladder of success faster than any of his colleagues.
A man possessing both, a keen vision for long term success as well the diligence, industry and social tact required for successfully undergoing the daily grind that is necessary to achieve it, it was no wonder that Dr. Banerjee had accomplished so much in such a small amount of time. B.Tech at 21, M.Tech at 23, Professor at 24, PhD at 26, Head of the Electronics Department at 29, M.B.A at 31, Director of the Institute at 35, the list of achievements was more than a sumptuous one, qualifying him for many an awards and distinctions that were conferred in the academic world.
A number of these glittering trophies, which sang peans to the accomplishments and abilities of the worthy pedagogue, adorned the glass cabinet behind his office desk, where he was currently seated, carefully examining paper work related to some random triviality.
Dressed in an elegant black suit with shiny black boots, his black hair trimmed in to a neat crop cut, clean shaven with his sharp black eyes glancing carefully across the words in front of him, he looked less like your stereotypical college Director and more like your stereotypical high-end business executive.
It was only the sudden ringing of the phone on his desk which diverted his attention away from this paperwork.
“Yes?” he asked tersely, picking up the receiver.
“Its Professor Upadhyay Sir, he wants to meet you,” his personal assistant replied from the other side.
“Oh well, send him in,” he ordered, before putting the phone down. He then prepared for the arrival of the professor, by neatly stacking away the paper work on his desk to one side, before standing up to look in the small mirror on one of the walls in order to make some minute adjustments to the knot of his tie.
As the professor entered, Pranav greeted him with a warm shake of hands, before ushering him to his desk. He understood how integral the professors were to the proper functioning of this institute and always showed them the greatest degree of respect.
“So what brings you here to my office, Professor?” he asked, once the two of them were seated across each other at his large desk.
Professor Upadhyay in response fished with his fingers in to the front pocket of his shirt and pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper. He then simply slid it over to the Director.
Pranav gave it an inquisitive look, before he opened the folded paper and began to read it. As he read it, he found himself smiling, and with each passing word his smile grew.
“Very well, a revolutionary, I am intrigued,” he commented, much amused at the situation.
“What are we going to do about it?” the professor asked. After finishing his lecture, he had come straight to the Director’s office to notify him of this protest situation.
“Nothing professor,” Pranav replied, as leaned back in his chair still smiling.
“Nothing?” the professor tried to reaffirm, not able to believe that the Director was suggesting that they take no action whatsoever against that boy who was propagating such nonsense.
“Its mere tomfoolery professor, chances are it will wane away in a couple of days at most. Any official admonition will only encourage it,” he explained.
“So be it then,” Professor Upadhyay nodded his head in agreement, before he stood up from his chair and after rubbing the sides of his stomach for a couple of seconds, took his leave.
*******
2
The news about Rishabh’s protest had spread through the whole of the college campus like a raging wildfire. Be it in the grapevine, or in social media posts and tweets, Rishabh and his protest had become the hottest topic of debate and discussion among the students of the campus. Both the objectives of the protest and its expediency to achieve those objectives were getting scrutinized, the will, ability and motives of the protestor were being questioned, a variety of opinions about it were getting expressed, there were some that agreed, some that disagreed, a few that thought of it as frivolity, a couple that saw it as some kind of revolution, there were the optimists, the pessimists, the skeptics, the cynics, the proponents, the opponents, the fence sitters, all of it and all of them, coming together to envelope this recent event in a colorful kaleidoscope of public sentiment, debate and gossip.
As an extension of the same, a congregation of students had gathered around Rishabh in the hostel’s common room that evening, wanting to discuss with him the various aspects of his protest.
“Do you really believe that just sitting on the floor is actually going to compel the college administrators to consider your demands?” asked the first.
“And reducing three sessionals to two, Is that even a valid demand in the first place? We detest examinations, true, but don’t forget that without them, we will never be able to prepare our subjects,” opined the second.
“And how long do you intend to carry on with your protest anyways?” questioned the third.
“Well I feel that your point about assignments is good. Dropping mandatory attendance, I don’t think they will ever go for that. Best you remove that point if you want at all to be taken seriously,” advised the fourth.
“Oh, wait, what are you talking about, I think that is rather the best point of the three. We all know what a waste of time these lectures are, he is absolutely right, no mandatory attendance will give us more time for self learning,” argued the fifth.
“I am not talking about what is right or wrong here, just that the demands need to be seen as reasonable and not extreme if they are to be taken seriously by the college administration,” retaliated the fourth.
“But we need a wholesome change in this rotting system, and such a change always requires extreme measures,” riposted the fifth.
“And I say, fuck them if they don’t take it seriously, I mean it, fuck them fuckers, but yeah be reasonable while fucking them,” suddenly cried out the sixth, and although it was unclear on which side of the argument his imprecatory opinion lay, it did arouse a good deal of laughter in the group.
It was after everyone had come down from this little bout of mirth that they resumed the debate again. Gradually, three factions formed, the first had sided with the third and fifth, and their group was advocating the ‘no mandatory attendance point’, the second and the fourth had formed a coalition and their joint agenda focused on bringing moderateness in demands along with the rescission of the ‘thr
With each of these factions eager to push forth their agenda with more vehemence than the other two, little attention was paid to Rishabh, who had continued to sit there in the middle of it all, completely silent with nothing but an amused smile on his face. It was only now, when he had stood up to take his leave, that the group stopped its internal argument and diverted its attention back unto him.
“Wait, are you going to just leave without saying anything?” asked one of them.
“Well there is nothing to say,” Rishabh simply replied, his nonchalance surprising more than a few.
“What do you mean there is nothing to say. You must have something to say, it is ‘your protest’ after all,” demanded another, conveying the sentiments of almost everyone present there.
“Exactly. It is my protest, based on my opinions, my views and my perspectives. I raised those three points because I feel strongly about all three of them. I chose the means of my protest as sitting on the floor during the lectures because I genuinely believe that it will have an impact. Now, I don’t expect everyone to agree with my views, neither am I going to try and persuade anyone to agree with them. I am going to stand up and fight for what I believe in, and you guys should do the same for what you believe in, or don’t do anything, it is not my business to meddle with,” Rishabh spoke out in a very straightforward and sincere manner, before he gave his now silenced peers another smile and stepped out of the common room.
Rishabh was followed out of that room by Sameer, who had witnessed the whole proceedings so far from a quiet corner. It was in the hostel courtyard that Sameer managed to catch up with Rishabh and conveyed to him his own thoughts on the matter.
“You will need numbers if you want this protest to work. You can’t make this an individualistic venture, protests don’t work like that. Some of them are ready to join, but for that you will have to lead them, you can’t shirk away from that responsibility,” said Sameer giving his unequivocal opinion on the subject. Though he had not been in favor of doing this protest in the first place, but if Rishabh wanted to carry on with it, then it must be done in an effective manner, and for any protest to be effective, the first and foremost requirement was the numbers, a plain and simple fact. “Think of it as a football team. A team only plays well when they have someone to tell them of the tactics and the formation that they need to employ out in the field. Otherwise it is just a group of headless chickens running around, nothing more than that.” He gave further support to his point by drawing up that analogy between playing football and doing a protest.
Rishabh meanwhile had stood muted while giving Sameer his whole attention, and it was only after his friend had finished speaking that he gave him the answer.
“It is not just a protest for me. It is about at last standing up against the wrongs and injustices of this education system that have been plaguing our lives for these past three or so years, well, I guess, not plaguing our lives, for I cannot speak for others, but plaguing my life for sure. When I came here, to this college, I came with dreams of learning great things, doing great experiments, making great inventions. But what did I do, I crammed for exams, I copied assignments, I listened to dull boring lectures. And this protest, it is my way of expressing to the world that I have had enough. This is an individualistic venture for me, and I do not care if anyone else wants to join me in it or not. That decision, I will leave on the voice of their conscience, while I do what is my prerogative, to follow the voice of my own.”
Those words were strong, earnest and well thought out and the one point that they conveyed more than any other was that the cause Rishabh was fighting for was a personal and not a social one for him. Sameer understood that now and so he decided not to pursue the argument any longer, leaving his friend to follow his own judgment in the matter.
*******
Despite Rishabh’s reluctance to lead, a few students did join in the protest over the next few days, their number slowly increasing so that all in all there were some twenty of them by the end of the first week. But even though the protestors had grown in number, that number was still not large enough to disturb the peace of the college authorities, whom acting under the directions of Dr. Pranav Banerjee, had neither served the protestors with any sort of admonishment nor called them to the table for any kind of negotiations, rather they continued to give them no notice, refusing to even acknowledge that there was any protest at all.
Although this lack of acknowledgement did not in the least bother Rishabh’s patience, it did begin to chafe the majority of the protestors. And so among them they started to look for ways that would get them the attention of the college authorities. It was towards the same end that the self-appointed leader of this majority, Ajit Singh, member of many student clubs and champion of numerous student causes over the past three years, approached Sameer at the end of one of the lectures.
“This is going to fizzle out if we don’t get some numbers soon. Many of the protestors are ready to walk away; they feel disheartened about the lack of response they are getting,” Ajit told Sameer, without making any attempts to mince his words.
“So you should talk to Rishabh about it. I have nothing to do with this,” Sameer replied dryly, he had no great love for people like Ajit, the self proclaimed activist souls of this world.
“I have tried on numerous occasions already. But he is not ready to listen, as if he is having some great fun in sitting on the cold floor day after day. I will tell you what I told him, and maybe you can convince him for me. See, if we rescind the no mandatory attendance demand, not totally back out on it, but compromise, say we demand that the requirement of 70% attendance in a session be cut down to 60%, then it will make the college authorities take us seriously, but more importantly, it can get us the numbers. I know 30 other students who will join us if we make this compromise. And I am sure that increase will cause a few more to join in. Additionally I have friends in the media, whom have promised me a column on the front page of the local segment if we can get good numbers. If Rishabh gives me his support, I can make it all happen,” Ajit thus laid out his plans; the ones he thought would make this protest gain some much needed momentum.
“Well I will talk to him about it but I can’t promise anything,” Sameer answered and then walked away hiding a grimace. It was another reason why he disliked this whole business of protests; it attracted self-aggrandizing people like Ajit Singh.
*******
Later that day Sameer was hobbling off the football field with his arm around Rishabh’s shoulder, having sprained his ankle in practice while going in for a tackle. Directly they headed for the bleachers, where Rishabh began to help Sameer take off his studs.
“Just a minor sprain, it will be sore for a couple of days but I will be good for the tournament.” Sameer diagnosed, grinding his teeth in pain as his injured ankle was carefully maneuvered out of the stud by his friend.
“You really got to take it easy with the tackles, it was just a practice session man,” Rishabh reproved.
“I can’t help it, when I am out there, on that field…” And Sameer turned his eyes to the greens, where the rest of the team was still practicing. “I can’t explain it, it’s a strange kind of passion, so intense that it compels me to give it my all. The feel of the grass as it yields under my studs, the vision of the flying ball as it comes towards me, the intense rawness of a tackle, the marking, the sheer will to rise higher than the others and head that ball clear, everything in that moment is so real, so different from the artifice of the rest of the world,” Sameer spoke out as he continued to gaze with half mesmerized eyes towards the football field.
“You really love this game, don’t you?” Rishabh asked rather rhetorically, for he was already aware of Sameer’s great passion for football. H
“So Ajit Singh came up to me today,” Sameer mentioned casually after a little time had passed.
“Let me guess, the compromise on the attendance point, 30 more students, media attention, right?” Rishabh replied with a knowing smile.
“Yeah, the ball’s in your court now,” Sameer summarized curtly.
“Ajit Singh is not in this because he believes in the spirit of this protest, you know that, right?” Rishabh asked.
“Yeah I do, he is here to bolster his own self image, but which only happens when the protest gains attention, which only happens if it gains numbers and some media coverage,” Sameer replied, knowing the elements that were at work here. “But I also think that unless we do that, this is not going anywhere. You can compromise and achieve at least some of the goals or you can stay obstinate, appease your own conscience, but achieve nothing concrete,” Sameer said, expecting in all possibility for his friend to promptly dismiss his advice, but to his surprise Rishabh turned ponderous, as if he was doing some serious deliberation on what he had just said.
“You are right. This is going nowhere unless we become a little practical. I will tell Ajit that he can go ahead with his plan,” Rishabh sighed, and then began to smile his usual smile of amusement at this dulcet duel of idealism and pragmatism.
*******
The little leeway from Rishabh was all Ajit Singh needed to put this protest on a fast track. In a mere four days, he managed to get the total number of protestors up to 100, while also delivering on his promise of media coverage. This morning itself, the front page of the Ludhiana Harbinger had carried the news of the protest in bold black letters.
The wave of interest, which had originated when the protest had first started, was not only replenished with new energy, but it was no longer confined to the campus and was spreading itself through the whole student community of the city. Everywhere the points raised by the protestors were being discussed, the faults in the education system that they had pointed out were being recognized, in the campus more students were ready to join the protest, and there was even vague talk of similar protests beginning in other colleges and universities of the city in the upcoming days.