The "Oh, yes?" mania

“For the rank you have got in EAMCET, you only have two options. Printing Technology at REC Warangal OR Civil Engineering at Osmania University College of Engineering”

 

For the life of it, I could not fathom what Engineering has got to do with Printing. On the other hand, Civil Engineering was a “dying art form” - I was sufficiently brainwashed at those coaching centers on Bank Street, Koti. There wasn’t enough time to form a larger picture and philosophize between these choices. So I changed the criteria for selection. “Wherever I know more people”, I said, “I’ll join there”.

 

And that is how the path of life took a major turn.

 

If there is something more important than education at the college, it is character building. Those graduation years is the time of our lives when we start building definitive opinions about who we are, who our friends should be, what the world is about and what our role in it should be. Life in the Osmania campus impacted me in so many ways and so deeply that, despite all the exposure in life afterwards, the core of me remains as the one developed in those four years of campus life.

 

Behind the cheerful lunacy of the Mandal movement lay the fierce arguments over the topic of reservations - never violent yet always stirring the conscience. While Mandal happened very early in our campus lives, there was never a dearth of issues or topics to talk about. There always was a chasm of difference in opinion of the supposedly suave (but equally clueless) “day scholars” and, the supposedly conservative (but extremely competitive) kids from the “districts”. The arguments that started with ridicule generally ended in deep admiration for the strength of character of each other. Chased by the police around the campus during some of those days and rebuked by the teachers for bunking classes, we nevertheless participated in those movements just for the “fun” of it. In retrospection, however, those seemingly fun times made such strong impressions on our minds that we could never, even if we had wanted to, become just another “rat in the race”. Behind every pursuit since, there always was and is a social, political, environmental and even spiritual concern.

 

The campus provided such great facilities and ambience to build friendships and relationships that if outsiders mistook us for a cult, the fault wouldn’t be theirs. There was this tremendous sense of belonging and ownership of territorial rights. No one can explain otherwise the transformation of a meek fresher near Sivam bus stop into a confident young man once he crossed the campus arch. From then until the Aradhana theater in Tarnaka we were drunk with an unknown magic potion of swagger. It was homelier than home and easier than primary school with hardly any need for pretense. There was freedom, creative and otherwise, to explore the complex world of engineering studies and, to participate in discussions in the cafeteria or sports room on wild world topics. There was this methodical breakdown of the entire process of marks making so we could progressively achieve the targets of “Pass”, “First Class” and maybe even “distinction”. And how well we did it ! “Back logs” were never really a burden because, well, you could have a large number of them without really feeling bogged down by their weight. One ended up feeling like a rich woodcutter than a compulsive failure !

 

I can go on recounting specific instances. But as someone looking in retrospect, the lessons taken away seem much more important to reflect on. That education doesn’t have to be a serious business and that there is lot more to character than mere understanding of complex theory, is an ethos that one bred in the campus will carry with him/her forever. The constructive skepticism that this freedom allowed us is probably what gave us that “oh, yes?” mania, saving us the intellectual drudgery of being “Yes men” of the system.

 

Thank you OUCE for the times, friends, memories, sensibilities and successes.