The Untouchables

Disclaimer: Just as there is an exception to every rule, all professors and all head of departments aren’t bad (tagline on the tee-shirt worn by the ex-professors club somewhere in Ananthapuri…)

The Arkees college life is nothing short of the Sopranos drama series.

If CET were a metropolis, one would have the Engineering students occupying the business districts and living uptown while the Arkees would be part of the immigrant neighbourhood, well of course of Italian origins. Truthfully, we students would be the poor immigrants while the mafia would be running the department (without the flair or the accent). Like a mafia run neighbourhood anywhere, the city has little say on what happens here.

Our initiation into the Mafiosi was of course completed the day we signed up for this seat, instead of a blood oath, we pledged our sleep for the next five years, along with our self-respect in the face of acerbic remarks that may or may not have to do with ones performance in a subject.

Yeh, picture this, you get a repeat for your assignment and you try to clarify the reason with the professor, believe me, you are not going to get an answer, well not a straight answer anyway. All you get is a smirk akin to

OR worse (not exactly Mafiosi but fits the context to the T)

So imagine an uprising in this neighbourhood and how the warlords would deal with it. We, the immigrants, aren’t a rebellious lot by nature (if your internals amounted to 60 percent of your marks, you wouldn’t be a martyr either), though we had heard stories of yesteryear citizens (of course with a firm standing in the college union and usually residents of the Men’s hostel) who have braved it in the eye of the storm. One of the urban myths speaks of a certain senior who after a late night of partying could not complete his first sketch properly in time but was determined that he wasn’t going to let that be the reason for a REPEAT (repeated torture combined with a hangover can do that to you) and so

That day He did not shave,

That day He did not bathe,

Yet he walked into the class with unflinching valour

Fellow classmates cleared the way (yes so strong was the odour),

As he placed his rolled up butter sheet in front of his sir

A man who knows and loves only to be bitter

He said, “Thou shall give me a mark not lesser than 5”

“Thou shall not ask me to repeat this if you wish to stay alive”

The sir was not one to scare easily

Nor was he one to play it safely

But one look at the rolled sheet and the threatening weapon it bore

A fear arose from the deepest of his core

As he opened his mouth to affirm his consent

He saw the daredevil turn and walk away in contempt,

Undeterred and unwilling to wait for an answer

(His gut having been messed up by last night’s spurious liquor)

The weapon of threat was withdrawn and pocketed

It would be his friend in times of submissions, time and again

The missing metal pipe that caused the water tanks to drain.

Ok coming back to several years from that anomalous incident, we were to repeat the rebellious history but only involuntarily (well part of it was pre-meditated). It was the incident that would lead to the suspension of an entire class (except for a choice few who backed out from the scheme of things at the last moment. (Its ok, we have forgiven you lot but WE HAVE'NT FORGOTTEN).  There is certain precedent too for three of us in this story due to which we were in the eye of the storm when things went for a six. A few weeks before the incident, three of us decided we would bunk the Design class and stay back at hostel, for no particular reason. Needless to say, the next day we were pounced upon by one of the professors, who demanded that we apply for leave in advance henceforth and we give this to him in writing in the form of an apology and something binding apparently, that very moment. We had already told him that the three of us were unwell (yes we were sick, sick and tired of his class) but for obvious reasons he wouldn’t believe us. So our apology letter was going to be right on his terms but the sarcasm would be all ours. It read

Respected Sir

We apologize for not attending the class yesterday as we were unwell. We promise not to fall sick without informing you in advance.

Yours respectfully

Vvgdfjgjlgjf (gibberish in order to protect the identity of the parties concerned)

We turned in our letters and after reading the same content on three of our letters, we expected him to question us where in we thought we could explain how silly his demand was. Nothing happened, he smirked and left.  Yes, he had bigger things planned for us. His would be a surgical strike just when the metal was blistering hot.

Christmas holidays were around the corner and college would be reopening on a Wednesday. So we decided that it was just three extra days and we could collectively bunk it, and rejoin the next week on a Monday. However, a few changed their mind (TRAITORS) and attended the class on the day college reopened and when the rest of us returned the following Monday, we were asked to not enter class. We were SUSPENDED. We could enter class only if a guardian or parent came and spoke to the HOD on our behalf. Horror…….I couldn’t call my guardian, that’s the last thing they needed to hear. There were many others like me. The day scholars had the better deal may be, time and distance wise, but I am pretty sure they were considered the prodigal child at least for that entire month.

We collectively decided to beg for mercy at the HOD’s office. The woman who always came across as this picture of calm suddenly metamorphosed into a green angry mutant. At her furious best, she screamed, she bellowed, she breathed fire and we scampered away lest we were turned into ashes.

We turned to the college union for help. 

They told us,

“The Architecture department is very much part of CET

We shall be your voice against this SUSPENSION atrocity

Kindly remember us when this act is done

We are from xxx party, hopefuls for the next college union”

We weren’t afraid anymore, the union had come to our rescue. We stood with awaited breath outside the HOD’s office, we imagined her embarrassed face as the Batch rep threw legal points at her. We imagined the batch rep coming out his palms folded and raised as if in submission and admission of his greatness and success, we imagined…..

Alas. fact is always boring than fictitious thoughts. Instead of a victorious glee, we saw them roar past us with heads lowered and as we tried to keep up the pace with them in the hope of a positive outcome from all the alpha menace they proclaimed, we were disappointed beyond words by their reply,

“We did our best to help you

We tried to fight the curfew

We told her,

This suspension aint valid

But the reaction was pretty rabid

Banned we have been

From the arkee department scene

Asked we,

Will ye not help us though rebellious path

Of gherao, strike in this aftermath

They replied

Of course we shall, with all our fury

She will soon be sorry...

BTW Would you lend us a fifty

We need to conspire in totality (at the local bar GP)

They went in with a game face but for all we know this might have been what really transpired in the office that day

THE ENTRY SCENE OF THE UNION

THE DEVIL MAY CARE RESPONSE OF THE HOD

THE RESULTANT EFFECT ON THE UNION (R.I.P)

BACK TO THE STORY

Parents and guardians started pouring in except of a select few who had to travel from the other end of the state. One of my classmates was in a particularly unintentionally funny situation. He just couldn’t bring in his father at any cost. Apparently a few weeks back he was asked to bring in his father as he was repeatedly bunking classes. Knowing his father would flip at the sound of that he decided to bring a fellow he knew from his hometown as a proxy for his father. He could have very well asked this acquaintance to repeat the favour, the only issue was…he had passed away a few days back. I don’t know how that story ended for this classmate and how he was eventually permitted to enter the class, my best guess, proxy mother.

Of the three of us who had submitted that sarcastic leave letter, one of them entered class as soon as she brought in her guardian and without facing the wrath of said professor as she had a clean record except for that one rare incident, which he may have assumed was under our coercion (it wasn’t… though we may have put words in her letter). So back to the remaining two, one the progeny, I mentioned in a previous blog, of a strict IPS officer, was going to face the music. Her father, a no nonsense man was not very pleased when the professor showed him the apology letter she had submitted a few weeks back and add to that the in-disciplinary move of bunking three classes without his knowledge. For all we know, he might have even imagined her as the mastermind behind the class bunking episode. I am pretty sure she had to undergo a disciplinary hearing at home and would be a parolee for the next few years.

Amidst all the hullabaloo came a lot of advise to the poor lot from seniors in other departments

“Why don’t you hire actors as proxies” : Ya we needed ten pairs of proxy parents, what a reasonable option

“Why don’t you guys initiate a strike of your own?”---and add fuel to the fire, we were just suspended now, why not just get resticated totally…what fun

“Just get into the class normally, who would notice?”----didn’t you just read the mafiosi euphemism, of course they would notice, they would notice us even if we were disguised as a gorilla

“Let things cool down, they will soften their approach eventually,”….and risk all the sadistic pleasure they gain from us writhing…highly doubtful

“You are suspended anyway and cannot enter until your guardians are here, have fun meanwhile, go on a trip to Veli, Ponmudi, or go on a movie marathon”….ok finally some advice that seemed to make sense, unfortunately when a suspension stares you in the face its very difficult to see the glass half full.

All of our folks eventually turned up, some of them like me narrowly escaped as the initial fury of the professors did die down and in my specific case the particularly vengeful professor was on leave that day.

The incident however never killed our newly acquired adventurous spirit, instead it awakened in us a desire to rebel when things were unfair. A year later we formed a human train and ran up and down  the entire department, a silly exercise intended to make an embarrassing spectacle of the Arkee department, in retaliation to the unfair treatment from the staff due to which we could not go on our All India trip. We were severely admonished yet we weren't disheartened, and a few months later the staff had no choice but to coordinate that trip. We learnt to stand up and question when a professor unnecessarily picked on us, we learnt that we needn't be afraid to question a system when it perplexed us, we learnt to stand united in causes that may have been silly or relevant, as a class we may have not started out as one big happy family but with time we learnt to accept each other and be supportive of each other and for that we are eternally thankful to our HOD and professors, also for the suspensions, for the get out of class cards, for the questionable REPEATS, for the unbelievable amount of work load, because in adversity we found our strengths, our friendships, our common ground.