Wuss R Us
anomit | September 20, 2008This is the most strongly worded article I have ever come across on TMJ. Which is as manly as Prince gets.
The closest form of the so called PDAs being reported in that article I have seen in my 2+ years of stay here is hugging. Yes, nothing more than that. There is no French Lassiez Faire thing going on here, and even if it was, balls on your face if you think you have the moral high ground to complain about it.
The entire foundation around which the premise of a bunch of haggard fools going around policing people who are actually ‘adults’, in the legal sense of the word, is as strong as a crumbling cookie. I’m tempted to make a ridiculous looking attempt at putting across some equally damning yet very logical counter arguments that actually exist on paper as law of the Country and also accepted unequivocally across the civilized world as something called Human Rights, which…well, some people living in the medieval ages are still in the dark about.
1. The cultural sensibility marauding monster that PDA is, can also be termed as a peaceful assembly of two persons and the last time I had studied Social Sciences in school, every right to it existed in the Indian Constitution and in other countries too.
2. I touched upon this earlier too. They are adults and hence fully qualified to choose where they want to go and with whom. Do we really need a law to explicitly state this?
Since I’m not a lawyer, I can’t dig out citations of some Supreme Court or an International Court judgment but hey, you get the point, don’t you?
I don’t know from where did this current trend of some institution, which isn’t anyways legally empowered, to decide about how others go on about their lives caught on. For all the glossy promotional campaigns about this place being an ‘International University Town’, you’d get to see thirteen different kinds of barricades and walls at every step. Also throw into this grand concept about two dozens of illiterate security guards and a semi literate, jobless, unqualified for any kind of education ‘Hostel Caretaker’ who are clearly enjoying their day in the sun and making hay while it shines, and you get the perfect picture of a campus that I’ve no doubt other Universities abroad will be in a rat race to implement before anyone else does. India Shining indeed. What else can be a better example of a place to pursue your academic career other than this?
PS: From what I and some of my friends have got to know, our blogs and twitter accounts are being monitored by the people ‘higher up’. But then, I don’t belong to the clan mentioned in the post title. What I have learnt in all these years of my schooling and upbringing is to stand up to the truth, whatever it may be and I know I’m not wrong. I may not be a great orator like Winston Churchill but that’s what blogs are for. 
I should be venting this out at TMJ, but since
Aditya Mukherjee | September 25, 2008I should be venting this out at TMJ, but since they don’t have a comment system (and I’m too lazy to actually write them a non-public mail), I’ll vent here:
Dr Pushpa Kini can – and you can quote me on this – seriously go stuff herself. “It is high time they realize how embarrassing these things are to the public eye and to the parents when notified” – Why should someone *else* be embarrassed? And if they are, they are free to go and report it to her or anyone else. The fact that students don’t shows that they’re used to it, and okay with it. This “we know what’s best for you” approach is the reason this country is going straight to hell, but I’ll save that for another day.
If they’re *so* worried about whatever they’re worried about, why not open girls hostels to guys and vice versa? Or fund rooms for these couples to spend time in? There is no dearth of guest houses in Manipal. Trying to win accolades from parents by taking the negative path is just plain jacktastic.
That is for the authorities. Now to the parents:
If you cannot handle your kiddies getting intimate, and think that them living in constant fear of who might be watching their actions is the way to make them grow into confident and moral citizens of this country, you’re worse than … a simile escapes me right now. If all parents get together and file a suit against the university for un-called for intervention and banning of their children’s personal lives and legal recreation without adequate alternative infrastructure (yes, big words – but that’s how law goes), I don’t think the university can do anything apart from taking back this caveman-ish dictum.
In the words of A. A. Millne: “Grow up, dillholes!”