When we dreamed and didnt take "NO" for an answer....
Am jobless today after being totally tied up for the last week or so..
Was trying to ensure a cleanup of mails and unsubscribe from groups that i am no longer interested in being part of,when i came across a mail that i had sent to the academic group (iitm-wide placement group) under an anonymous ID...
It concerned the time when the IITM elite decided to close the velachery gate after 7:00 PM..Enraged me to no end,that order...It meant a change in my routine...used to enjoy sitting and chatting with freinds at Ravi tea stall after dinner...and what made it worse was nobody showed any semblance of a fight...
So what did urs truly do..In true marxist-communist style, a very inflammatory 2 page document ridiculing the protoganists of the change...Pasting it in the dead of the nite on all 13 hostel noticeboards,the mega mess,CRC,CLT and even outside the Dean Student's office !!
The reaction,admittedly, was weak from the student community(although,it resulted in the formation of a "shadow society",the members of which-prominent B.techs,not sleepy M.techs, decided to meet at the beach to chart out our future startegies to counter the IITM admin's growing powers :-)
More interestingly,it was fun watching the CSO searching the whole campus for these posters and personally ripping it apart...In his overzealousness he even tore a Diro memorandum by mistake !! ;-} and failed to find these posters at a coupla locations while students expressed support with graffiti.. ;-}
Fun days those....when we dreamed and didnt take "NO" for an answer....
Have posted the doc below...
Awake, Arise and smell the grass!!
It takes a lot to awaken the average IIT’ian but this does it !!
What am I talking about ?? Let me summarize and remind you of all the awfully illogical steps taken by the powers-that-be in the last few years:
1.Eliminating the Cauvery and Krishna Mess’ and forcing the hostel residents to forgo breakfast on almost all days. Not to mention the fact that most of them do not even have lunch/dinner due to the great distance that they have to trudge either from their hostel/department. Rumour mills suggest that the mega-mess contractor was promised a doubling of junta who eat his “food” last year -What lies behind this generosity is anybody’s guess!!
2.The limited frequency of the battery-operated buses between GC and In-gate and the almost non-existent services between GC and the hostel blocks.Face it people,the buses are a failure !! Especially with such low frequencies at both ends, prohibition of other modes of personal powered vehicle transport and the fact that the admin might even be coming up with statutes like “No student movement out of the insti after 9 PM !!!”-We live in an educational institution,not a jail !!And in the days to come,going by the admin’s ideas,we’ll have to keep reminding ourselves that !!Democracy ? bah-It's just a word with no meaning...
3.The razing of all the beautiful trees in the more than 2 acre plot opposite Jamuna with a grandiose idea of building one big hostel with another "mega" mess (as though, one was not enough) !! Simple question-“And pray What are you going to do with the 13 hostels in existence already??”
4.Banning powered transport for students for the nth time-Seems to me admin believes-“Pollution and rash driving are the domains of students alone and not the Profs!!” If you are going to implement something, why don’t you do it completely and equally?5.And now, the crowning glory-Completely disregarding the students as stakeholders and closing the Krishna gate effective March 1st, except for certain hours (7:00 AM to 9:00 AM & 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM on weekdays and completely closed on Sundays). The treachery lies not in this but the fact that a notice period of only 2 days was given (notice put up on 27th Feb). Another question- ”What backup plans have you made to ease the pain of students who would like to use the photocopy shops,get a hot cuppa at nite or just make a call home ?”
These are not an exhaustive list of issues, they are just representative. I have better things to do than remind you of all the injustice meted so far.How can you make a difference and make yourselves be heard? Some suggestions….
1.A bunch of no-hopers come over and ask you to vote for XYZ so that he can sit on the grand pedestal of G-Sec, SportsSec, Acad affairs secy, etc…Ask him a simple question-“What the hell does he do if he can’t even bring these issues in the public domain, forget in the inconsequential meetings with the powers-that-be ???”.Enjoy the look on his face when you ask him what he specifically intends to do once he wins the elections!! :-)
2.Boycott the stuff that they serve in the mess-aka “food” for a day (Fasting for a day never hurt anybody!!), boycott the elections that are coming up on March 7th,boycott classes, wear black arm-bands, I dunno…Do something, anything… and I promise you it will make a difference. India didn’t get independence through the nuclear bomb, it all started when some people started shunning foreign goods!!
3.Make groups of 7-10 and meet the CSO.Ask him the reason for his benevolence. Listen to him hurl abusive language at you and then come up with vague reasons for his decisions!!
Are we going to take this lying down or are we going to say, “ Yeah, We will not be unheard, We will not be taken for granted, We will fight !!”
If all the above seems like rubbish to you, you are probably rite…It will not seem like rubbish once they come into your room and it affects you directly…. Where is it going to end? Who is going to draw the line?? When will it graduate from “tolerable” to “life-threatening”??
To the powers-that-be who read this mail,let me emphasize,I am not here to forment trouble,all that I ask of you is that you think before you act.A single decision like the krishna gate closure affects the lives of employees,students,velachery residents dependent on IIT for their business needs and a whole host of other entities.What drove you to undertake such a step when not a single reported criminal/non-criminal incident(initiated by students)has occurred that warrants such action...We are here to study,let us do that in peace !!!
The revolution isn’t here yet but it is round the corner!!BE A PART OF IT!!!
Parting shot aimed at the CSO: With all due respect Sir, You just proved the following joke rite!!“The army gives you a gun and ask you to forsake your brains once you join it…Once you quit, they take the gun too!!!”This is one among the series of mails that you may expect in this regard from us in trying to convince you abt the absurdity of your actions...please feel free to respond to the mail-ID from which this has been sent...
To the editors of both the Hindu and the Indian Express Newspaper-All I ask of you is to explore the possibility of doing a story on the plight of students in one of the premier engineering institutes in this country...All this while you would have done stories on Saarang and other such events..Please look at what actually happens "inside" this campus...I'm sure the Director-Prof.Ananth would be most willing to accord a fitting reception to you in this regard !!
regards & more
Enraged students
posted by ritzkini @ 10/14/2004 03:51:00 am
