You see here before you the words of a thoroughly disillusioned, depressed and bitter individual. Have any of you ever participated in a strike? Do you harbor any fond or romantic (?) illusions of what a college strike is really like?
Well, I for one do not. Let me proceed to disillusion you. I participated in one recently and I assure you it is not at all fun and frolic. It is probably a form of entertainment invented by guys to torture us poor girls who have to sit in the hot baking heat like statues, or more precisely targets. For this is what happened on that gory (should I say eggy) occasion.
The strike started at one o'clock in the afternoon when all the second and third years assembled outside the college gates. In the beginning we thought it was going to be fun, as we did not know what awaited us. There was actually no reason for it except that this form of torture was supposedly a college tradition. The second years called it every year to 'honor' our seniors! Last year the college had declared a week's leave and they wanted the same this year too.
So we sat on the sizzling road in front of the college, almost dying of thirst as water bottles were emptied in the twinkling of an eye. At first there was some order with the guys sitting on one side and the girls on the opposite. Of course all of them were screaming their heads off. Then some of the senior staff came to talk to us. This exercise proved to be a little difficult as we had been instructed to keep our heads bent and not look at them. Thus confronted by a sea of bent heads, they found their task well nigh impossible! Shaking their heads and making obscure threats they left accompanied by a chorus of boos (uttered by the guys who only then had the courage to lift their heads).
Then it was party time - with a truckload of eggs. These were supposed to be thrown at the college gates to express our contempt for the management. It soon evolved into a competition, among the boys, of who could throw the farthest. Guess who got the greatest shower of eggs? The college gates? No way, not by a far token. The poor hapless girls of course! I suspect that it was not the result of bad aim but had been purposely aimed to hit us. We had no way of getting up and walking off as we valued our lives too much. Soon my pristine white dupatta was totally yellow (at least I was thankful it was not my head).
We were all praying for the egg rain to let up, when at long last it stopped - to be replaced by tomatoes. There is an ongoing debate among the girls about which of the two was better. In favour of tomatoes is, of course, the fact that they are vegetarian and do not stink. Also the stain washes off more easily (I hope). Against them was the obvious fact that they are much heavier and increase the chances of your getting a brain hemorrhage. We are yet to reach a satisfactory conclusion.
If we had thought that this was bad, what followed next was worse. The tomatoes were soon followed by empty glass bottles (which luckily did not hit any of us), paper rockets (which did), rocks and stones. It was then that the police arrived on the scene. Their attempts at mediation proved very unsuccessful because they confronted the same problems as our staff had - they could not see any of our faces. One policewoman asked if we girls had any demands. When no reply was forthcoming she asked perceptively if we were there just because the guys would not allow us into class the next day if we did not participate. She didn't realize just how right she was!
The list of demands was purposely framed to be so outrageous that the management could not agree to them and would hence be forced to suspend us for a week! They varied from reduction of the high bus fees (most reasonable demand) to prevention of the Indo-Pak war (one of the most bizarre)!
After about two hours and much pleading by the girls, the idiots (the boys) finally realized that almost the entire population of girls was dying of thirst. As they had been fortified by cold drinks from the nearby shop, they did not realize this. They then proceeded to bring one pot of murky and somewhat dubious looking water for about 100 girls. What ensued would have put any of the fights, so common by the water pipes in India, to shame. It was then that we realized that all the third year girls had gone home before the strike - after threatening us with dire consequences if we did not attend!
After about three hours, the management sent out an announcement that all the second years and third years were suspended for a week and we were all to go home immediately. Amidst much rejoicing this proved to be a difficult task - as all the buses were filled to bursting point. The guys, who had started the strike in the first place, zoomed off happily on their bikes and cars. After about 5 buses had come and gone, I finally managed to squeeze into one.
Coming home dirty, disillusioned and dog-tired, I did not foresee I had a bigger ordeal ahead of me - my grandfather. As a former Dean of the Coimbatore Medical College, he had seen hundreds of strikes. I, in my innocence, did not realize that they were his pet hate. Before I had barely uttered the word 'strike,' he was off and I was treated to a one-hour lecture on strikes. Somehow, without my uttering a word, he had got the impression that I had actively supported the strike and was going to take part in any strike that would be held henceforth! The last straw proved to be when he told me to call all my friends so that he could talk to them about the evils of striking.
In firm tones I announced that I was going to Ooty for the week to stay with my parents. His relief was almost comical to behold! He thought that my stay there with my parents would perhaps exert a calming influence on my raging spirits. I was only happy that I had got out of a lecture on 'How Strikes Retard the Development of India.'
