Dear Daddu,
I am writing this post as a reply to your comment on the last post. I would have commented on the last post itself but I thought it better to make a new post.
About the incident described in the last post, I urge you to see that it is very spiced up. That is why it comes in the category ??? ????? ??? ?????? (Annals of Hall 2 is a subcategory). I will rather describe the incident in the form it actually took place.
______________________________________
Girl: […] us se baat hui thi meri.
Boy: Kaunse Hall ka hai?
Girl: Seedha-saadha hi hai. Hall 2 ka to nahi hi hoga.
Boy: Hall 5 yaa 3?
So she said about Hall 2 and he heard it and before they could say anything…
He [angrily]: Waah! Seedha saadha hai to Hall 2 ka to nahi hi hoga.
Both of them look at him with utter bewilderment. They were obviously oblivious of his existence until then. The girl opened her mouth to say something and during the next two minutes her mouth remained that lopsided gaping hole.
He [exploding now]: Matlab Hall 2 ke to sabhi aise hi hote honge – gunde ekdum. Saare ke saare paidaishi aawaara hote honge. Clearly Hall 2 ke ek ek bande ko jaanti ho tum. Sabse baat ki hai tumne aur sab tumko aise hi lage. Seedha to koi tha hi nahi. Maarne daudte hai ladkiyon ko sab. Kyun?
Now he waits for them to react. The boy was actually tying to smile but his face looked a lop sided meat ball. The girl closed and opened her mouth a fair few times to utter a word but the effort went useless. And so since they were too shocked to demonstrate that they were’t dumb, he started again:
He [very angrily now] : Bahut hi easily generalize kar diya tumne to. Ab tumhi se rai li jayegi ki kaun seedha hai aur kaun mawaali. Bahut aasaan hai bolna par aisa karke tumne naa jaane kitne achhe ladko ka naam hi kichad me mila diya. I don’t know whether you were joking or you were serious but you clearly happen to have a pretty wrong image. Next time you generalize things yeh to dekh lo ki kya kah rahi ho. It’s simple to say stuff par iska matlab kuchh bhi kah dogi? Waah!
_____________________________________
This happened in a span of one minute. Now for your comment which I am reproducing here:
_______________________
Bhai bolna padega — Hall 2 ka tempo high hai! Par ladki ki baat sahi hai. Hall 2 mein paidaishi gunde-mavali tuchhe kisam ke log hi hote hain. Trust me. But ye to Hall 2 ke liye garv ki baat hai na.
Vaise is kahani ke patron ke naam, jo gopniyata barkarar rakhne ke liye chhupa liye gaye hain, unhe chat par ujagar kariye zara.
_______________________
You did the very same thing. You generalized the entire thing so easily based on experiences you have had and/or you have heard. I know very well that there have been incidents in Hall 2 during our common time here. One of them was outrageous while others were petty things. All of them were blown out of proportion. One time probably for the need to sensitize the people in question about the stuff they had done. That was when Atul made an article entry on e-Meander. But most of the people who came in after that and talked on that and on other issues had there own interests and based themselves mostly on rumors and things they believed had happened.
Based on that, making a comment that Hall 2 houses only hooligans is I guess demeaning to several people who I guess are known to have made an impression. Once again, just like not everyone is a hooligan, not everyone is a saint. But is it right to generalize right away? I will refer to some other incidents:
Public humiliation of a girl at a function boasting attendance from all the sections and halls of student community or taking advantage of the anonymity one has in the crowd in Antaragni proshow and feeling up girls all over their body – should I say the same thing about the other Hall now? No! This does not authorize anyone to generalize and say that the hall in question houses only hooligans. The fact that in these cases there was no person conscious and motivated enough to sensitize people through a proper channel does NOT make these cases any less serious. The fact that one of these incidents was planned very knowingly (the public humiliation one) makes it an even serious problem. But that does not authorize me to say that the other hall houses hooligans and hooligans only because if I say so, I would mean that I am commenting the same thing about some of the seniors with whom I have interacted more than the seniors from my own hall.
And no, we are not proud of what happened. You probably took the comments above yours a bit too seriously. It was unfortunate and shameful that an incident took place in Hall 2 but Hall 2 is fortunate that the incident that took place came into public picture. They had and have a chance to actually promote and pass on a culture of respect for other members of student community taking a lesson from the misdoings of some of their fellow residents or seniors. This is NOT the case with the other hall keeping in view the fact that those incidents did not receive any public feedback on any suitable forum.
Please note that the fact that the residents of the other hall were involved in the two cases cited above is NOT a justification for what happened in Hall 2. I had to mention these incidents just to make my point.
All of these acts, happening in whatever Hall, are examples of either a considerable portion of male community of Undergraduate population of IIT Kanpur being a follower of male chauvinism or simply utter frustration about not being capable (compared to some of their own colleagues) to interact with the fairer sex. This problem is not localized to a hall. It is a general problem. No place houses all saints and none houses all the satan.
Aapka,
Arvind
