NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF

It is going to be that time of the year when students after their harrowing experiences in their search for admission to colleges of their choice are finally able to breathe free and the academic year begins. 

Students who have been successful in handling the stress of obtaining admissions now find that they have to cope with another form of stress, which has become almost a ritual in most academic institutions of higher learning and excellence. You are right, in guessing that I am referring to the issue of ragging which is now prevalent in all educational institutions across the country.

The very thought of ragging takes me down memory lane when I entered college during the mid seventies and faced this phenomenon. I’m sharing my experiences with you for there is a lesson here that I learnt and I would like others to also read and understand. 

Actually, I was ragged twice. The first time was when as a kid fresh out of school I entered a college within the heart of Chennai city which was known for its bullies and timid thugs. I had just joined the one year pre – university course which was the norm during those days. Being a raw kid I was very much in awe and fear of my so called seniors who rode rough shod over me. Their ragging ranged from making me strip off my clothes and be paraded around the college in my underwear to buying cigarettes and Chai for the seniors. It was a great relief to me when the first three days in college drew to a close and ragging subsided into friendly camaraderie.

It was in this college that I came to the conclusion that studying was futile. The quality of the students and staff of that college made me come to that conclusion and as a result after completion of the course I dropped out of academic pursuits for almost three years. I decided to find myself some clerical employment and grow up the ranks rather than waste my time in college. 

During those three years I worked as an apprentice clerk in a precision engineering company, washed soda bottles in a bottling plant, served as a lead singer of a band playing in a cabaret restaurant and even tried my hand as a tutor in a tutorial institute wherein the principal lied to the students that I was a post graduate in two subjects.

My stint as a tutor rekindled my interest in academics for I found I could understand varied social sciences and teach post graduates after a cursory reading of the prescribed texts. I therefore enrolled for graduate studies in political science at a reputed college in the suburbs of Chennai which had a campus of over 500 acres. This college too was known for its ritualistic style of ragging the juniors there. However, this time around I was no fresher and my varied experiences during the three interim years had made me worldly wise. Moreover, boys who had been my juniors in school were my seniors here and my reputation for using my fists to settle disputes had preceded me to this college.

Within seconds of entering the campus and walking down the long drive way to the administration block, I was accosted by a rather ragged looking chap who came up to me wheezing and panting as if he was suffering from terminal tuberculosis. He looked at me with what he considered a tough look and called out to me, “Hey junior, come here and salute me”. I looked at him as I would at an insect that had made an appearance on my dinner plate. I gazed deep into his eyes and replied, “You must be kidding!” and walked away with my nose up in the air as if he were a piece of excreta. The poor lad was flabbergasted at my response and didn’t know how to react. “Hey”, he screamed out to another bunch of seniors who were a bit farther away as he ran up to them saying, “There is this young junior pisser who refuses to salute me and says I must be kidding”.

Meanwhile I had walked away, found my classroom and vanished from their sight. Word soon spread around the campus about a junior who had been sarcastic with a senior. When I came out during the break and walked to the cafeteria I found that I had become a star attraction and some seniors were nudging their chin towards me and pointing me out to other seniors. 

I remained nonplussed and got my self a cup of chai from the cafeteria as I casually lit up a cigarette. A bunch of seven or eight seniors surrounded me at that moment and while one of them plucked away the cigarette in my hand and stamped it on the ground, another took a jug of water which was on a table in the cafeteria poured it on the ground and asked me to swim in it. I innocently looked at the guy and told him that I did not know how to swim, though I hurriedly added that I was willing to learn if one of them could teach me how to swim in the jug of water that they had poured on the floor.

By now the seniors had reached boiling point but they did not really know how to handle me. Meanwhile, a few of my old schoolmates who were now studying in the same college had noticed my presence in the cafeteria and whispered to the other seniors about my notoriety and misadventures in school. They warned the others who were unaware of my exploits that it was advisable not to tamper with me for they would find their hands or legs broken the moment they stepped out of campus. As a result I had a fairly dull induction period into the college and I found seniors going out of their way to come and befriend me.

On the second day, one of the guys came up to me rather conspiratorially and whispered that he had some grass which he would like to share with me and asked me if I would be interested in a reefer. I was surprised that the guys had changed their tack within one day but I knew that this too was a form of testing me. As mentioned sometime earlier I had been part of a band as a lead singer during my three year anti-sabbatical after my pre - university course. During my stint with the band I had come across many muggle smokers, since most musicians of those times were into the habit. I had also picked up the habit from these musicians and therefore grass was nothing new to me. I therefore readily agreed since it would at least break the dull monotony of my second day in college. We therefore went to a tree located behind the cafeteria which I later came to know was affectionately called the philosophers tree.

As we rolled up our smokes and lit up, a few more seniors joined us in ones and twos. I knew this was all an act and that they had planned to join us gradually so as to not raise my suspicion. However, I remained unconcerned and kept on smoking away merrily as they kept on rolling and pushing many more joints between my welcoming fingers. We must have smoked quite a lot but being a past master at this habit, it did not affect me at all and I was merely enjoying the trip with Mary Jane while those seniors who had been smoking along with me started giggling and behaving silly.

In fact, a couple of them became so stoned that they started rolling on the floor giggling away; merrily oblivious of what they were doing. After a while, I walked up to the cafeteria and got a lot of cold lime juice which I made all those who were giggling away drink; for I knew that the lemon would have a sobering effect on them. After a while the bunch of seniors who were hanging around with me sobered up and looked at me rather sheepishly for their ploy had back fired on them. They had thought that they would get me stoned so that I would make a fool of myself but in reality it had turned out the other way. After a few words of advice to the seniors to be careful with grass for it could drive those with weak minds rather insane, I left for home.

The third day which was supposed to be the last day of ragging was completely uneventful and I proceeded to head back home that evening. Since the college was outside the city it could only be accessed by electrified local trains and most of the students from the city commuted by these trains as I too did. Having found me a nice comfortable seat by a window I was looking forward to going back home when all of a sudden a huge crowd of seniors swooped upon me and occupied all the seats around me. They then called a young boy who was selling roasted peanuts in a small basket and forced him to hand over the basket to me. They asked me to take the basket around the compartment as well as the neighboring ladies compartment which was also full of girl students from the same college and asked me to imitate the peanut vendor and sell the peanuts in the moving train. I was laughing to myself, but agreed to go around selling the peanuts since I was outnumbered by a large number of seniors.

I quietly accepted the small basket; placed it on my shoulder and walked around the moving compartment calling out “Kadalai, Kadalai, soodana Veru Kadalai” in Tamil. Roughly translated I was just shouting “peanuts, peanuts, hot groundnuts”. As I went around the compartment one or two members of the public assumed that I was really a peanut vendor and thrust out one rupee coins asking me to give them peanuts for a rupee. Without hesitation I took the small aluminum measure kept in the basket for this purpose filled it up with the roasted peanuts and after measuring the same I packed it neatly in a cone made of waste paper which was also stuck into the basket. I seemed to be pretty good at the business for I happened to sell ten rupees worth of peanuts within a few minutes.

When the train reached the next station I got down from the compartment walked up to the next compartment which was a ladies compartment and started peddling my wares there. It was quite a pleasant feeling to be the lone male in a coach full of women and I did not bother to return to my earlier compartment until my destination arrived. At my destination I just left the basket on the station platform and walked away with the proceeds from the sales of peanuts jingling in my pockets. My poor seniors did not know what to do and I am sure they must have had a tough time with the peanut vendor whose basket they had given me.

The next day when I went back to college, they could not do anything about my behavior the previous day for traditionally ragging was only during the first three days and it was the fourth day that day. 

Wanting to teach these seniors a lesson, I decided to have some fun at their expense. I gathered all the juniors whom I could spot on campus especially those who had suffered the most during ragging at the hands of the seniors and told them that the fourth day would henceforth be called juniors day and that juniors would be allowed the privilege of ragging the seniors for one day as a reward for having suffered at the hands of the seniors for the past three days. I asked the juniors to go round up all the seniors whom they could lay their hands on and tell them that I wanted to see them.

It was indeed a memorable day for the juniors. All the seniors we could catch that day were dunked into a water tank, forced to climb trees and chased with good humor. But sharing that is not the intention of this post. 

This post is to merely analyze the psychology behind ragging. Ragging only takes advantage of the fear and insecurity of the juniors in new surroundings. Some proponents of the culture of ragging tell me that ragging ensures bonding and camaraderie, but that is pure bull. As a senior I found that I could bond better with my juniors when I reached out to them with love and friendship rather than a bullying attitude.

My experiences while being ragged taught me that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. There is a proverb in Tamil that says, “Like a chasing dog which chases a running dog which runs in fear”. If only the dog being chased overcomes its fear and turns around and bares its teeth at the chasing dog, the tables get turned and then the running dog becomes the chasing dog.