It was 1977. Our college remained closed for an unusually long period of time with students going on strike, sympathy strike, to be precise, in support of our friends from another college in the city who were on strike. The reasons for going on strike were too frivolous in my view and far from lending even moral support, I chose to protest the stand of my colleagues who were preventing classes from being held. As a schoolboy, having lived in Kanpur and Varanasi, I had a fairly good exposure to the behaviour of college students. I vividly remember an advertisement in the employment news of a daily, which carried a footnote saying “BHU students need not apply”.
The student’s union election, even in those days, was a high-profile event. The general secretary of our college was incidentally my classmate. Everyone invariably had a nickname. He was popularly called ‘Patel’ although his name as per college records was Surendran, while I was called ‘Kanpur’ because I came from there and more pertinently was not conversant with the Tamil they spoke. Patel loved barging into classrooms when the session was on and in his high-pitch tone, would direct everyone to boycott the class. Many of my friends loved such announcements; after waiting for a few moments to ensure the call was not a casual one, they would either belt home or go to the theatre close to our college. Very few joined the ultimate procession that moved out of the college raising slogans.
The first time I joined such protesters and walked up to the railway station before parting ways and heading home, I got a chance to witness the unruly behaviour of some students. Glass tumblers at a vegetarian light refreshment stall on the railway station were freely tossed forcing the stall owners to down their shutters. Some vendors selling eatables hurriedly packed up and ran for safety.
Initially the college library was a safe haven for me to sit and study peacefully. The librarian was my good companion and allowed me access to all the required books and question papers of the earlier years of Madras University. But soon access to the library was also shut.
It was during one of those ‘layoff’ days from college that I got a chance to interact with Cho Ramaswamy at his Thuglak office, at length about my interests and the student unrest prevailing then. He suggested submission of a written version, which I did. It was promptly carried in the ensuing edition of Pickwick, the English fortnightly he had brought out then.
M S Vaidyanathan
Email: maharajapuram.s.vaidyanathan@gmail.com