Freshers and recollections - I

Ten years ago, I was a fresher in Delhi. I reached the ancient city with sweat and the rusted smell of the patient Avadh Assam Express. I remember I was too homesick. Worst there was no medicine for it. I did not stop asking myself why it has to be like this? The monotonous university registration process was endless. My topper marks led me to the hallowed Delhi University’s Kirori Mal College to study Political Science. However, being a topper from Manipur makes little sense as CBSE was raining marks like manna. But, knowledge and the quest for that eventually define one in the long run. What matters ultimately is what one knows without the marks. Everything was a lesson bigger than what I learnt in the university’s syllabus.

Unlike the last freshers’ meet that recently concluded, the freshers’ meet in the year 1997 was a small and cosy affair. I remember it was held in RK Puram in a small room that snake a little longer than the usual rooms that we rent to live in the Capital City. For the dinner one long queue with soldier’s like discipline served everyone without any trouble. Our chef’s strength today would outnumber the fresher’s in 1997.So many things have changed. Many things also did not change. But I remember the warmth as I was new and a fresher then. I like that feeling of newness, which is already missing. It is already monotonous with the usual and routine affair. Also with the faces and the stale issues that we are cornered with. Man, I believe, love a change. We need change too. Whatever, going back, I remember people like Pu Hrangthangvung, Pu Lalchungsiem, Pastor Lalsiesang, Pu Patrick Infimate, Pu Lalhmingthang Joute, Pu Lalringum Inbuon were single and slimmer. I am not sure if they were mingling then. I don’t know, as I was not acquainted to them as much as today. Fortunately the electronic keyboard, then, did not define music. All the songs were pluck or strum with the six strings, which I will always love, than the destructive convenience that we never seem to realize. It was impressive to see every singer play the guitar for themselves. In the recent fresher’s meet, there was not even a sight of the guitar. Its sweet sound was far from the great expectations.

Almost all the freshers during those days came for pursuing further studies. Options were still limited. Our horizons appeared like the pond’s view. We never examine ourselves to understand our capacity and potentialities. So everyone talked about UPSC that could only multiply the number of rusted steel frames. There was nothing like call centre or BPO’s and the other boom that are already consuming immense global human resource today. We used to hear people talked about working part time in Delhi’s hot summer at McDonald. Otherwise, we, in Delhi Unversity north campus, could not imagine anything beyond class, library, studies and going home for long holidays in the summer to forget Delhi. I still remember the immense joy I derived in the privilege of finding my favourite newspaper, The Hindu, on my doorstep, which I used to read religiously. Reading and underlining the big, black and white newspaper and then cutting them were the routine indulges. It would take all the deserved good time. I used to tell myself that if I were an idol worshipper, N Ram, The Hindu editor, would be one of my small gods. I finally got to meet him when I was awarded the 2007 Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award, which is the country’s biggest award in journalism. Ten years on and I am still faithfully reading The Hindu besides the others, which I do to keep track of everything that matters.

Delhi University’s north campus was like an island then. Not to others but particularly for the Hmar speaking community. Munirka, for us, was like the capital of Delhi in those days. That does not seem to have withered even today. I made a point to attend the DHCF service on Good Friday and Christmas only. I have a problem traveling in buses. Moreover, I don’t believe in securing heavenly seat by running after all the drums and bells. Everything else starts from the within. I remember getting down from the bus, many a times in the middle of the road, to puke all the irritations away. It was a torture to go to south. Moreover, it was too expensive an affair for my shoestring budget. My principle, then, was to avoid everything but to read everything. The Thralaipawl or choir and all their endless affairs did not affect students from north campus. We were like the untouchables. We were beyond its reach, for God so love us. It still is today, for God’s mercy sake. I remember Alan Thiek, who is today studying in Pune’s UBS seminary, coming to north campus in the year 1998 and was full of surprise to find us, Hmars, studying in this part of Delhi. I realized then that Delhi was the capital village. Atleast for us. We seem to be good in discovering villages. But as it is still, students with good academic records would only get to study in north campus colleges then. Like Naipaul’s many small battles inside a battle, our circle was a small one even in the north campus. There was hardly visiting or visitors. No courting. No song practice. No silly or dirty manipulations by Dr Jekyl or Mr Hyde. But it was rich enough to be widen with books, which was instrumental. I realised that was healthy and productive than the large and unquenchable circle of friends that has become of us today.
One of my batchmate, Lalthanglien Ruolngul told me lately, in the year 2005, about the early days as freshers in Delhi. He said: “Those were conservative days for our friend’s circle in south Delhi. Some of our friends did not even wear jeans.” The yardstick is interesting. South Delhi or Munirka was considered too far for us from north. Bus numbers 621 and 750 served to bridge the north and south distance. Every student in north were well acquainted with the routes. We all would treasure our bus pass in those days. I remember I and a couple of friends took 750 bus to reach our fresher’s meet venue in that year. We all had the colourful Thangsuo Puon scarf with us. Those routes hardly take us to any impressive place of the Capital City that we grew up imagining about Delhi. No sight of skyscrapers. No Mercedes or big wheels. Instead, the road was clogged with snarling traffic that took almost eternity to make a move. Sometimes it is a surprise that ten years have passed when memories of those pregnant buses stagnating on roads is still fresh in the mind. Not only that, cow and pig could be spotted in the middle of the road too. Potholes. Pollution. Population moving to score a billion. What not? My fresher’s days were greeted with all that. CNG was not there yet. The flyovers and the subways too were still absent, except for those in ISBT and Bhikaji Cama Place. Metro, which is today running like the celebrated Christmas toy, must still be a distant plan in papers then.

There was no cyber café or internet. No mobile. Unlike today, one has to take all the inconveniences to fix a time with our neighbour’s telephone to talk to our family members. That would be once in a month if it were necessary. Our financial situation mostly determines that necessity. Otherwise it was a costly affair and a very inconvenient one. Letter writing and the postal system was the only means to connect the distance between home and Delhi. The postman was more important and significant to us than the Prime Minister or the President. I used to have a good stock of white and brown envelope and postal stamps. That was when people would be identified by their handwritings. One could make faces out just by reading the scribble on the envelope. Sometimes I would not open the envelope if I don’t have good tea to read alongwith. Many a times, I used to read sweeter letters over several times. Today it is just a matter of click from one’s own mobile. Instant and easy. Like courting a prostitute. But letter writing was full of all the good things. There was art. Creativity. Nothing could be sweeter. Every word was read like the faithful counting the blessing and naming them one by one. Things have changed. They almost seem like antique and ancient today. Not my choice. Never yours either. Technological revolutions did not seem to spare anyone. Everyone is digitalised today. Our identities are chipped inside numbers, which would cripple us anytime if we are cut off from it.