4. The first response of 69:
A beloved victim of the Vampire
It was almost twilight when my auto reached the Narmada hostel. I was already a registered student of JNU (a dream which I had seen for three years) but I was yet to get a proper accommodation. I was already eaten up by curiosity when I first came to fill up and submit my form. JNU: a secluded place, subsidised living, best of academics and thought provoking politics. I was all game for all of this. My life was set, it had a direction, a prospect of establishment a final answer to all those back home around my parents who spat at my decision to study humanities 5 years back.
I dumped my luggage in my senior’s room and was on my cycle. I had to know every nook and corner within a few days and cycle through all the roads. The cycle has been my constant companion. It has been the raw identity of my middle class background, it added to my boyish appearance, it was my pride (a pride which I reflect on seriously).
By the next phase of admission where I met rest of my classmates, I was guiding them through the campus for registration. My friend who was the only other student to get through J.N.U commented that: “I had already become a Jnuite”. Indeed I was, and over the next months I was certainly becoming a stereotypical student of J.N.U: a student who wakes up late, has tea and cigarette as breakfast, goes to library and surrounding dhabas of the campus, sits in a demonstration or meeting(which is a routine in this campus), discusses with his comrades the next move in campus politics, attends the public meeting at night, sits down to write a pamphlet regarding the current issue and within a few hours begins to place down around the campus and amidst the hustle and bustle, he attends the calls from home and the response is tokenist and habitual “I am allrite conversation”, promises to call his girlfriend later at night (which comes quite a few nights later).
This is what majority of the students of this campus used to do and still do but like a receding wave each semester number of such people gets reduced basically after elections. Till elections the walled campus of J.N.U becomes a world before 1917. A great war is at the backdrop, the administration building is the state and also the warring base. The student are the masses, there are all sorts of revolutionaries. Some are radical
others more pragmatic. All of them pretend to be against the state and believe in its demolition. Then there are agents of state among the students and who pretend to serve the latter’s interests. Then there are those groups who are suspected of being involved with the state. An upsurge is about to happen, the state is crumbling before of the masses. There are conspiracies as well. The dhabas and selected rooms various hostels are the spaces of a political battles of comments and arguments. There is exchange of secret information, new names, new comrades, their activities, their strategies. The position of each revolutionary group fills up gigabytes of disk space in different party offices. Meetings go on behind close doors of different parties and factions within parties. There are few revolutionaries who attend series of secret meetings. Scores of comrades engaged in these activities travel across the campus.
Night also brings a different thrill to this world. The dimly lit roads, the shadowed alleys, the shady corner of the eating joints, the corridors of the hostel, the silent knock on the strategic doors, the bolting up and the beginning of revolutionary work, strategic discussion and political training.
The war is on, enemies all around, the situation is delicate, any mistake is just not affordable, a position to be taken immediately and before anyone commits an act of offence, an offence has to be made as the best defence. Capturing, the leadership is crucial as those who are present would surely and certainly capitulate, the rest of the contenders are no different. We are the lot of saviours, a world and a century has to be rescued.
It is 12:30am of October, the air is heavy with the pending winter and with the slogans of revolution, slogans of struggle and a struggle for slogans because over a hundred of students shouting those slogans are carrying a struggle on two fronts- me with the administration and other with those fellow comrades who might co opt with the enemy and demean the coming victory.
You must be thinking where is the Vampire and where is the victim which I promised you in t beginning. Well they are everywhere, some have already showed up and some are still dressing up in the green room. As I show in the theatre of the next pages.
Meanwhile just as in the middle of the concert, I will introduce you to those who have already delivered their dialogues and played their role. Relating people to a cause (in this case the communist cause) was first meant to understand how insensitive and how selfish we would be if we do not despise them now. Everything of self and about self was to be set aside: career, good life, girlfriend, indulgence in consumption, everything was bourgeois. “We were convinced” and now let me introduce the victims. Should I? I think by this time you should know but not exactly. Somewhere or the other while writing the millions of thoughts which crossed my mind while the Vampire dug his teeth in my flesh have escaped far away in the universe, puffed away in the air through packets and packets of cigarettes and hash. What I can convey are the few thoughts that are etched on the wounds of the bite. The victims turn into Vampire, killing or rather sucking out everything of the “self” and injecting everything of the “people”. We were many and I turned out to be a bad Vampire, in their words a “disillusioned Marxist” or a “petty bourgeois” but no one escape from this earth or for me I could not escape from J.N.U. I entered another world. And as I told you Vampires are every where. This world was no exception.
Life took a selfish and a personal road. Friends, endless discussion of renegade and bad politics, and how bad and compromising the world was. So why not just be and enjoy. Though I decided to think and act only for myself I could not do so. My inclination towards social change was not born in J.N.U. It was born with me in Dumduma. I had journeyed in life essentially by being a help figure, a generous, helpful guy. “No” was never on my mind or my lips. Therefore I was a ready material for the vampires when I came here. I said no firmly because I did not like doing anything for them. I proudly remember saying it to one of my fellow vampires: “People might like playing chess but I don’t like being a pawn.” His face did look like a conjurer who could pull off a trick safely.
A new semester had begun and I was back from home. Meanwhile I met the Vampire who has been writing with me now. Girls have always been a noble obsession of mine, whether they are adorable kids like my two year old niece or the vampire I met. Anyways things change little in J.N.U and the vampires of the other world who wanted to cash on this I refused. When I met her she was introduced to me as a vampire. I always have my doubts when boys bitch about girls because they do that when they cannot cope with them or tame them. Somewhere I am fighting this instinct in me, and this Vampire has been the toughest nut to crack.
Following my doubts I walked down from that road to a road where there were friends who like taking things in their stride, battle with the odds but not miss the zest of life. Well, she was my guide on this road. And my life took a turn of routine fun, more mishti friends, and a steady progress in studies. I was a serious academician at night and tipsy at night.
Though I met many more friends I remained close to the Lady Vampire and came to know of her history, a history of pain. I came to know of the long list of vampires who fed on her, trampled her mercilessly and eventually turned her into one. But she had not turned on to me. She had something human in her still living. This used to come out in the open when she used to ask people whom she liked and adored to “stay away” (as she did it to me once). But she also used to nastily and quite mercilessly bite others. Well they deserved it because they all came with the idea to devour her. I love girls who play welland deal with people with tough and just hands but somewhere I felt the burnt end to from her. I blurted out my love for her but only to face indifference. I was so used to seeing vampires that I mistook her for being just like one of tem. She was still human but the bitter and lonely times and the venom was still working and was having the desired effects. A vampire cannot and does not distinguish between anybody. To a vampire, every other is just a resource for nutrition. While a victim of a vampire does not know how to take but only ends up giving, and therefore the relation and its nature is absolute and complete . But common human beings are neither of them. They are stretched on a plane, at one end of which is the vampire and the other is the victim. I am closer to the end of a ‘victim.’ I give, sometimes without even realising it, but when I see the vampire feeding on my blood and doubts I wish I could get something too. I cannot get anything from the vampire because I am on the other end, the end of the victim. So what do I do? What?
Coming from closed cocoons to big cities is a journey not only of space, life but also of mind. BIG roads, BIG cities, BIG buildings, BIG labels, BIG cars etc, all of these which conspire to make your demands big, desires big and then make you tirelessly chase them with your own limited speed. This is the way we land on this ‘scape’ of the vampire and victims. Seeing a vampire, we want to become but this hardly happens when we look at a victim, and that is where my point of danger is. That is where the dilemma arises- ‘to be or not to be.’ As I keep the company of this asphyxiated vampire, I am troubled in getting the glimpses of the victim in her. I might enter into a victim for her but also a vampire for another.
A beloved victim of the Vampire
It was almost twilight when my auto reached the Narmada hostel. I was already a registered student of JNU (a dream which I had seen for three years) but I was yet to get a proper accommodation. I was already eaten up by curiosity when I first came to fill up and submit my form. JNU: a secluded place, subsidised living, best of academics and thought provoking politics. I was all game for all of this. My life was set, it had a direction, a prospect of establishment a final answer to all those back home around my parents who spat at my decision to study humanities 5 years back.
I dumped my luggage in my senior’s room and was on my cycle. I had to know every nook and corner within a few days and cycle through all the roads. The cycle has been my constant companion. It has been the raw identity of my middle class background, it added to my boyish appearance, it was my pride (a pride which I reflect on seriously).
By the next phase of admission where I met rest of my classmates, I was guiding them through the campus for registration. My friend who was the only other student to get through J.N.U commented that: “I had already become a Jnuite”. Indeed I was, and over the next months I was certainly becoming a stereotypical student of J.N.U: a student who wakes up late, has tea and cigarette as breakfast, goes to library and surrounding dhabas of the campus, sits in a demonstration or meeting(which is a routine in this campus), discusses with his comrades the next move in campus politics, attends the public meeting at night, sits down to write a pamphlet regarding the current issue and within a few hours begins to place down around the campus and amidst the hustle and bustle, he attends the calls from home and the response is tokenist and habitual “I am allrite conversation”, promises to call his girlfriend later at night (which comes quite a few nights later).
This is what majority of the students of this campus used to do and still do but like a receding wave each semester number of such people gets reduced basically after elections. Till elections the walled campus of J.N.U becomes a world before 1917. A great war is at the backdrop, the administration building is the state and also the warring base. The student are the masses, there are all sorts of revolutionaries. Some are radical
others more pragmatic. All of them pretend to be against the state and believe in its demolition. Then there are agents of state among the students and who pretend to serve the latter’s interests. Then there are those groups who are suspected of being involved with the state. An upsurge is about to happen, the state is crumbling before of the masses. There are conspiracies as well. The dhabas and selected rooms various hostels are the spaces of a political battles of comments and arguments. There is exchange of secret information, new names, new comrades, their activities, their strategies. The position of each revolutionary group fills up gigabytes of disk space in different party offices. Meetings go on behind close doors of different parties and factions within parties. There are few revolutionaries who attend series of secret meetings. Scores of comrades engaged in these activities travel across the campus.
Night also brings a different thrill to this world. The dimly lit roads, the shadowed alleys, the shady corner of the eating joints, the corridors of the hostel, the silent knock on the strategic doors, the bolting up and the beginning of revolutionary work, strategic discussion and political training.
The war is on, enemies all around, the situation is delicate, any mistake is just not affordable, a position to be taken immediately and before anyone commits an act of offence, an offence has to be made as the best defence. Capturing, the leadership is crucial as those who are present would surely and certainly capitulate, the rest of the contenders are no different. We are the lot of saviours, a world and a century has to be rescued.
It is 12:30am of October, the air is heavy with the pending winter and with the slogans of revolution, slogans of struggle and a struggle for slogans because over a hundred of students shouting those slogans are carrying a struggle on two fronts- me with the administration and other with those fellow comrades who might co opt with the enemy and demean the coming victory.
You must be thinking where is the Vampire and where is the victim which I promised you in t beginning. Well they are everywhere, some have already showed up and some are still dressing up in the green room. As I show in the theatre of the next pages.
Meanwhile just as in the middle of the concert, I will introduce you to those who have already delivered their dialogues and played their role. Relating people to a cause (in this case the communist cause) was first meant to understand how insensitive and how selfish we would be if we do not despise them now. Everything of self and about self was to be set aside: career, good life, girlfriend, indulgence in consumption, everything was bourgeois. “We were convinced” and now let me introduce the victims. Should I? I think by this time you should know but not exactly. Somewhere or the other while writing the millions of thoughts which crossed my mind while the Vampire dug his teeth in my flesh have escaped far away in the universe, puffed away in the air through packets and packets of cigarettes and hash. What I can convey are the few thoughts that are etched on the wounds of the bite. The victims turn into Vampire, killing or rather sucking out everything of the “self” and injecting everything of the “people”. We were many and I turned out to be a bad Vampire, in their words a “disillusioned Marxist” or a “petty bourgeois” but no one escape from this earth or for me I could not escape from J.N.U. I entered another world. And as I told you Vampires are every where. This world was no exception.
Life took a selfish and a personal road. Friends, endless discussion of renegade and bad politics, and how bad and compromising the world was. So why not just be and enjoy. Though I decided to think and act only for myself I could not do so. My inclination towards social change was not born in J.N.U. It was born with me in Dumduma. I had journeyed in life essentially by being a help figure, a generous, helpful guy. “No” was never on my mind or my lips. Therefore I was a ready material for the vampires when I came here. I said no firmly because I did not like doing anything for them. I proudly remember saying it to one of my fellow vampires: “People might like playing chess but I don’t like being a pawn.” His face did look like a conjurer who could pull off a trick safely.
A new semester had begun and I was back from home. Meanwhile I met the Vampire who has been writing with me now. Girls have always been a noble obsession of mine, whether they are adorable kids like my two year old niece or the vampire I met. Anyways things change little in J.N.U and the vampires of the other world who wanted to cash on this I refused. When I met her she was introduced to me as a vampire. I always have my doubts when boys bitch about girls because they do that when they cannot cope with them or tame them. Somewhere I am fighting this instinct in me, and this Vampire has been the toughest nut to crack.
Following my doubts I walked down from that road to a road where there were friends who like taking things in their stride, battle with the odds but not miss the zest of life. Well, she was my guide on this road. And my life took a turn of routine fun, more mishti friends, and a steady progress in studies. I was a serious academician at night and tipsy at night.
Though I met many more friends I remained close to the Lady Vampire and came to know of her history, a history of pain. I came to know of the long list of vampires who fed on her, trampled her mercilessly and eventually turned her into one. But she had not turned on to me. She had something human in her still living. This used to come out in the open when she used to ask people whom she liked and adored to “stay away” (as she did it to me once). But she also used to nastily and quite mercilessly bite others. Well they deserved it because they all came with the idea to devour her. I love girls who play welland deal with people with tough and just hands but somewhere I felt the burnt end to from her. I blurted out my love for her but only to face indifference. I was so used to seeing vampires that I mistook her for being just like one of tem. She was still human but the bitter and lonely times and the venom was still working and was having the desired effects. A vampire cannot and does not distinguish between anybody. To a vampire, every other is just a resource for nutrition. While a victim of a vampire does not know how to take but only ends up giving, and therefore the relation and its nature is absolute and complete . But common human beings are neither of them. They are stretched on a plane, at one end of which is the vampire and the other is the victim. I am closer to the end of a ‘victim.’ I give, sometimes without even realising it, but when I see the vampire feeding on my blood and doubts I wish I could get something too. I cannot get anything from the vampire because I am on the other end, the end of the victim. So what do I do? What?
Coming from closed cocoons to big cities is a journey not only of space, life but also of mind. BIG roads, BIG cities, BIG buildings, BIG labels, BIG cars etc, all of these which conspire to make your demands big, desires big and then make you tirelessly chase them with your own limited speed. This is the way we land on this ‘scape’ of the vampire and victims. Seeing a vampire, we want to become but this hardly happens when we look at a victim, and that is where my point of danger is. That is where the dilemma arises- ‘to be or not to be.’ As I keep the company of this asphyxiated vampire, I am troubled in getting the glimpses of the victim in her. I might enter into a victim for her but also a vampire for another.
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