All Bhavans have now joined the
T-Wing to each New Wing with a row of rooms to
complete the final wing.
This wing is called the H-wing by the students
both because of its role in the overall shape
and, more indelicately, because it features larger rooms
for two occupants: "H" for the "Homo" wing.
Earthy and direct, with a disarming lack of sensitivity,
don't you think?
Here below is Sridhar in front of his favorite residence, home of the storied super-seniors, Malviya Bhavan. Look at the extreme left if you want to leaven the shock you'll get with the next picture.
Yes, Malviya was an all-girls hostel recently, complete with 10-foot wall and prison-grade barbed wire. I need to digress a little here to give you the full background. For those of you in our time and earlier, you may be pleased, even envious, to know that BITS almost achieved gender parity in its admissions two years ago. The number of girls on campus is now about 1,500 out of a total of about 4,000. So, naturally, Malviya (the obvious choice, right?) became a girls hostel.
BITS has just this year switched to an entrance exam like the IIT's (more about this later), the result of which has been a steep drop in female students admitted. Where then to put up the excess boys? Malviya to the rescue again. Unfortunately, they had to split Malviya, with the result that the left half (some would say, the more infamous half) housing girls and the right for boys.
Thus, the (again) ugly wall with barbed wire is
the cleaving line through Malviya. The girls' side
corridors all have shutters. The boys have been
instructed to keep their voices down and their eyes away.
No boy's room window facing the girls may be opened,
and so on.
Here's the museum view of Malviya. If you zoom in, you can see the shutters. It's enough to make a grown Malviya man cry.
OK, let's not delay any further a question that's been
nagging us all along.
We really need to ask, what are today's students like?
The short answer is this: the campus culture is drastically
different because of the student composition. Almost
all students are from South India, mostly from Andhra
Pradesh. Such an overwhelming uniformity contributes
powerfully to the change in culture. But it's also the
24-7 internet access in the rooms, and cable TV in
the common rooms. Whatever the case, there's
definitely less "hulla" on campus. We did not see
roaming gangs of drunken students, did not hear much blaring music
(headphones plugged into PC's?), saw no velas engaged
in a game of bridge in the corridors.
This view is confirmed by conversations with mess
servants (no noisy wing dinners), with stalwarts
like Raju (nobody goes to Nutan anymore) and with
faculty who were once students.
The few students that do
experiment with the ten commandments apparently do so quietly
in their rooms.
While I don't want to judge extra-curricular culture too harshly, I'm compelled to say that the diversity we encountered in our time was an extremely important part of our education. I remember coming in as a cosmopolitan city-slicker from Bombay and initially being shocked to see what appeared to me were unnecessary linguistic divisions (the Tamil Sangam, the Bengali association, and the like). Likewise, I can imagine local Rajasthani students appalled by these snooty, denim-wearing, English-speaking city types. I eventually came to appreciate and learn from other cultures, as did everybody, for which I am now very glad. I believe the valuable lessons of such diversity will be lost in a student body dominated by one state.
BITS is apparently aware of this problem, one of the reasons for switching to an entrance exam. Evidently, states like A.P. have been too generous in apportioning marks. Unfortunately, this new entrance exam has had the unforseen side effect of reducing the number of girls admitted. Girls, who are handily beating their opposites in the state exams are, for unknown reaons, not faring as well on these entrance exams. BITS is pondering what to do next.
The sheer number of girls is the other big change on campus. They are everywhere, and they mix with boys quite easily. It's not uncommon to see mixed groups outside boys' Bhavans (they're not allowed inside), at the Redi-wallahs, at Connaught, and cycling around campus.
I'll leave you with a nice shot that Sridhar took of our morning walk near Viswakarma (VK). We'll return now and then to cultural issues as we proceed.
