It's great that the number of girls has increased way beyond the wildest dreams of our days. It's not great that they're being housed in a prison.
With its high wall, forbidding barbed wire, boxy
architecture and barred windows, the new wings of Mira
look exactly that: a prison complex.
The first thing that strikes you is the sheer size.
It is simply massive in comparison to all other Bhavans.
The picture above shows only a corner of a building,
about one quarter of it, and there are several such
buildings.
Then, if you look closer, you see the plain iron bars
across the windows.
Of course we all want the girls protected from
marauders and thugs. But couldn't there have been
a more tasteful way of achieving that goal?
Below, Sridhar chats with the very same chowkidar from our days. The gate has been moved (it was parallel to the road). And notice the profusion of bikes (again).
And, for the convenience of waiting
gents, a thoughtfully placed visitors room:
So, what to make of the prison-style architecture,
and the continuing rigid curfew? Is it a good thing
to support what parents obviously want? Or should BITS
move with the times, Bollywood-like, and embrace
more freedom? We'll each have to decide that one
for ourselves.
Sridhar remembers his Budh warden (P.Singh) gently reminding students not to wander about in towels, for fear of provoking complaints from female passers by. The warden said, whatever you do, do it quietly in your rooms. I'm sure he was quite aware of what went on in the rooms. Compare that laissez-faire attitude with the more matronly approach taken today. The BITS-Goa campus even has a curfew for boys, and you need permission to go off-campus. I think campuses ought to provide more freedom. A campus is a safe place in which to grow up, to experiment and to mature. It's an essential part of education.
Here are some parting shots on the way back. The stupa is now the theme for the Shishu Vihar nursery school and for Balika Vidhyapeeth.
