Tuesday, January 10, 2006

College-The true meaning of Secularism

Secularism...hmm...brings back "not so fond" memories of "History and Civics" from class 10.Further rummaging through my brain has yielded a definition that goes something like this
Secularism: The view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education.(SEE! My brains is a veritable anthology of facts or maybe it’s just the dictionary that’s running at the background). Anyway, it basically means a state of affairs where all religons are treated as one and often implies a sense of respect among people from different religious backgrounds. Which brings me to the purpose of this post. Secularism in college .If you are expecting a solemn and serious report on how educational institutions have helped in upholding one of the pillars of "The Constitution of India", please press "Alt+F4".

Why do i choose to write on such a topic suddenly? The reason a series of events that compelled me to, not only ponder about this topic but also forced me to share the consensus with all of you. I will be more than happy to paint out the various situations that led me to this write-up.

Scene 1-We have just realised that this year Christmas falls on a Sunday. The bearer of ill news gets a volley of insults from us and a couple of Lighthearted pats on his back. This sudden revelation left most of us stunned. The reaction amongst us was more or less as follows.
*WHY, GOD WHY!?!?!
*What Injustice!?
*How dare our forefathers plan out the Gregorian calendars in such a way that Christmas falls on a Sunday this year!
*Why couldn’t Jesus have lived a few more years!
*How can the Christians amongst us celebrate Christmas knowing that it falls on a Sunday!?
As we were all busy mourning, Aaron, who happens to be the only Christian in our group, seems to be really calm and didn’t mind the unfortunate circumstances. It was his Muslim and Hindu brothers who had taken it upon themselves grieve for such a sad turn of events for Aaron (Ahem! and it doesn’t really hurt us if we had gotten an extra holiday as well). It was this sudden outburst of emotion and camaraderie, which got me thinking, Wow, we really do care for Aaron and all the Christians out there.

Scene 2-A couple of days back there was this rumour that no holiday will be given for
Bakr-Eid. This statement evoked sentiments, which could have probably been seen only during the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Two guys shot up from their desks and started shouting out the preamble to the constitution of India and something about tolerance towards and equality among all religons. Eventually it ended in threatening violent consequences, should such a rumour ever re-surface again. Yet again, there was hardly a Muslim buddy of ours in sight during this whole skit and it was his buds from other faiths that carried out this protest for them. I must point out at this juncture that there was no professor or anyone of authority while the play was in progress. I am saying this because i don’t want any of you associating them with any false sense of bravado. But hey, its the thought that counts!! Yet again this outburst had clearly put into perspective the sense of unity and brotherhood amongst us! Another face of secular India.

Scene 3-Diwali is just over, Almost the entire class is waiting for his arrival .He enters the class and there is a sudden rush towards him. It is obvious...everyone wants to greet him and wish him on this joyous occasion. How can we let him stand there with the burden of all his bags that he is carrying. We caringly relieve him of the bag that he was holding in his right hand .Now, how is it our fault if that bag turns out to be the bag in which he has brought diwali sweets for all of us? How dare you accuse us of being rude and impolite just because we eat those sweets? It would have been rude had we not eaten the sweets that he so lovingly brought for his friends. This feeling of happiness for each other is not exclusive to diwali but to any festival that involves giving sweets to your friends and it has crossed the flimsy barrier of religon. We no longer care what festival it is, we will treat all festivals with the same level enthusiasm as long as there is an opportunity for some sweets or better yet an invitation to his house for lunch.

The above three scenarios are but a small preview of the intense sense of harmony among us. There are myriad examples of such selfless good deeds which may often be mistaken for opportunistic self-centeredness but as the above examples would have undoubtedly cleared your minds of any such misapprehension. With such overwhelming evidence how can anyone deny secularism in our colleges? Albeit an extreme version of secularism, but you cant, for one second, doubt the intentions of the noble students who pass through those hallowed portals of education. They are after all the future of our country. The future Doctors of our country, the future Engineers of our country, the future Scientists of our country, the future POLITICIANS of…AHA! Mystery solved!

8 comments:

Ajay said...

yeah thats true..... thanks for dropping in keep visiting ....
lovely informative blogg

Sheks said...

i thot CD batch is a very happening place but now i find there's so much happening in AB batch.
---industrial shekhar

Anonymous said...

hi gowri, i understand ur feelings. I can assure that i wud have felt the same, had i been in a similar position. But luckily, we ppl dont even bother abt it. We normally decide to mass bunk on such occasions.

Gowri Shankar said...

lol..yay..above,u can see my first spam message..ty! :P

Ranjit Prakash . S said...

dowry... i mean gowri how are u da..

Ranjit Prakash . S said...

and i think christmas is celebrating the birth of jesus and not mourning his death.. u wrote
"why christ could't have lived a few more days"

Gowri Shankar said...

oops
we were so caught up in the emotional frenzy that we forgot what it was that we were celebrating!

Anonymous said...

Nice tips about writing exams :P