It was a warm night in the fag end of an unusually dry monsoon season in the Steel township of Rourkela. The students of 2nd year Engineering residing in Hostel no 3 retired to bed after another long, hectic day of academics in Regional Engineering College, polularly known as REC (now NIT) - the Premium Technical Institute in the state of Odisha in India. The pariah dogs who fed on the messy leftovers from the Hostel mess fell quite after a long night of howling and sniffing around, for it was the peak of their mating season.
This happened to happen in this month of September 1987, exactly 30 years ago. All of a sudden, like bolt from the blue, a bunch of marauding guys from the senior batches of the 3rd and final year of Engineering (mostly the former) fell upon the sleeping students of 2nd year. Using utmost secrecy and surprise as the main element, the attacking students used wooden planks, hockey sticks, iron rods and even bare hands to bash up their hapless victims from the junior year.
The well planned attack was fast and swift, executed to perfection. Before you could finish chanting "Laxman Shivarama Krishnan" 108 times, the perpetratorss retreated fast, fully well aware of the fact that staying too long will give the victims time to recuperate, rally around and turn the tables on them. After all the attackers stayed in the Hostel - 3 earlier and were pretty familiar with its geography.
And it almost happened, as one of the seniors (I personally knew him as he hailed from my school in Bhubaneswar), a lanky and slightly lame guy was the last one to leave post thrashing his juniors. The already beaten, bruised and fuming with fury of a wounded tiger, the Hostel - 3 students chased him for a while and almost caught him as only a few feet separated him from his pursuers. God forbid he managed to flee - for if caught, at that moment he would have been lynched and never seen the sun again the next morning.
Why and how this incident happened ? A sequence of events, a series of comedy of errors by the college authorities who failed to gauge the mood of the students led to this incident. The bucks stops at the Principal who later was hailed as hero for dousing the fire he had a hand in creating it. He was more like part of the problem than solution.
It all began one day, rather one evening. It was the immersion ceremony of Sri Ganesh Idol following the Puja held in Hostel - 2 (abode of final year students. Traditionally Ganesh Puja used to be held in Hostel - 2 where the final year students stayed, Saraswati Puja in the Hostel - 3 where the 2nd year students were housed). That year, though plenty of Bhang (cannabis) and alcohol was available, there was a shortage of dancers to consume them and follow the slow moving truck carrying the idol towards its destination at the bottom of a close by lake.
The academic session of the new arrivals 1st year students, the usual MURGA (whipping boys or fall guys, the way you see it) didn't start yet - so axe fell on the 2nd year guys, the junior most ones available to fulfill the void of crowd needed to dance behind the truck. A bunch of apparently intoxicated seniors entered their common room in Hostel - 3, where a few were glues to TV. They were slapped multiple times for disobeying the orders of Senior Gods to join the immersion procession - a cardinal mistake to be made inside the REC Campus.
The 2nd year of Engineering is a unique physical and academic stage in life. Physically one is neither a child nor an adult. Academically, you are neither a Fresher, nor exactly a Senior as the junior most 1st year students were yet to arrive in the college. Humiliated, the 2nd year students went to the Superintendent, Warden and eventually the Principal to complain against this mistreatment - after all they have endured the harassment for way too long. Ragged for more than a year already, they were not in a position to take it any longer.
Those were the days, the administration inside REC was an One Man show - ran by a Big, Fat, Hippopotamus look alike Professor, a self proclaimed DADA (Big Brother) who bullied students, teachers and employees alike. His writ prevailed inside campus like gospel, his words were being the last words. Dada's wish and actions vetoed over the rest. In other words - he was the de facto super Principal.
Though a majority of staff sympathized with the 2nd year students, it was supposedly Dada who firmly put his foot down on the idea of punishing those who slapped the 2nd year students on that fateful evening. The pliant, inept and reputatedly corrupt authority dilly dallied, apparently on the behest of the self proclaimed Dada of the Campus.
Frustrated by the authority's inaction, one fine morning the 2nd year students decided to boycott the campus, deeming it as unsafe, proceeding towards the Railway Station to return back home. At nation's Capital, the monsoon session of Parliament was on full swing. The leaving of Hostel mid semester by the students of a premier Technical institute of national stature, where 50% of students came from outside states would have sent a wrong message at the wrong time.
It alerted the authority who was caught napping, as it didn't foresee this coming. They scrambled to get their act together, preventing the students from boarding the long distance trains, cajoling them to come back to the Hostel. The authorities assured the students of protection. The leaders from Senior batches tendered their apologies, forgiving their junior brothers and treating the matter as closed.
Or so thought the 2nd year students. The fragile peace was short lived. Tension was still thick in the air inside Campus. Back to their Hostel and Classes with new found confidence, a few 2nd year guys allegedly taunted their seniors. The muggy September air resembled a room filled with inflammable gas, just waiting on someone to light a matchstick. It didn't take long for that to happen.
Though they amassed weapons and diligently guared their hostel during the inititial nights after these incidents, the gullible 2nd year students of Hostel -3 let there guards down, falsely believing the fragile truce brought upon by the authorities to last permanently.
A week or so later, it was the night of Feast (Local lingo for Special Chicken dinner consumed with abundance of liquor) in Hostel - 5, the dwelling of 3rd Year guys. Fueled by alcohol which shrugged off their jaded nerves and made them shed their inhibitions, prodded by a bunch of masterminds they proceeded to Hostel 3 to teach their junior dogs a lesson. They were soon joined by volunteers from the Final year on their mission.
The well planned attack was fast and swift, executed to perfection. Before you could finish chanting "Laxman Shivarama Krishnan" 108 times, the perpetratorss retreated fast, fully well aware of the fact that staying too long will give the victims time to recuperate, rally around and turn the tables on them. After all the attackers stayed in the Hostel - 3 earlier and were pretty familiar with its geography.
And it almost happened, as one of the seniors (I personally knew him as he hailed from my school in Bhubaneswar), a lanky and slightly lame guy was the last one to leave post thrashing his juniors. The already beaten, bruised and fuming with fury of a wounded tiger, the Hostel - 3 students chased him for a while and almost caught him as only a few feet separated him from his pursuers. God forbid he managed to flee - for if caught, at that moment he would have been lynched and never seen the sun again the next morning.
Why and how this incident happened ? A sequence of events, a series of comedy of errors by the college authorities who failed to gauge the mood of the students led to this incident. The bucks stops at the Principal who later was hailed as hero for dousing the fire he had a hand in creating it. He was more like part of the problem than solution.
It all began one day, rather one evening. It was the immersion ceremony of Sri Ganesh Idol following the Puja held in Hostel - 2 (abode of final year students. Traditionally Ganesh Puja used to be held in Hostel - 2 where the final year students stayed, Saraswati Puja in the Hostel - 3 where the 2nd year students were housed). That year, though plenty of Bhang (cannabis) and alcohol was available, there was a shortage of dancers to consume them and follow the slow moving truck carrying the idol towards its destination at the bottom of a close by lake.
The academic session of the new arrivals 1st year students, the usual MURGA (whipping boys or fall guys, the way you see it) didn't start yet - so axe fell on the 2nd year guys, the junior most ones available to fulfill the void of crowd needed to dance behind the truck. A bunch of apparently intoxicated seniors entered their common room in Hostel - 3, where a few were glues to TV. They were slapped multiple times for disobeying the orders of Senior Gods to join the immersion procession - a cardinal mistake to be made inside the REC Campus.
The 2nd year of Engineering is a unique physical and academic stage in life. Physically one is neither a child nor an adult. Academically, you are neither a Fresher, nor exactly a Senior as the junior most 1st year students were yet to arrive in the college. Humiliated, the 2nd year students went to the Superintendent, Warden and eventually the Principal to complain against this mistreatment - after all they have endured the harassment for way too long. Ragged for more than a year already, they were not in a position to take it any longer.
Those were the days, the administration inside REC was an One Man show - ran by a Big, Fat, Hippopotamus look alike Professor, a self proclaimed DADA (Big Brother) who bullied students, teachers and employees alike. His writ prevailed inside campus like gospel, his words were being the last words. Dada's wish and actions vetoed over the rest. In other words - he was the de facto super Principal.
Though a majority of staff sympathized with the 2nd year students, it was supposedly Dada who firmly put his foot down on the idea of punishing those who slapped the 2nd year students on that fateful evening. The pliant, inept and reputatedly corrupt authority dilly dallied, apparently on the behest of the self proclaimed Dada of the Campus.
Frustrated by the authority's inaction, one fine morning the 2nd year students decided to boycott the campus, deeming it as unsafe, proceeding towards the Railway Station to return back home. At nation's Capital, the monsoon session of Parliament was on full swing. The leaving of Hostel mid semester by the students of a premier Technical institute of national stature, where 50% of students came from outside states would have sent a wrong message at the wrong time.
It alerted the authority who was caught napping, as it didn't foresee this coming. They scrambled to get their act together, preventing the students from boarding the long distance trains, cajoling them to come back to the Hostel. The authorities assured the students of protection. The leaders from Senior batches tendered their apologies, forgiving their junior brothers and treating the matter as closed.
Or so thought the 2nd year students. The fragile peace was short lived. Tension was still thick in the air inside Campus. Back to their Hostel and Classes with new found confidence, a few 2nd year guys allegedly taunted their seniors. The muggy September air resembled a room filled with inflammable gas, just waiting on someone to light a matchstick. It didn't take long for that to happen.
Though they amassed weapons and diligently guared their hostel during the inititial nights after these incidents, the gullible 2nd year students of Hostel -3 let there guards down, falsely believing the fragile truce brought upon by the authorities to last permanently.
A week or so later, it was the night of Feast (Local lingo for Special Chicken dinner consumed with abundance of liquor) in Hostel - 5, the dwelling of 3rd Year guys. Fueled by alcohol which shrugged off their jaded nerves and made them shed their inhibitions, prodded by a bunch of masterminds they proceeded to Hostel 3 to teach their junior dogs a lesson. They were soon joined by volunteers from the Final year on their mission.
In Hostel 3, the 2nd year guys were in deep slumber. It was their night of bad luck, as a few boarders who were Table Tennis (Ping Pong) addicts and often stayed late playing until 2 - 3 AM in the morning, went early to bed that fateful night. (If they were awake and alerted the rest there would have been bloodshed of catastrophic proportion).
The mostly drunk seniors came in droves, spread into the familiar wings in front and back rows. They started bashing the 2nd year hostelites in the darkness of the night after shutting down the Main Switch of Electricity. Many got injured with broken bones, teeth, suffered from bruised and cut skins and were admitted to Ispat General Hospital (IGH) the next morning.
The authorities arrived on the scene, trying to pacify the enraged students now vying for the bloood of the seniors. They acted swiftly, rusticating some of the perpetrators from the College for a year who led the party, expelled a bunch from the Hostel and fined many ranging from Rs.50 to Rs.100, a princely sum for most those days.
But it wasn't enough to act as soothing balm for the already bruised and battered 2nd year folks. Brilliant students who never held anything sharper than fountain pens in their life, suddenly found themselves armed with knives. Couple of guys from the wounded batch, now part of the Cabal plotting an attack on Hostel - 5 where the majority of the attackers came from, readily volunteered to fetch petrol bombs from Jamshedpur and stage a revenge attack Hostel - 5. The same evening the College authorities after getting a wind of it declared the Institute closed Sine Die.
After more than a month post reopening of the college, it was never the same inside the REC Campus. The ragging in its current form was a thing of the past, the beneficiary being the 1st year students who got far less than the usual quota of ragging. Students of the same batch were no more kept together in one hostel, rather they were intermixed with guys from other batches. It was the end of a chapter in the history of REC and the beginning of another, the impact of which would last for generations to come.
Yes Somnath Mishra & Dada Sarangi spoiled many a character in REC. I dragged both to court including Bibadhar Sathpathy .... They were blot to humanity
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