Keya Sarkar: A presidential visit

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

For over two weeks preceding the big event, all routine work of the Santiniketan administration as well as that of the Viswa Bharati University administration had come to a standstill.

The president, Abdul Kalam, was going to visit the university. Readers beware. This column goes completely against all journalistic ethics, because it is based on hearsay.

Actually, I did try to get an official version, but no one I know was aware of an official version of why the President had chosen to grace the abode of peace. Some said it was an academic visit, others said the president just wanted to meet students.

Whatever it may be, for lesser mortals like us it just meant any work with the electricity department, telephone or university administration got postponed to "after the visit".

Added to work stopping because of heavy rains and now of course in anticipation of the Pujas, the residents just accepted the presidential visit as one more irritant in a long line of many.

What made up for it, however, were the rumours that did the rounds. As the bamboo barricades went up around the field where the president was to land, and cycle rickshaw drivers were forced to detour, they had their version of his reason to visit.

As the administrative departments geared up to fell offending branches (so that they would not fall on overhead lines and cut off electricity), fill huge potholes which have not been mended in decades with pathetic bits of pebbles and the university spruced up walls that might be in the range of vision of the president, they had theirs. And of course the students had theirs.

No posters went up in any department; no official letters did the rounds to inform professors or students what the visit was about. Except that to the small coterie of professors in the know was added a select band of students who were handpicked to meet the president. What did placate those not fortunate to be chosen was that adult, university students were not allowed to ask what they wanted.

Spontaneity is obviously not a virtue as students were told what to ask in the questions faxed to the president.

For those not in the know, it would be worthwhile to draw out the circumstances under which the president was visiting. Of course everybody knows that the Nobel Prize (the real thing that was given to Tagore, not a copy) has been recently stolen.

What those unfamiliar with Viswa Bharati University news may not know is that currently the ex vice chancellor is under arrest for employing non-qualified teachers, two ex-registrars of the university have also been arrested for allegedly stealing important manuscripts and sundry other crimes.

What would you think the students of such a university would like to ask the president? "In your opinion sir what is the role of art and culture in modern life?" I am sure you get the drift.

Anyway, the president came and went. The barricades came down, the pebbles ran off the roads, the electric and telephone line men got back to routine work, and the tea stalls lamented the disappearance of the police force.

But soon the rumours were back. This time there were murmurs about how the non-academic staff felt left out because they had not even been invited to be a part of the jamboree. So they had apparently decided to boycott all future functions of the University.

I was getting all these details from my rickshaw driver. I asked anxiously what would happen at the time of the "Paus Mela", the biggest event held by the University in December. "Oh by then a settlement will be reached," was his reply to my naïve question.

And so life goes on.