In the years I went to college, very few students owned scooters or motorcycles, and those who came in their own cars was a rare minority. It seems that very few come to college on motorcycles even now (and none on scooters), but those who have cars seem to have grown into the size, at least, of Belgium’s population. Or at least that’s the way it seems every time I’m caught in a traffic jam in front of my daughter’s college.
And what cars! Kids barely out of their milk teeth maneouvre to squeeze their Beemers and Mercs closest to the college gates. Pajeros and Tucsons are poor second cousins in the pecking order. Skodas and most Japanese sedans barely grab a second glance. The parking stretches for what seems (and probably is) miles. “Everyone,” confirms my daughter, who is still underage to apply for a licence, “drives their own cars to college.”
“Define ‘everyone’,” I say to her. “Everyone,” she emphasises, “except for a very few of us. “Give me statistics,” I tell her, “numbers.” “Oh dear,” she thinks, “almost all the boys…” then catching sight of my face, defines it more sharply, “All right, I’d say 90 per cent of the boys in my class drive to college and, oh, about 40 per cent of the girls, and everyone else comes in car pools or is chauffeured. No one I know,” she states, “takes any form of public transport.”
Which could be the reason we’re not moving at all, ground to a halt at a traffic light that hasn’t turned green in at least ten minutes. “Do a lot of your college friends smoke?” I ask to pass the time. “Everyone,” she assures me, “smokes.” “Everyone?” I persist. “Except me,” she hastens to add, “and a few — very few — friends.” And then, “Okay, I know, in numbers,” she pauses, “that would be about 70 per cent of boys who smoke, and 30 per cent of girls who smoke like the boys, and another 30 per cent who smoke occasionally.”
The traffic hasn’t moved for so long, people have switched off their engines. “I’ll be late, I won’t be allowed into class,” sighs my daughter. “Does that happen often?” I ask her. “Everyone,” my daughter tells me, “bunks classes.” “Including you?” I ask her. “Only when I’m late,” she retorts. “Which can only be the first class,” I lob back. “Or when we go out of college to grab a bite in the break,” she says, “everyone does that.”
We’re inching along, and I ask her how many kids are debarred from taking papers for lack of adequate attendance. “Everyone is debarred in at least some subject,” she tells me, and because she knows what I’ll ask next, patters on, “even I’ll probably be prevented from taking the economics paper.” “That’s ridiculous,” I admonish her, “I cannot believe you’re cutting so many classes.” “Oh, I’m not,” she gets teary-eyed, “but the economics professor never marks me present, he marks everyone absent,” she grumbles, “even when we’re in class.”
That evening, a newly made college friend is celebrating her birthday in distant Gurgaon, and my daughter wants to go. “It’s too far,” I tell her, “and the city is unsafe at night, so I’d rather that you didn’t go.” “But everyone will be there, cent per cent,” she pleads, “I can’t not go.” It isn’t a cogent argument, I tell her, besides it doesn’t work logistically in terms of drivers and car pools and pick-up points.
Perhaps she can give it a miss? “Everyone’s parents will be ensuring some way to get their children there,” she accuses me, “except you.”
Oh well, what’s a trip to Gurgaon, I reason — besides, won’t everyone else be there too?
