The Community Called College

I have always believed and given stress on the environmental factors on the emotional, behavioral and mental patterns of any individual. My observations also have always supported my views quite obediently at least when it comes to Pune.

Since the very first time I shifted to Pune till now, I have been observing the students of Pune. Unlike any other cities, the students of Pune have a certain specific identity in accordance with their college or school.

The main headings would be, Bishops, Loyla, Renuka Swarup, Nu. Ma. Vi, S.N.D.T, Fergusson, Symbiosis and ILS. At least I have recognized these main heads. All other schools and colleges tend to follow any of the above.

The convent students are those who tend to show off their cool attitude. They speak English more than any other language. Sex and romance predominated their minds. They usually tend to all addictive things. But there are also certain good points in them. They must be the most confident students in all the above categories. They do not know what fear is. They always aim high and tend to achieve whatever they aim for.

Girl’s schoolgirls are typical. Oil dipped long hair tied in the most grotesque manner. They take pride in their ability to stay away from boys but secretly are tying to check out every other guy they see. Brightest and the most studious of the above, these are focused and career oriented. Many of them live in imaginary worlds of ages 10 and 12 even if they grow up to have children of that age. As these girls do not paint their faces with all sorts of makeup, unlike the convent girls, these girls are usually very beautiful. Only these girls take no interest in it and hide their beauty under untidiness.

Girl’s college girls are same as above plus this. Boys for them are that forbidden mystery, which the more they try to avoid getting into, the more they tend to entangle in. They somehow find it difficult that a boy of their same age can have just friend’s attitude for them. Though they secretly want to look as presentable and jazzy as the stylish hi-fun-do co-ed girls, they would always make faces at them as if those girls really care. They misunderstand every attraction for love and usually end up in arrange marriages.

Fergusson people are not only a group of students but also a community in all. They are mostly the bright people. Not very studious, but they are mostly filled with actual brains with true potential. They are proud of almost everything associated with them They can be proud of as small a thing as largest number of dogs in college to 150 successful college years. They can make the worst thing seem the best and the best seem the worst. They are filled with extreme over confidence and sometimes act weird. Almost all of them are parts of dozens of groups and take part in thousands of activities and yet take time out for themselves and others. They are rude sometimes to some people but they show this off as attitude. All of them have a peculiar speaking style, which no one else can copy. This style remains with them at-least during college years and however influential other speaking patters in other colleges may be, they never change theirs.

Symbiosis students have that attitude about themselves that Hitler had about Arian race. The most selfish, these are also the most beautiful. There is no mid-personality in symbiosis. There is only great and worst. Every other student is famous here for something or the other activity. There are seldom non-popular and depressed souls here. They consider themselves of the elite class and that no other student of any other college can be better than them. They have legally and professionally accepted English as their official spoken language and boycott every other language. They live on a level just above reality, which is not imaginary but also not very real. They are usually the best event managers or managers of any sort for that matter. These students persuade the educational courses that are usually looked down at by the society like B.A Arts etc., with as great pride as a student would feel doing aeronautical engineering.

Finally for ILS, my current home. Here you may find extreme chaos and disturbance as students from all over India, for that matter, all over the world, try to get together at one place. Every student in this college thinks that some random student, whom he probably doesn’t even know, is doing something better with his free time than what he himself is doing. It’s always a C.V race in here. People in this college live to make better C.Vs. They get frustrated studying all the bullshit laws and figuring out the best possible loophole, and working like an ass in the interns and then have alcohol to relieve this stress under the guise of fun and adventure. The next thing they know is they face an even worse kind of stress after doing stupid things when boozed up. Every student waits for four years for his fifth year and when the fifth year comes, all feel like starting off again from the first.

So basically my point is environment affects the development and structuring of a student to such an extent, that he may not use his true full genetic potential only to fit into the college environment.