well these days i am paying regular visits to Kashmir university be it enquiry reason or book fair after long time almost after august 2008, and to my surprise many things have changed of course things are supposed to get changed after all this is 2009 and when i last visited it was 2008 august. Kashmir University is somewhat special to me i have learn some basic fundamentals of life and living from this very university. Recently few months back i came across to an inside environment of our very own Kashmir university. Now here is an article about that inside story of almost every department of Kashmir university.
Kashmir University or Love-City!!!
By : Javaid Rashid and Shakeeb Ashai.
"I don't seek to understand to have faith but I have faith in order to understand!", opines Anselm. When I enquired my own soul about it; my soul took me by horns; rebuked me intensely; but favouringly angered an advice to look yourself for the empirical evidence! I went here, there, everywhere but ended nowhere and failed to explore evidence. At cross-roads was I! 'Have faith to understand or understand to have faith", lurked my amateur thoughtful mind. I took recourse to my last resort, the Kashmir University--- the highest seat of learning. Ironically, it truly proved to me the highest 'acme of perfection' in Learning. It helped me to entangle the mystic-knot between 'Faith and Understanding'.
With my mind's pre-occupation of the mystic-debate of 'Faith and Understanding', I entered the Maulana Rumi Gate of KU. I was reminded of the Maulana Rumi's verses of love... and mystics...! My spiritually-sensitized eyes couldn't ignore the 'holy-flights of the wasp-like boys around the flower-like girls in the University campus. A thought warned me that wasps have songs though stings too and flowers have fragrance though thorns too. “Eureka! Eureka! I have found it!", cried-out I with-in myself. The volley of thoughts hit my intuition. The thoughts regarding the student-life dynamics in University worked wonders. The causes of 'the caring-flights' of the campus-boys around the girls were to be ascertained and realities analyzed. Was it because of the academic necessity, peer-group norm, love & life partnership dreams or simply 'adult-masti'.
Karl Jung, a psychological theorist propounds in his theory of personality that humans have got a bisexual personality--- Every man has a woman representation in his personality called ANIMA, and every woman has man-representation in her personality called ANIMUS. Male's anima defines a potential female partner for him and female's animus defines a potential male partner for her. When it happens that a male's anima confronts a like-female, the male gets highly attracted and we call it 'love at first-sight'. In Kashmir University, the highest seat of learning, has the highest chances of coinciding of 'anima' and 'animus' with the respective female and male personalities. The attraction prevails..., relations developed..., and couples emerge... and Romeos and Joliet's under the shadow of cypress- tress; Shreens and Farhats occupying the park-benches and Love-birds under the holy-shade of books in Central-library… and infatuations haunt. What-ever be the reason, the love & life partnership dreams prevail the campus. Love first or Life-realities first, gets popped up as a million-dollar question. Representing "Faith" with "Love" and "Understanding" with "Life-realities", eventually I was forced to believe Anselm, that is, 'Have Faith to understand' or ‘live to love’!
What are the underneath realities? Where does it all start? What is the dynamics of the developed relationship? Is it a problem or simply a campus norm? Where does it adjust in our culture and religion? Does it affect the academic career of the students involved? Or does it help in their academic development? What about its social-dimensions? Do relationships mature to marriages or end in smoke? By interacting with some faculty-members and campus students many underpinning facts got surfaced.
“Love is a magical force; it should be promoted. It makes strong! If balanced properly, it could empower to excellence of all sorts. Mind you balancing it, is a hardest task on earth”, opines a Social Work faculty-member. The interaction in university starts on a temporary note, mainly for the joint-collection of study material. The students being mature enough explore the personalities among class-colleagues. If social realities favour, the academic relationship could change into a more close relation mingled with care. Spending time together and having developed understanding the love/life prospects are initiated. But, does social-status, caste, sects, etc create hurdles in developing a relationship? “If it is true-love, it just happens! It does not take into consideration the status, family-background, caste, etc. Love hasn’t barriers!”, objects a faculty member.
ALAMA IQBAL said : "Jis qoom ke betiyuu ko ban-na tha batool seekhte hai madrasoo me nach gaane ke asool."
For majority of Kashmir University girls this famous line could be put like this "Jis Qoom Ke Beetiyuu Ko Ban-na Tha Batool Madrasoo Me Seekhte Hai Besharmi Ke Asool"
Every human being is entitled by religion or any rational social-system, to make choices according to his desires. In Islam marriage is a civil-contract. Both the male and the female are equally empowered to choose their life-partners. Favouringly, the students in university find enough time for the exploration of life-partners and many a times love-laurels are won and life-pledges are done. But the story isn’t so simple and normal. The phases of events are too complicated. The transition of social processes from simple to complex has catapulted the situation into a life-imbroglio. Almost every aspect of human life has so intricately been woven that confusion, chaos and despair prevail every relationship. In these circumstances, many deem religious-tenets to be incomplete and incompetent., not catering to the modern- needs of present social beings. Their version of the situation-analysis is self-contradictory though. For instance, Nikah has been reduced to a formality. Instead of valuing the understanding between the to-be-life-partners, the families are matched as per status, background , occupation, caste, etc, no matter what the to-be-partners’, particularly the female’s interests and desires are! The holy-knot is tied much to the dislike of the both.
Further, the extravagant and highly expensive marriages, alteration in social-tastes and developing of complex life-styles has added fuel to the fire. The result being the emergence of the diverse social-maladies like late-marriages, suicides, dowry-deaths, etc. This state of affairs has forced the present generation youth to over-compensate and act ‘pre-emptively’. Enforced by the social-realities, family even supports a suitable love-relationship. A novice trend has got developed mostly in urban set-ups of having their daughter's engagement done too early. The youth is forced to develop relationships too strong to be broken. Even if family and lovers are in conflict, elopement remains to be the ultimate option. Besides, eloped couple is eventually accepted by the families again. It, further, encourages a girl to look for an exquisite match. Won't university-campus suffice as a choosing-market.
"Well-off rural boys are more prone to get caught!" Isaac, a hostel boarder warns. Does the statement carry any weight. To me it weighs heavily; though exceptions creep-in! Many-a-times rural well-off boys are preferred to the urban well-off boys. The preference can be because of the 'unreliable and mistrustful' nature of the city-guys and the corresponding 'gullibility and credibility' of the rural-beings. Moreover, 'trust', 'relationship', 'love', etc may have different subtle connotations and dimensions for rural and urban personalities. The personality-inclination and the mental dis positional diversity moulds the relation in diverse ways. Yes, let us see how many matches KU makes and how many of them mature to marriages, so that we could proudly say, “wah! Our match-making university!” Justifying the relations, Tariq, a KU student says, " It is natural and expected at this stage". Definitely it is expected where 'youth' have 'Dard-e-disco' in their romantic hearts and where 'Paisa pahank tamaasha dekh' is not only recited but relished too!
When we analyze the other side of the picture, pervading-distraction, pinching-preoccupations and aberrations emerge out to be the grave pathologies. “Any relationship in which two people become one, ends in two half people!”, Sheikh Enayat a zoology student mockingly philosophizes. “It is trash, futile; it erodes, it corrodes! It is a gross mockery; a whirlpool of miseries. It hurts!”, he exhausts his vocabulary, though admitting that it is involuntary, not under ones will! Many object that when in west people are developing marriageable robots, it seems too harsh to question the KU students’ romanticism. It seems to be an option-less option. Initiating a relationship isn’t that difficult as maintaining it. For a student, encumbered with educational and academic responsibilities, it is more grave. It distracts his concentration, remaining pre-occupied most of the times. The lover, in and out, fancies his beloved in different situations. He gives time out of his study-time and finds himself unable to requisitely concentrate on his studies. It greatly eats into his academic excellence and at times could be more severe and havoc-causing. More-over, the economic aspect of the relation couldn’t be overlooked. Many-a-times, male-partner buys costly gifts or shares the financial needs of his beloved, out the money for his educational purposes like books. I know of a KU student who bought a golden-ring for her girl-friend out of the money reserved for his medicine. He sees a potential wife in her girl-friend and shares her financial needs. The trust gets ingrained and an element of possessiveness gets incorporated in the relationship. The ‘love-constitution’--- do’s, don’ts, restrictions, is framed and peer relations are cut-short.
Haplessly, if somehow the relationship gets bruised, the social-maladjustment's imminently get surfaced. The mental diseases, behavioral dysfunctions and socializing disorders inflict upon the jilted-lovers. The suicidal tendencies may get developed. Horribly, the frequent campus-carnage's in West like the one in Virginia University claiming dozens of people, are mostly carried out by jilted or failed lovers. It is highly feared that the situation prevailing the KU campus mustn’t develop to such an extreme.
Devils are not always imprisoned in chains! Revealing another dimension of the KU-relationships, the ‘teacher-student masti’ creates its own space. The faculty-student relationship is mostly of exploitative nature, involving male teacher and female student. The student generally suppresses it either because of expecting any academic favour or for the fear of stigmatization and reprisal from the teacher. Ashamedly, the non-teaching staff could be more exploitative, taking advantage of the student’s difficult situation in examination or administrative procedures. It is a ‘give & take’ scenario. Further, the fact of extra-marital affairs with-in university is a concern too. The revelation may enrage you! But it is a hard reality.It has many reasons and realities underpinning it.
Truth is generally unpalatable; it pinches and it may even hurt. But, when innocence gets sullied someone has to come forward to its rescue. Truth, when carried into heart with passion, separates evil from good. It empowers to enlightenment.
(Javaid Rashid is a student of Social Work in Kashmir University)
Vearan Bonie Hund Haeren Kav....
