17. IIT, Garden of Love
What is this IIT bashing that is going on, folks ? All this talk about IIT and no sex. You must be naive if you think that the only sexual activity that goes on in an IIT student's life is, getting screwed in exams.
Maybe it is true, maybe it is not. But let me transport you to another age, way into the future, when there are as many women students studying in IITs as there are men these days - and as few men students as there are women these days. The gender ratio is reversed. Engineering, the last bastion of men, has finally fallen. The women have taken over.
Year, N thousand AD. Place, a nameless IIT campus near a large Indian city. Row upon row of huge, concrete buildings, all hostels, housing the thousands of women students, stand out of the landscape. It is slightly after dinner time. The residents have just finished a healthy meal of rajhma and tinda subji. To show the world they are sexually repressed, one of them is singing an obscene parody of a hindi song loudly, from the third floor corridor. Three other liberal fools are discussing the present day female dominated society. Boyie magazines are spreadeagled in most rooms and sexy jokes vitiate the atmosphere. Outside, in the moonlight, Sunita Agarwal and Ajayeeta Palvayanteeswaran (the great, great, granddaughter of our famous Ajay) are sneaking a smoke. Their mothers' monthly checks haven't arrived yet and strapped for liquid cash, they share the cigarette.
"Ajayeeta, dudette, where do you think you are going this late ?"
"Not too far, machini, just to the Boy's Hostel."
"You lucky bum, I know that cute male Srini has his heart out for you. I bet you are going to let him 'cog' (copy) your assignment."
"You girls always have this dirty mind. You are always thinking of boys and sex. Don't you ever think of anything else? Me and Srini are just friends. Bye, now."
Saali, haraami, lucky woman, thought Sunita, jealously, as she watched Ajayeeta turn the corner and disappear into the darkness toward the isolated, Boy's Hostel.
A cosy room in the Boy's Hostel. Ajayeeta had somehow hoodwinked the fortress-like security of the dorms and the oppressive looking chowkidars and is now alone with Srini. She tried to interest him with several topics, while transcribing the assignment for him. Srini yawns in disinterest.
Ms. Palvayanteeswaran tries just one more time.
"You males here at IIT are darned lucky. All these male-starved girls are willing to even do your assignments for you. Wait another fifty years. The situation will change. Maybe then in the IITs there will be as many boys as there are us girls and who knows, we girls may even be in minority. Then you males will no longer get this kind of attention. The situation now is disgusting. Every IIT male is wooed. Every male is even asked to act in plays and skits whether or not they can act for nuts."
"Tell me about it, Ajayeeta." Srini replied "You girls don't even know how it is to live as a minority, just us fifty boys to about two thousand of you girls. We are always stared at and people are always trying to 'line maro' us. You girls give us all offensive nicknames. It is repulsive to even go to the movies, with all you girls yelling and screaming at hulks like Ajit, Govinda and Jackie Shroff. Even the ghazwallaas are not safe from you."
"Oh, yaah, even the professors treat you males with extra attention. You don't have to join the NCC. No wonder we lost in the inter-IIT sports meet. We girls played hard and annexed the kho-kho and tiddlywinks titles and you males lost to IIT Madras guys pathetically in volleyball. Okay, let me make peace. How about grabbing some parathas at the dhabha tomorrow night. Its a date."
"I'm afraid I can't make it. Several girls have already pestered me about going out with them. Besides I have been invited to the Hostel Day function in Hall 2. I have also been asked to participate in the Kampus King beauty contest."
"Okay, have it your way. You males get invited to all the hostel day functions. But you wait, Srini. Next week the Cultural Festival is going to start and there will be an invasion of all these cute males from all over the country, from such colleges as Vivekananda College and Delhi College of Home Economics. You will eat your heart out."
"That suits me fine. You IIT girls will only be gaping at them like goldfish and you don't have the guts to approach any of them. You will try to be hep and take them to your computer center and act cool. They will only laugh at you for being the bumpkins you are. After the Cultural Festival you will be back to square one, thoroughly humbled and chastized."
"Amen. So be it. What is the point ? Why lead us girls on ? I am just wasting my time with you. You boys are anyways going to marry a rich dudette from the States right after your IIT days. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a library to go to."
A disappointed Ajayeeta exits the hostel and disappears through the rows of neatly parked Men's Bikes towards the silent library.
