RAGGINGGG......

Ragging and its consequences are in the news again after the death of a 19 yr old medical student recently. Debates and discussions are going on the issue of prevention of ragging and enforcement of laws. My post, however, is not on that topic. My post is on the fond memories of ragging I have from my B.E. days and the effect it had on us.

On the first night in hostel, we had the huge task of memorizing all our batch mates names and hometowns and our introduction in Hindi. Thank god I had pretty good memorizing power 

Our ragging consisted of singing, dancing, jokes, lots of scolding and ridiculing not to mention all those censored parts. Seniors also gave us the tips about college, super seniors, studies and teachers. They laid out rules for hostel including bathroom and we had to follow them.

Our day would start with us wishing all our seniors a good morning. Then we used to leave for college accompanied by two seniors, walking in a single line with our eyes on the “third button” and wishing anyone who passed us by. During recess, we hostelers didn’t venture out. Then in evening we were accompanied back by our seniors. After freshening up, we all went for the evening wish. Then after dinner we went for ragging every night for 2-3 hours.

We continued the traditions when we became seniors and we had the most wonderful time with our juniors.

Ragging made us unite, to look out for each other and to have discipline. The habit of addressing people as Sir or Ma’am got wired into me after ragging only. It also helped me in understanding and following the junior- senior relation at work place too. It helped me learn to control temper and to not backtalk even if the senior is wrong. Whether we like it or not, whether it is good or back, Indian systems function in hierarchies and this is the 1st lesson in life we got through ragging!!! Ragging helped us in learning humility, politeness, and to be comfortable with one’s personality and body.

I hold the personal opinion that there should be harmless ragging in the right manner, within limits of decency and human rights.  Harmless ragging means no physical infliction of pain should be involved and no demeaning act should be asked to perform. Such ragging is actually lots of fun and gives us good memories of college & hostel life.