Campus Central

It Is What It Is: Frustrations of a Graduating Literature Student

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Here’s a culmination of thoughts about what I have come to feel and believe in.

“Turning and Turning into the widening, The falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, Mere anarchy is loosened upon the world.” – W.B. Yeats (The Second Coming)
In my three years of studying English Literature, I do not think I have come across lines that better define the times that we have become a part of, both partly willingly and partly reluctantly.
With the turn of the year and the ever-nearing elections, we are seeing the worst that this country has to offer. We had a near war-like situation with Pakistan, there have been various accounts of Muslim lynchings, the situation of Kashmir is continuously falling into an everlasting non-conclusionary void. We have become the community that loves cows more than the girl child while rapes are still growing more in number and less human in grit.
Netflix, seemingly the only hope of escape from the brutal reality, has started cancelling shows that we want to watch and I do not understand what this Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) system in the University of Delhi (DU) is, in which you can’t even get marks.

India, as a nation, has achieved a feat of having killed 30 million women, from unborn children, to honour killings. To put it in comparison, even Hitler killed six million Jews. We, however are the nation of the woke and the ancient dharma. These are the deeds of Indians and religious fanatics – both Hindus and Muslims alike. No Pakistanis, no Chinese, no West – we are stuck protecting the cows and calling ourselves chowkidars, forgetting the duty we hold for our girl children. When will this play – pretend end? Many men have started becoming a part of the equal rights movement, yet where are the mainstream movements against lewd advertisements and songs? When will we realise silence is supportive only for the oppressor?
Another thing that bothers me is the society’s ignorance at how men are the victims of patriarchy too. We need to let go of the stigma that toxic masculinity and patriarchy put us men at a pedestal that damages us as well. We need the equality, the normality, as much as women do. It isn’t men versus women; it’s us together versus this social construct of patriarchy.

As the elections draw closer, we are seeing everyone choosing sides on this mindless battle of two parties with people going like “I will vote for Modi ji” or “I will vote for Rahul Gandhi.”

Everyone has blatantly forgotten that these elections are to vote for the person standing and delivering in your area. Vote for them based on facts and accountability, not based on propaganda jingoism.There are many more gloomy things that could have been entailed in this rant. However, I believe I have done my bit to share my thoughts enough to make at least one man think of what is happening in this great, beautiful nation, that has merely become a playground where the rich kids have the toys and we are stuck eating sand.
“It is what it is,
The playground of the puppets,
The ‘woke’ with strings attached, Those asleep completely detached.
In the great circus of life,
With the audience and the Joker, Maybe its all a dream, or maybe it’s over, When will we wake up to see things closer?
It is what it is.

A play with no players, and no god watching us over.”

Haris Khan
[email protected]

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