Lying on a vividly-hued hammock in your backyard, on a breezy day (those not blessed with the expanse of a backyard and hence with a hammock can replace the imagery with a couch or what-please-you), poring over one of your favoured leisure reads, calling out for the mother whenever the glass of lemonade needed to be refilled…aah! THIS constitutes the paraphernalia of a perfect break, unlike the “break” the university had planned for us which, as I put, and most of my other fellow university slaves would agree to, was a blatant misnomer for one!
How would you exactly describe a break? Well, a period of time when there is complete detachment from anything paperback, hardcover, spiral-bound, containing the writings of a wasted someone (resemblance to “books” is purely intentional, yes). It does NOT entail being buried into a plethora of reading material, with eyes glued to the computer screen (for research purposes of course), counting the number of hours before we could finally shove that assignment away and take a breather!
Being an outstationer, a break is something I start looking forward to since the moment I set foot on the New Delhi Railway Station after coming back from one! This time I took more books and fewer clothes, owing to a string of tests after the college re-opens.
Also, the one thing that really upset hosteliers and day-scholars alike was the short span of the holidays. “Before the semester-system was put into practice, the break used to stretch for a minimum of ten days. These were over in a jiffy. Before I could raise my head from the ten thousand assignments that I had to complete, it was time to bid-adieu,” said an outraged Divya Mehrotra, a Pol. Science student of IP College, who also happens to be a hostelier.
The time of the month the break came about also did not go down too well with most students. “The break should have been clubbed with the Dushhehra holidays. This time of the year means more to us than just the festival. Now, I’ll have to miss classes to accommodate the festival,” quoted Nishita Banerjee, a student of History from LSR and a hurt Bengali.
So, the break which stands for a refreshing change from the mundane and routine life of attending classes, commuting, meeting deadlines, bunking classes (yes, that’s part of the routine, isn’t it?), didn’t really fulfill its promise. And, with the examination datesheet being declared JUST before the break began, it couldn’t get worse. Kudos to the VC!
Vatsala Gaur
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