On the night of 1st September, a surprise raid was conducted in the LSR hostel, more popularly known as the Residence hall. The raid was conducted to find out whether the residents had any high wattage electrical appliances or items like spoons, fork, plates, etc. from the mess. A significant amount of items were confiscated, ranging from hair dryers, clothing irons, electric kettles, mess spoons to even vapourisers. The residents, specially first years, were in for a rude shock as members of the security committee of the hostel barged into their room at nine in the night, when they were actually expecting the Superintendant to be on rounds for attendance. The security committee members deftly searched nook and corner of every room and found out these ‘illegal’ items from the remotest of corners. The night turned a little dramatic, however, when one of the residents, who was ill, and distressed about the confiscation of her vapouriser, had to rush to the warden to re-claim it. The security committee members were considerate enough to return her vapouriser for an hour to relieve her from her distress. “We did what we had to do, it was our duty,” stated one of the security committee members. “We don’t care whether people hate us after this. There are stories about hostel fires due to circuit failures, and despite repeated warnings, girls still kept hair dryers worth 2000 watts. We hope this is a lesson for everybody, and they will refrain from keeping such items and breaking the rules in the future.”
The LSR hostel handbook states that hair dryers are allowed, but in the meeting that ensued with the hostel warden on Monday, the distressed and surprised residents were informed that only 500 watt hair dryers were allowed. The students whose items were confiscated had a long rendezvous with the hostel warden, who was extremely angry at the huge turnout of confiscated items including mess spoons. The warden gave the residents an ultimatum till October, and stated that if any resident was found with mess spoons, forks, or other mess items, then the hostel would stop giving the residents any spoons, forks or plates in the future, and they would have to bring their own. The owners of clothing irons as well as hair dryers were also given an hour long lecture and asked to leave their irons and hair dryers at home when they leave for the October holidays.
The LSR hostel had been repeatedly warning the residents, since last year, about not keeping any electrical appliances in the hostel, but even after numerous warnings, some girls kept high wattage items in their rooms. The hostel President has warned about more frequent raids in the future, and with an effective security committee in tow, it is hoped that the residents do not keep any such items in their room in the future!
Most people who take up History in college expect a lot from the subject. One can usually see enthusiastic first years say on the first day of college, “I want to do archaeology, hence I took up history”, “I like history as I love memorising dates”, and then one can also hear the clichéd line, “I want to crack the Civil services, hence I took up history”. Well, all first year history students should brace themselves for something completely different! History is not just about dates and wars, it’s a discipline that transcends all conventional notions of education. I am sure teachers must have already started giving out huge bibliographies to you all, which must have tired your wits out! It’s completely understandable, that after coming from diverse backgrounds and schools, you will find it difficult to initially adjust to the incessant xeroxing and fragmented readings. But like our NCERT and Frank brothers, we also have some base books for History (hons.), which will help you garner a good grounding in your subject.
But the million dollar question is: Which are the books that will help me sail my way through the first year? Don’t assume that I am creating a guide book list for all of you: this is just a preliminary guideline, to help you in your initial days through this indecipherable course called History (hons.) in Delhi University.
The first honours paper: Ancient India, seems like a very difficult paper in the beginning, but one book will save everybody’s souls and studying time- ‘A History of Ancient and Medieval India: from the stone age to the 12th century’ by Dr. Upinder Singh (yes, she is Manmohan Singh’s daughter). The name of the book may sound daunting, but trust me; it is your bible in the first year. Not only will this book save you hours of reading through subsidiary readings, it is also an excellent resource for the section on Harappa. But at the same time, it is also quite inadequate for a lot of stuff, so don’t do the mistake of reading this book alone! You can also buy R.S Sharma’s ‘Ancient Past’ if you want (but for those people who are content with buying Upinder Singh: it won’t be much of a loss). But the real joy of Ancient India comes through reading up lots of stuff, so please do not miss out on that. The paper requires a lot of debate, so make sure you read up as much as possible, so that you can substantiate your paper with relevant arguments.
The second paper: Social Formations and Cultural patterns of the Ancient and Medieval world (don’t worry about remembering the name, most of us forget it by the time we reach our third year), or popularly called, “Sofo”, can be cracked with the help of Dr. Amar Farooqui’s famous book (every student in DU reading history has read him once in their lifetime), ‘Early Social Formations’. This is undoubtedly the most comprehensive and detailed book on the subject. There is just one problem- in case your college teaches you Shang China, then the only person who can save you is K.C Chang. Otherwise, it’s Amar Farooqui all the way!
And as for the qualifying paper: Hindi, life would have been so much easier without this paper wouldn’t it? The only guidance I can suggest is guide books. They will be enough to make you pass with a decent grade. The second semester will hopefully be less hard for you all, as by then you would have learnt to navigate your way through this course and of course your college! And above everything, there are always teachers and seniors to help you all out, so keep them on your reference list too!
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