Creative Campus & Ideal Students

Ravi was back to his room after completing his evening classes. As usual, he and his room mate Aryan went for a walk while their class mates went onto have a round of table tennis and badminton. Both Ravi and Aryan would walk through the campus and met Shahid on almost daily basis. Shahid was pursuing his Ph.D in Political Science. Shahid’s father and Ravi’s father used to work in the same company. This association was a reason why Ravi had chosen this University to pursue his MBA program. Ravi was a bright student since childhood and used to perform very well in studies as well as his extra curricular activities. He had completed his B.Tech from a very reputed institution and wanted to get into the field of Busines Management. He was fascinated by the idea of earning an MBA degree and stepping into the corporate world. He aspired to be a CEO one day. He could immerse himself into business dailies and magazines for hours together even during his Engineering days. Inspite of being a good student, he could never develop a taste for the Engineering Discipline. Most of his talks would be on brands, advertising, business strategy and so on. He always felt that he did not want to lead his life like his dad who inspite of years of hard work and experience, could not even afford foreign travel and a luxury car for himself and the family.

Ravi wondered how fast an year has gone by. It just seemed a few days back when he was bullied by his seniors on his first day in the hostel. He remembered how his room mate Aryan was unfettered by the behaviour of seniors. Ravi recollected his first day in the hostel when he was made to answer silly questions by his seniors. He was determined not to bend against seniors. While he made this little grill very heavy on himself, Aryan was as cool as a cucumber. He smiled off few questions from the seniors when they had ganged up and barged in their room. The drill ended after few moments and Ravi was trying to let Aryan know that he knew few students in the University who could take their rowdy seniors to the task. Aryan was not interested in Ravi’s macho talk and just settled down calmly.

As the time passed, Ravi realised that his seniors were not all that bad and impossible. He even laughed on himself for being extremely judgemental. He also got inspired by few of his seniors who went on to win few Inter University contests on business quizzes, Business plans and so on. He was especially impressed with his Finance Professor, Dr.Rajan who used to teach in an American accent and had an American degree as well as a McGraw Hill publication to his credit. While he had settled down in the University environment, he was very keen to get into the corporate world.

Ravi’s room mate Aryan came from a very well to do business family. While Aryan was not as good as Ravi in his studies, he exhibited tremendous maturity in his behaviour. He never had to struggle in his life. He had completed his primary studies from a convent school and earned his Undergraduation degree from a leading Commerce college of the city. He and his father had made a mind to enrol him into an American college for an MBA. However, his mother did not wish to send her only child so far away. Aryan respected her mother’s emotions and decided to enrol into the University’s MBA program. Aryan was not very passionate about studies as he knew that he would eventually go on to occupy his father’s Chemicals business which had a developed into a virtual empire within two decades and yielded great fortunes to them.
Being room mates, Ravi and Aryan had become close to each other. They would dine together and even spent leisure time with each other during shoppings, long walks and movies. Shahid being a family friend and senior, Ravi started visiting his dorm which was some half a mile away in the adjacent campus. Shahid was a very upright character and had tremendous self confidence. He was a great critique of the society, the government and the people. He believed in divinity and in the Creator of the Universe. He would follow his faith and was very proud of it. He used to pray five times a day and practiced other rituals of Islam with tremendous regularity. He had built up his ideology around the teachings of Quran. He used to write various articles for magazines. He was very popular among his class mates as well as his teachers. He was in a way ideal student who was very knowledgeable, sincere, polite and endowed with tremendous leadership ability. How could have Ravi saved himself from the charishma of Shahid.

Ravi would love to listen to Shahid and Aryan was also hooked on to the enlighting sessions with Shahid. Every evening all three of them would have a stroll in the park and they used to talk on almost all issues under the sun. However, Shahid would leave them after a while when he listened to Azan, the call for evening prayers. Shahid during his talks had informed of several interesting stories happened in the University. In one such incident, Shalin a student from a small village had to face a lot of hardships before securing admission in the first year of his Biotech program. The incident happened when Shahid just joined his PG course in the University.

Shahid was at Administrative building to collect his money receipt, when he found a boy pleading to the Sr.Clerk. He heard him saying that my life will be destroyed. Please don’t do this to me. Upon inquiring with the boy Shahid found it that he was Shalin who had cleared an entrance exam for the Biotech program and his name also featured in the merit list. However, he could not deposit fees and documents to the University office in the stipulated time, which meant he was not eligible for admission. As Shalin was starting from his place, he lost his mother in a tragic incident. He had to stay back for his mother’s funeral and by the time he was through, he had missed the deadline. He was trying to explain the same thing at the University Office. However, the University officials were constrained by the rules and inspite of having sympathy for Shalin could not do anything for him.

Shahid decided to help Shalin. It was just his second day in the University but he displayed courage and took Shalin to his hostel. He then presented this case to his seniors,his HOD and the staff of his department. He also interacted with few seniors about the unfortunate incident but most people could not suggest him the way out. But Shahid had other ideas. He could convince few of his seniors with whom he was meeting for the first time to join him to the Vice Chancellor’s office. The VC gave them a patient hearing but said that he cannot bend rules and would not be able to help Shalin.

At the dinner table, he was greeted by the seniors who expressed their concerns. Some even advised him to forget the matter lest he may face trouble for going against the University management. However, Sunil one of his seniors asked him to speak with the Warden Mr.Mohan who was a lecturer in the Journalism department. Mr.Mohan had a reputation of being a nice guy. Shahid requested Sunil to join him and they immediately went to Warden’s room who was about to leave his cabin. After listening attentively to the case, he said there was very little scope as the University Management was always shy of inviting any controversy. Shahid in a last effort asked very naively that whether it was possible to raise this issue in the media. Mr.Mohan gave contacts of a few of his Media friends. Shahid approached two of these media professionals and they agreed to carry the story. Shalin’s story got a small but back page mention in one of the leading news dailies. The local Member of Parliament read this story and immediately decided to help Shalin as he belonged to his own village. His intervention proved to be very effective as the VC granted him the seat from his discretionary quota. This incident actually vindicated the saying that if there is a will then there is a way.

There were many such inspiring stories of Shahid. Before Shahid had joined his PG Course, the University was notorious for ragging. Shahid was not needed to face this as he had won himself many friends within a short duration. It so happened once that two of his class mates Nitin and Hussain who were sharing the same room had invited trouble from seniors. Nitin was a man with short temperament and he tried to manhandle one of his seniors who was trying to show off his authority to him. A bunch of ten to twelve students barged in their room to teach them a lesson. It was certain that both Nitin and Hussain would be facing a nightmare that day. However, Shahid who was occupying the next room sensed the trouble and assembled few of his friends. Shahid in a loud tone tried to calm down everyone and managed the situation with great ease. He even convinced Nitin to apologise to his senior. Shahid did not stop there. From next day onwards, he and five of his friends started a signature campaign, “Down Down Ragging, Down Down Violence”. The idea was received very well not only in his hostel but also in his department. They could collect 300 signatures in first two days. The campaign got extended to a few other departments and soon the idea caught the fancy of the entire University. The Faculty of Education went on to organise a symposium on the subject. Shahid was also invited to express his views in the Symposium. He thus started gaining popularity in the University.

Shahid felt that it was imperative to continue the good work in the University and it was not possible without an organised effort. He convinced his friends to create a “Forum for Students Democracy”. It was basically a small group established to facilitate good causes by motivating fellow students to understand their role towards the Society. This forum was built on strong principles. Ravi and Aryan had by now enrolled themselves into the Forum and attended various programs organised by the Forum.

One of the big achievements of the Forum was alleviation of the problem of Ragging in the University. The Forum had institutionalised an annual event of forming a group of eight to ten seniors. Each group of seniors was assigned a group of two to four juniors. Each group of seniors would then spend one day with juniors and extend them the hospitality. After a duration of one month, juniors would vote on who was the most hospitable group. The winners among the seniors were then recognised in the University journal. This had ensured that almost all the seniors were very keen to win the hearts of their juniors. Ravi also remembered how nicely he was treated by a few of his seniors. He then laughed on himself about his plans for messing up with his seniors.

This Forum which was a brainchild of Shahid and had grown much bigger than individuals. Shahid was very happy that it had exactly turned out the way he expected. He wanted the dormant talents of the students to surface through this Forum. The Forum true to its name remained democratic and promoted new leadership. Through this Forum, the University had witnessed many changes. Few of the courses which had been stopped by the University Management re-started with the activism of the students. University Elections were banned since long but they were resumed with the efforts of the Forum. Many such issues like improving students amenities, hostel facilities, Plastic Ban in the Campuses, Upgradation of Research facilities, Industry Contacts and Society Contact Programs were being taken up by the Forum.

Ravi by now had understood that all the glamour which he was trying to find in the pink papers and the jazzy designations was mere an eyewash. The real success did not lie in glass buildings or big cars but in being someone who would utilise his skills to be good to people. He had completely changed the way of looking at Business Management. He started questioning the idea of Businesses. This actually was a game changer for him. He went on to get plum offerings from huge MNCs. However, he chose a relatively smaller company which worked on bringing the grass root Innovations of small people to big industries. Ravi eventually received what he always yearned for. His job made him to travel the world but he was doing this not for fat paycheques but for uplifting lives of the underprivileged ones. Aryan did occupy his father’s business. He changed the way his father did business. He introduced a policy of profit sharing with employees and result was to be seen. His business empire had reached new heights without being exploitative in nature.

The story of Shahid and his Forum is essentially a story of Creative Campus and Ideal Students. Let us dream for such an education system which churns leaders for the Society and not the Corporate Slaves.