Moral policing on campuses is not completely new in India. There are colleges that enforce strict guidelines on what to wear, and one is generally expected to behave like an adult and draw the line somewhere in the head.
However, there are times when things are listed out in minute details, that make you go WTF??
Here’s a snapshot from a poster on from a college in Chennai.
The points include –Should not bring mobile phone, pen drives, and SIM Cards. Right.
What’s wrong in bringing a Pen Drive to a college? What should they bring instead? A slate and a chalk?
The list also has other gems like ‘No Banyan Cloth Type Pant’. That is quite difficult to understand, but I think we found a reference.
Then there’s also the spectacular attempt to keep with the times. No designer watch appearing big in size and in different colours.
Even going by Taliban logic, what harm can a watch do? And so what if it’s big and colourful. It’s not like guys are going to go ‘Hey dude, did you see that girl’s watch? So big, and pink in colour. I think I want to marry her’.
What is going on in this college?
Then there’s also the classic – ‘Two sides of dupatta should be compulsorily pinned up’. So everybody looks like a marching squad of Brahmakumari followers.
And ‘No Big Size Stud or Ring’. The first part of the statement, honestly, is vague. So can the girls of Sri Sairam Engineering College hit on Small Size Studs?
The insanity continues to flow. With ‘No High Fancy dresses with netted designs’.
And just when you thought it was just a frivolous trip by a warden tripping on DMT, things start to get serious. No celebration like Birthday, New Year, and other functions in the college campus. Chalo, even if you can’t cut a cake and take selfies (because that would invoke lust in the minds of boys), may be you can just give sweets to your friends and share some happiness? Uh-huh!
May be a photograph on social media? Sorry, Hitler Aunty has that sorted out. ‘Should not have Facebook, WhatsApp and other related types of this kind’.
‘No celebrations like Birthday, New Year, and other functions in the college campus’.
Finally, you ask yourself, why all this fuss?
Why should the girls be treated like cattle? Why aren’t they allowed to think for themselves? And we finally come to THE POINT.
Should not talk to boy students.
Ah! It all makes sense now. They forgot to mention ‘Take in Oxygen, and break out Carbon dioxide’.
