Maitreyi- The Word Around
IET Lucknow has a brand-new hostel for girls, Maitreyi.
Every now and then the building quietly manifests itself in speculative small talks. We thought it best to try to understand and explain the circumstances behind the move. Along the way, we’ll also attempt picking apart the facts and the fallacies from the narrative.
'Maitreyi' was a Vedic era philosopher who became the symbol of the Indian intellectual woman. Deep. Like the Arabs who took recourse to their scientific progress that stagnated eight hundred years ago, us Indians go right back two-millenniums seeking inspiration. Evidently, there has not been much for women in the meanwhile.
Before Maitreyi, were Sarojini, Gargi, and Apala. Not historically accurate. The three had a few problems. (The hostels, not the women.)
Four students crammed in rooms for three, two in rooms for one - The overcrowding naturally has an adverse effect on general productivity, learning, and focus of the residents, defeating the very purpose of staying in an institution hostel. Exhibit A: 200 students in the 70-odd rooms of Apala and Gargi. Cupboards and tables shared and snatched, privacy and personal belongings begging for space.
Broken windows and tiles, wall plaster coming off, poor lighting, inoperative water purifiers, jammed, bolt-less doors in rooms and washrooms. Aryabhatta represent.
And we’re not even venturing into the parochial waters of regressive conditioning, condescending remarks, and gratuitous impositions. Mouthful, right?
The three hostels worked somewhat like this:
Sarojini – For the First-year, and Second-year Laterals.
Gargi – For Second or Third-year (the entirety of any one) and PG students (MBA/MCA/MTech)
Apala – For Final-year and the entirety of the Second or Third year, whichever is left
There are seven boys’ hostels.
Ramanujam - For first years
Aryabhatta - For the Second-year.
A to E blocks – All those who is't score, liveth h’re. Ground floors are for the Third year, upper floors for the Senior year. Those who cannot find a spot here, live outside the campus.
What did this mean for the students?
This meant that the girls, with all shackles intact, had to live crammed from the first year right through to the last, with no considerable easing of restrictions or space concessions. But they had rooms nonetheless.
The boys have it normal for the first two years. (Normal we assume, is converting an n-seater to an n+1-seater along with all the issues stated beforehand.) Restrictions are not an issue for boys (typical), though living outside the campus during the last two years is not conducive to either academics or batch cohesion.
Two birds in the garden. Which to stone first?
Needless to say, we always pick the politically correct poison.
Maitreyi, swooping down in whiteness, brought some ease to the residents of Apala and Gargi.
It now houses the second and the third year. A first in a long while is that there are rooms vacant, that will help cope with the influx of students. Fully-tiled and spacious, it outshines the others, for now. A room has been left for the visiting parents too.
If you ask the residents, they feel better here. The number of occupants in each room match what the construction warrants. Privacy in this dormitory is better. The hostel has also enhanced the extent of senior-junior interaction between the second and third years. A by-product of compulsion above intention.
Still, it is far from perfect. There is space but little use for it. No courts for play. No skating rinks. No roof-access. Lighting is good, perhaps overdone. And what force could switch some off? Few rooms are vacant as they face the male-infested mess. Non-existent Wi-fi and weak signal reception. A single stove in a mess impossibly catering to a rush of two hundred students. Security cameras still not up and a fire alarm that bellows the collective pain at its leisure.
The rules imposed are the same. A new hideaway for girls. A new square one.
As would be clear, Maitreyi did not have a noticeable bearing on the living standards of the students.
A few major takeaways were gleaned from our interaction with the professors and officials involved in the construction of Maitreyi.
The constant pressure the administration is under to compete with infrastructural progress made by other colleges to prevent brain drain, that is taking place due to lack of such supposed perks; The long-standing demand of the female students for a hostel with better security and facilities: Maitreyi should come as the perfect solution. Also, construction clearance only in the regions over which Maitreyi stands and where the new MBA hostel will be built, was an oft-quoted justification.
While construction clearance for land is justified enough, we are still unable to comprehend why an extra floor in each of the five blocks for boys should hurt. Perhaps this was a matter of greater urgency. Surely, students wouldn’t mind taking an extra flight of stairs when they can travel a mile daily for classes. Instead of making new hostels, would not the funds be better utilized if first spent on renovation of the existing?
It is a worrisome problem that even after 34 years of establishment of the college, access to basic amenities is still a function of the floor, hostel, CGPA, or block of the candidate. Those lagging behind are kicked back even further when removed from the hostel environment. Taking a page right of the American Legal System diary, are we? When you treat the low-scorers as lesser students unworthy of a proper room on campus, the grades rarely go up. Just like the inmates who never reform because jailing is taken more as a punitive measure than a reformative.
For the boys, the hostel allotment scenario is yet another competitive endeavour. Another hoop to jump through, another race to a podium finish. 'Competitive', not progressive, being the refrain of our education system.
Truth is the majority does not much care if Maitreyi exists or not, be it the administration or the students. Amul canteen is kicked to the Parag curb, and a Maginot line for boys is pulled back to the Auditorium. Timings, for example, are still the biggest complaint of the girls. Although what the students are doing harbouring complaints baffles our understanding.
The questions point inexorably to the fact that only a few people in the administration catch wind of the general grievances. And it is according to their wisdom, that the 'progressive' projects are taken up. Sermōne huic obsŏnas. It is of little concern who the select few are, but more important that several other possibilities are never considered. There is a stark contrast between unflappability and indifference. When the majority is indifferent, there are only so many possibilities that can see the light of day.
We do respect and appreciate the administration’s devotion to improvement, and take full cognizance of its limitations, but at the same time, there has to be a defined system of communication between the authorities and the students. When one keeps the other posted, then only would the discourse rise above speculation and resentment.
College life is supposed to be a pilot study on life in general. It would only bode well for IET if the actualization of this experience is driven by rapport and rationality.