Malhar- Evaluation

I recommend a reading of the previous note 'Malhar- Situations' to properly imagine what I mean. This note brings out the essence of what the other note tries to preserve. While that, in it's narrative style, could be called a story, this is actually the non-fictional critique of what happens in that story; a critique of malhar.

No, not all of malhar. Just some parts I found things amiss in, the kind of arrangement held for conducting human 'management'- this is what I felt was dismal, at best. Of course, I am just one person; and my opinion is supposed to be mine, I know all of that, I have been attending Farun's lectures, okay? But I am sure not only mine, for there were others who underwent the same experiences and on whose faces I saw an absurd frustration. I think I will respond to that from the position I am in: a worm's position, looking from ground level whatever is happening.

This must answer those who claim that I should join SECURITY: I think it is necessary for all positions to be represented, and I assume that of the common looker. It is absolutely necessary that someone talk from this position, and I think I am fully justified in wanting to occupy it and look at things from here. Moving on,

'COMPULSORY EXIT'.

phrase of an adj. and a n., meaning you have to go whether you want it or not, at the same time refers to a procedure involving the trapping of ignorant fools in unwarned, innocent corridors and packing them off outside.

There is no sign 'COMPULSORY EXIT'. No warning, except if your friend is in security. A hand tips you slightly and tells you to 'compulsorily exit'. Why, what I have done? No answer is available, since it isn't in the volunteer's job description, nor is he/she too eager to give one. Sometimes, yes, but mostly, no. You'll probably hear again: you have to go. And eventually, you do have to go: you are one and they are many. And they have this divine right of sorts, manifest in their t-shirts and wirelesses. One wonders if one is in USSR or something.

The argument runs hence- since we aren't blessed with too endowed a college (uh, in terms of space) why not let as many people as possible to come in and see? But then, for some to come in, some will have to go out? Yes, they will have to. Bas, chalo, compulsory exit. There is no belaying that. Someone who has been around in college would say "look, i could go up to de-congest these grounds. Why don't you let me do that?" Actually, why doesn't the security suggest that? One answer is-

'JUDGES AND GUESTS'

n., somebodies who increase the plausibility of your festival because of their familiar faces, and even tell you if your events and participants are okay or not.

Anybody familiar with Xaviers' would agree that the windows/passages on the floors above could be wonderful spectator galleries. This is one strong reason, I think, why people would want to go up. But, ASSISTANCE informs me, that Guests and Judges are about to come, and we, being ideal hosts, must give up the cream biscuits for them. Absolutely, no problem. I'll clear off as soon as they arrive. But no. I am told I have to clear off immediately. That place is not for me. Do they realize they are laying waste precious space of our under-endowed, beloved college, if not harming the 'spirit' of malhar that common-folk walk away with? What with the number of judges and guests as compared to that of normal watchers, a child could spot the irrationality of reserving so much space for so few people. I think one shouldn't complain of having less space in college when one is wasting it as it is. The same, by the way, goes for water and electricity.

'CROWD'

cltve. n., if used by someone on the malhar team, it necessarily refers to a huge gathering of people that creates hypothetical stampedes even before arriving and unbearable chaos too(unbearability is, usually, subtly shown by '!' marks), generally assumed unthinking and unreasonable.

My conversations with most of my security pals has lead me to believe that a lot of security guidelines have to do more with cultural knowledge passed from last years' arrangements, than with a different analysis of present possible situations. This knowledge assumes that if not for some regulation, there would be major stampedes. The argument is a crisp phrase, stale, yet freshly accepted in Pol Sci classes- mob-behaviour. This is one reason, perhaps, why none except one have responded to my suggestion of more sane usage of existing space. It simply doesn't feature in the to-do list of the dept/s. what may be responsible.

Why should we assume that this crowd needs guidance? Why should we assume that there will be a stampede? And why should we assume that 'they would never understand, so let's not waste time in trying to explain what we are going to do to them'? This is what i refer to as pessimism. Our security arrangements are based on this idea. It would do well to the SECURITY and ASSISTANCE depts. to introspect if they do not show this unreasonable behaviour towards 'crowds' who actually ask them why this is happening. As I have said, some do manage to at least assuage some unfortunate beings, and actually explain why this is happening. Some also use their brains as per the situation and this makes malhar more human, and less insultingly pessimistic.

CAP'N JACK SPARROW

pr. n., referring to a remarkable personality who devises bizarre responses to bullying, possibly great inspiration for those tired of malhar's self proclaimed securors, who end up making life difficult both for themselves and for others.

S crawls out from under the divider; X asks wierd questions; sometimes, he calls out for reason. These are defiant responses. When confronted with power which doesn't care to explain why is it operating, what can one do? Either one can, like T, denounce such power in words but accept it in actions by walking away, giving up. Or, one can accept it both in words and in actions, which many have urged is necessary. There be a third course, mateys- defy this power in words and actions as long as it is unreasonable. As to the unreasonability, there is considerable scope to find it- if somebody says "could you please move away from here?", one can see a certain civility in the manner, even if the request seems absurd. However, somebody saying "you'll have to go somewhere else" or even taking the liberty to nudge you on the shoulders, show you directions and say "keep moving, keep moving" shows obvious signs of power-tipsiness. Further signs of undue power are refusal to answer, let alone even consider one's questions. After all, how much time does poilte, impersonal behaviour take? Or what harm would answering a few questions do?

Being a smart-alec has more to it then this defiance: suppose you get summoned by compulsory exit in, say, an hour or so. You see your malhar experience going for a toss. You'll have to wait in line again to get in. So where is the fun? Heck, do crazy stuff, derive your fun from what you have- an unflinching volunteer. That is why it is possible for X to feel happy at the end of the day.

'MALHAR'

pr. n., college festival of St. Xavier's College, including students from various colleges visiting and participating in a host of events

I was somehow shocked at being asked "Why do you hate malhar so much?" I have restricted my hatred to something more specific than malhar, namely the arrangement for public management. Malhar, or whatever I could see of it, was quite enjoyable, even necessary because there is hardly such an opportunity if not through a college festival. However, if focus shifts to competitions and judges and bureaucratic procedures rather than humane behaviour and enjoyment, we shift away from what is ideally expected. It isn't a shocker for me to find malhar behind many other colleges ( http://www.campusjunkie.com/FestCentral.aspx?fcp=main ) as far as popularity goes. I look forward to attending these for verification of campusjunkie data, but I think that votes of people all around do make for a permissible reference. My intention for these two write-ups was to first narrate how one could enjoy because of difficult odds (through defiance) and secondly to suggest positive changes that are lacking through the eyes of a worm. I have no intention of spreading malice, I haven't done so, and would appreciate not being accused of anything such.

BUREAUCRACY

n. a form of institution with inexorable rules and procedures, which nobody knows emanate from where, but which have to followed in spite of all their shortcomings. Criticism can lead to accusals of 'all talk, no walk' attitude, demonstration of walking could lead to being ignored.

Bureaucracy generally is accused of making machines out of men. One complains of long queues in general life, of pending court cases, one even supports positive changes in such systems. But in malhar it becomes different: since it is 'our beloved malhar', it has to be perfect the way it is and is beyond criticism. But it is not too difficult to note similar symptoms in it which one condemns in a bureaucracy.

In fact, through my experience of malhar, I noticed it is a micrcosm, a miniature model, of many outside things in the way it is run. Bureaucracy is one of the commonalities; one can find militant intrusionism, as one found in former Soviet Union, or present China; one can find patriotic shouts of 'Malhar Rocks', more emotional than rational. One could find favouritism, like invisible judges being treated to open spaces to look from. All the more, one can find the same points of discussion about malhar that one finds about bureaucracy, society, etc. in general- 'mob-behaviour', 'chaos', 'necessity of procedures' (this very basically means necessary of bureaucracy); all these come from such an analogical discourse.

SITUATION

n., a real life combination of events and entities, that face people in an interactive manner, to which they have to respond.

This write up had to be broken into two, since it came out bigger than anticipated. But this did come out in the way I had planned it to. This is a new and effective method of writing that I have come across, partly discovered. I think this should answer those who think I am generalizing things, and creating caricatures.

What do we mean by generalizing? By applying to a group certain traits just on the observation of a few elements of that group. When it is unjustified prejudice- a judgement BEFORE knowledge. So, for example, one could see gay people wearing pink repeatedly, and assume that gay people wear pink. However, gay people not wearing pink would prove this to be a prejudice. The problem that has happened is that before getting a pure description of what 'being gay' means, one has assumed on shoddy evidence that it means wearing pink, and put it on the whole gay community, i.e., evaluation comes before description of situation. Since this mistake is repeated often in writing, I decided to technically orient this article in a way that the diagnosis (description) of situation comes necessarily before it's evaluation, so that we know enough before passing judgement. That is why the order-

1. 'Malhar- Situations', wherein we understand what we are talking about
2. 'Malhar- Evaluation' wherein we try to find recurring patterns

Let me put up another example (since I terribly wanted it to feature in the other article, but bloody forgot about it at that time)-

SITUATION VI.

Foyer. Huge crowd. Some event is going on, while people are cheering and shouting and whoooooing.
S can't see anything because of the crowd. She asks the guy in front-
"What event is going on"
"I don't know."
"What are you cheering for?"
"I don't know."
"Why the hell are you cheering?"
"Everybody is cheering, so I am cheering too."

EVALUATION

Enjoyment can come out of anything. Even from seeing others enjoy. .... in short, whatever you can conclude from the given situation.

Now one may see at a number of places in the article or the responses that I don't label the ASSISTANCE dept. as 'bad' or 'vile' or whatever. I only go after the practices they do to which don't really go well with a huge number of people. Similar with caricatures- they show less reality than is actually present, because they are a scheme of the author's mind. However, if the writer picks up verifiable situations with verifiable characters, it would either be unwary or unjust of someone to accuse the writer of creating caricatures.

As to selectivity, it is a different matter altogether. Let us assume that malhar is our car, and there is something wrong with it. It would follow that we repair what we think is wrong with it. For this, we ought to focus on the bad part. I am afraid that looking at the good side of the car would hardly be of any use to the car; it may be amply so to our self-esteem of owning a wonderful car, but that would mean living with a faulty car in sheer denial or ignorance. One can't confound selectivity with generalization or prejudice, unless proved so; of such proofs as regards to this article, I am most awaiting.

Hoping for someone to take this up into consideration. Hope to meet again, as a worm, next malhar.

Malhar- Situations

I.

"Excuse me, you can't stand there. You'll have to move." The girl was wearing a dark blue malhar t-shirt, with ASSISTANCE written on it in bold letters.
"Why can't I stand here?" X asked.
"This is a judges' stand. You'll have to move."
X looked around, in a way that made the interrogatress look around too.
"Well, I don't see anyone around here. ?"
"You can't stand here. I'll have to ask you to move." The girl replied.
"You already have. But you didn't answer me."
Meanwhile, a boy wearing a similar t-shirt as the interrogatress came about and said, "Listen, please go. This is the judges stand. You aren't allowed here."
"Yeah, she has already said that." X replied. "All I am saying is that there is no one around right now, and so it shouldn't be a problem to you for me to be here."
"Look, friend"- there was some impatience in the interrogator's voice, and it seemed to X that 'friend' was used to hide that impatience- "you can't be here. Please be so kind as to leave."
"You give me a good enough reason and I'll leave."
"Look, even the volunteers aren't allowed to stay here, okay?" he said.
"But this girl was standing here since I have arrived." X pointed out.
The interrogatress sprang to life again and retorted "No, I was moving around. I wasn't standing." Her tone was very fast, spitting out word after word.
"Okay, so I'll just keep moving around." The reaction of the interrogators was amusing X. He was having his laugh.
"Look dude, you can't stick around here, okay? You want to talk to my OG? I'll just call him."
At this, X gave his most heartily acerbic laugh. "So ASSISTANCE means a bunch of unreasonable hooligans, right?" he said. He thought he should leave: there was no point in listening to the same stuff from the OG, and he had had his fun.

II.

S was moving along a passage with her friend T, just holding hands, loud music having benumbed their senses. This quiet in the loudness of the festival was comforting. It was as if one could find privacy even among a crowd; this simultaneously gave the two ability to stay in their space, like two idols in the same, limited niche, and it also let them show they were together.

Suddenly, a hand caught S and pulled her. T followed. A girl with a black t-shirt with SECURITY written over it told her "You'll have to leave."
"What? I can't hear." S shouted, and lent her ear, almost flung it, to the security girl.
"You'll have to leave, This is compulsory exit."
"What do you mean leave? Where to?" T asked.
"Out. You'll have to leave college. This is compulsory exit."
"What do you mean? We already got frisked. You can check our bags." S said.
"No, this is compulsory exit (note: the usage repeats itself as if it went unheard before). You can get your hand stamped, and come back again."
"So why send us out in the first place?"
"This is compulsory exit." She starts to mildly pull S out.
T has broken into an argument by now. He seemingly loses his temper. S is watching all this, vexed at the intrusion of their good time. T is eventually pulled away with a little force. He loses his temper, shouts at the security girl, and leaves. Meanwhile, S has evaded the SECURITY, slipping through the divider-poles, and reached out safe. Once out, she first calls the security girl to the divider, sticks out her tongue, and then shows her middle finger.

She calls up T, and tells him she would be coming out in a minute. She takes the 'compulsory exit' passage again, finds the girl who pulled her earlier, asks her "Way out?", smiling while at it, and leaves the college.

III.

10.30 am - A and B come to college gates. "Some festival, I tell you. Just you listen to the music inside, I tell you. You know, they spend like some giant amount on all this, I tell you. Fuhttttay, all this." A is happy. He had been here last year. They see there is a line they have to stand in. It is long, and takes them to the gates of the quiet college behind, which seems to be living in an autumn, especially on this day when the only visible college is Xavier's, throbbing with a throbbing crowd.

11.00 am - "They will take us in any minute, I tell you." The line had been growing since they came. The gates had been thrown open some time ago, but they couldn't alleviate too many aching legs. Perhaps, B wondered, the line must have reached the gates of some other college by now?

12.00 noon - "When the hell are they planning to take us in, dude?" B was getting impatient. This was his first year at this fest. The praises by A started seeming absurd to him. "Anytime soon, I tell you."

12.05 pm - "Do you want a raga, our official malhar magazine? It's for free." A cute girl came up to B and asked. "I want to go in." She didn't know what to say. She recollected herself and replied assuredly and assuringly "I am sure they will take you in. Do you want a raga?" "No thanks." "But it's for free." "I am leaving." He leaves the line, and heads for the railway station.

IV.

The Great Hall wasn't called 'The Great Hall' for nothing. It was massive. It took some effort to get from one side to another. Even if it didn't, what is the point of going to the opposite side to get in, when one can very well go in from this side per se?

The 'SECURITY' arrangement made this absurdity possible. Even when there was no 'crowd situation', the security wouldn't allow entry from one door of the hall, while they wouldn't allow exit from another. Of course, if you sported a malhar t-shirt, things were different.

X landed up at the point of The Great Hall through which he couldn't enter. A big security guy stopped him. "You'll have to enter from the other side." X realized the nonsensical aura around this proposition. He said "C'mon man, what's the point? My going from this door would cause no trouble to you, to malhar, or to the world in general. It would save me a pointless detour. Please let me pass."

The guy thought for three seconds. "Okay, get in."

The author deviates specially and wittingly from mere narration, appreciates the action of that security guy, and wishes to congratulate him for having retained his reason.

V.

It is difficult to reproduce this situation. Let me just try to describe it. Mr. and Mrs. malhar...er.. sorry, Mr. and Ms. malhar is going on.. but wait, shouldn't it be Mst. and Ms. malhar? Shut up, and just use the convention, okay? Mr. and Ms. Malhar is going on, and the contestants come up on stage one by one. They are supposed to joke, be humourous. They try- c'mon, they can only try, who knows what is humourous? They joke. Mostly, the jokes involve double meaning related to genitalia and actions pertaining to genitalia. X remembers hearing these very jokes when he was in school. Exactly these. Tailor-cut. He sees around. People are cheering. He thinks- "they are cheering, not laughing. We must keep that in mind. They are cheering for these jokes, not laughing at them." He decides to take a walk till the next performance begins.

He thinks he would like a bird's eye view of malhar. He remembers last year, when he spent an hour on the terrace, watching what went on below. He somehow found that mesmeric, almost mystic- the silence of altitude had insulated the terrace from noise, and he found himself immersed in the hush below from this point. And this gave him a sort of puzzle: he, who had been detached from anything he found 'spiritual', meaning unexplainable, mystic, who was hostile to such experiences and actually refuted them, found pleasure in this inexplicable pleasure. He thinks he must find what this is again.

But he sees that there are black t-shirted fellows at the stairs who refuse entry to anyone. He thinks he would take the other staircase. He reaches it, only to be informed that he can't use it, it is only for volunteers. He knows there is a third, but realizes that the last time he had gone that way, he was asked to 'compulsorily exit'. Though it was fun to crawl through the divider to the safer side, he didn't want to go through that again; he had his eyes set on the terrace.
"Are they forcing us to exit still?" he asked the security chap.
"No, they aren't for now. You can try those stairs." How did he know why X had asked that question? Perhaps it was the guilt of not having allowed him entry? Perhaps he thought he ought to give him some way to go up? Perhaps he wanted redemption? Perhaps.

X was now in confusion- the third staircase was closed. That meant, it was impossible for someone below to go somewhere above. X inquired with a security volunteer "How do I get upstairs?"
"Through the stairs."
"Which stairs?"
"There are so many stairs in college."
"Could you tell me one staircase that is open to me?"
"Yeah, go there, that one."
"I am not allowed. Your rule."
"The one after that?"
"They aren't taking us in from there."
"Dude, I am busy, could you come afterwards?"
"Yeah, but this is so crazy. I mean, you people are here so that there isn't any crowd situation. These grounds are packed with people, packed crazy, so that time to time, you keep evacuating them forcibly. But upstairs, upstairs it is all empty. Why don't you let us go up."
"Dude, help me by co-operating, okay?"
"Dude, it is as evident as two plus two is four. If you want to de-congest the ground, let the people go up. I am helping you by really helping you, okay?"
"Stop blaming us, there is a crowd for us to handle. Do it yourself if you want."
"Who the hell is blaming you? I am just telling what can be done. This is like shit for me- I can't go up- and almost shit for you too- you can't handle the crowd without manhandling them."
No use. X's doubts- as to if this was really a festival- were becoming strong. What could he do about it? He didn't know. He stood there for two minutes. Suddenly an idea came to him.
"Okay, listen. Can I climb up the pipe to go up?" he asked most naturally, hoping this act would work.
"Yeah, please do. Best of luck."
"Can I get an assurance from you, that you will be responsible if something happens? You are the security after all."
"Yes, I assure you."
"No wait. This won't do. I need it in writing." He took out a piece of paper, and wrote 'IF SOMETHING HARMFUL HAPPENS TO X IN HIS ATTEMPT TO CLIMB UP BY THE PIPE, ' "what's your name?"
"P"
'P TAKES OATH TO TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY, BY REASON OF BEING IN-CHARGE OF SECURITY.'
"Sign here."
"C'mon man, lay it off. We have work to do."
"But you agreed?"
"Dude, we are in no mood to play smart-alec games." 'We'? Where had the 'we' come from?

X discovered a new mode of fun. He thought he would really have a festival, an unusually shining day. He started questioning the annals of malhar's workings. He would go to security holders, and ask fundamental questions. Here are some of those:
"Can I buy your t-shirt? How much?"
"Dude, give me your walkie-talkie for a sec, would ya? I need to make a call home."
"Listen, before entering here, is there any kind of permission I need to take from you?"
"You would not beat me up, right?"
"Could you make a map of restricted areas in college?"

Malhar had found a new meaning for X.

~