U is for University Days !

I spent five years in Jawaharlal Lal Nehru University or JNU as it is called, doing my graduation and post-graduation in a foreign language. JNU enriched my love for languages and linguistics and I am one of those rare breeds who actually enjoyed my academic years! They were five wonderful years – The best years of my life.

JNU is a green and peaceful heaven amongst the chaos of Delhi. It’s a sprawling campus, only one fourth of it is given to buildings, the rest is all rocks and forest. We once decided to Trek inside JNU and we walked the whole day from morning till night but still couldn't cover the entire forest.

I still remember the occasional nilgai and the deer we would see from our class room windows and the peacocks that invariably came out during the monsoons and danced for our benefit. On sunny winter mornings we would persuade our teachers to take our class out in the lawn and we would study the intricacies of the language and soak up the winter sun at the same time.

Architecturally, JNU is very beautifully built. The aesthetic red -brick academic buildings and the hostels that randomly dot the campus add a charm to the greenery around.
The JNU library has the best collection of books I have seen till date and off course is equally well known because of the ghost that lives there!

But it’s not only beautiful buildings that give a place its character. What I loved the most about JNU was whole intellectual and cultural ambiance of the place. It was JNU that introduced me to the“ Jhola culture” and I took to it like a fish takes to water. The ethnic khadi kurtas over jeans, the juttis or kolhapuri chappals, the embroidered cloth bags from janpath– these form a trademark of those five years I have spent there and frankly my dress sense still has a lot of JNU in it ! It was at JNU that I first learnt the true meaning of “adda – baazi”. The socio-political debates and discussions that took place in its various cafes or on the lawns that could stretch for hours and hours. I enjoyed every bit of them! I loved the street plays you could simply sit on the grass to watch, and I loved the posters that are an ever present part of JNU walls – so much so that it is said that it is the posters that keep the walls up! JNU is like a huge watering hole for all intellectuals and wanna be intellectuals who congregate there to discuss anything from the starving millions in Africa to the role of Marxism in West Bengal.

Eating at any college cafeteria tends to be fun but imagine eating perched on rocks outside the café while looking out on a sprawling maze of green with the huge Parathasarthy rocks looming ahead. Imagine having Chai – Pakoras sitting on the steps of the school of languages as you watch the rain fall gently over the beautiful campus.
You will find eating joints serving everything from thupkas to chilli chicken to paranthas in JNU – and all of it will be finger licking good! And there is no JNU-ite worth his salt who hasn't had Francis’s mango shake and proclaimed it to be the best in the world!

JNU also meant cut throat competition, frantic cramming before exams, desperate last minute hunt for notes for the optional political science classes we never bothered to attend. It meant Language labs, viva and interpretation classes that admittedly made us into the language experts we are today but something we hated passionately then. 

JNU meant going to the ganga dhabha for a simple cup of chai and then getting entangled in a debate and spending the whole evening discussing politics. JNU meant day scholars stealing into hostels and spending the night there, of hitching rides because we could never be bothered to wait for the bus. 

JNU was those carefree sunlit days of fun and laughter and of friendships forged for life !

Du-ites might spent a life time praising their colleges to high heaven but I tell you, there is nothing like JNU !