Vignettes from University Life in Jawaharlal Nehru University

The University is an universe of it’s own, a remnant of India’s modernist dream and home to over 10,000 students. This highly politicised student body co-exist in large soviet styled student blocks studying masters and doctorate degrees in everything from political science to biology.

JNU was established in the 1976, is India’s premier liberal arts postgraduate university. Occupying 1000 acres of land on the Aravali range in New Delhi. The university is a world of its own surrounded by the urban chaos of Delhi, a remnant of India’s modernist dream and home to over 10,000 students. This highly politicised student body co-exist in large soviet styled student blocks studying masters and doctorate degrees in everything from political science to biology.

Presented below are a few Vignettes from of life on campus in 2013.

Ciggies (Please)

Noel Sequira

It was 5pm and Noel Sequira, a students of linguistics at JNU, had just woken up from a pulling an all-nighter. The hostel room was spartan, furnished with various home-made ashtrays. Neil is in need of his wake-up nicotine fix. His Tamil roommate was sent away to buy some old monk (rum) and ciggies (please). We went from room to room to “bum one” but it looked like the entire floor was out of cigarettes or they had grown accustomed to Neil asking. I took my pictures, asked him questions to distract him from his predisposition and left.

Room 138, Mandovi

I was ushered in room 138 of Mandovi hostel in silence. Inside a lone ceiling fan intensified the heat of Delhi summer by throwing hot air at great speeds. Sajid (on the left) a M.Phil political science student form rural UP was on the floor scribbling onto sheets of stapled papers, using his cellphone as reference material. A classmate sleeping sprawled on the only bed.The other inhabitants in the room like Sajid also scribbled text, copying paragraphs out a photocopied edition of Wendy Doniger’s On Hinduism. Everybody ignored the stranger in their midst, I wouldn’t have preferred it any other way.

Birthday Tradition

I’m told it is a birthday tradition in JNU to have your picture taken with the statue of Nehru. There were no students around except for this little boy. Who was posing for a picture his brother was taking on his cellphone. Perhaps it was his birthday.

The Campus

The administrative building at JNU. A poster asks “Pakistan masses erupted for Malala. What about our Malalas?”

An ABVP poster outside the CSS canteen at Jawarharlal Nehru University. JNU student politics have radical left wing leanings with the exception of ABVP. Which being the youth wing of BJP has obvious conservative right wing biases. From a visual perspective and I intend to share some other posters later, the ABVP posters are cruder then their revolutionary counter parts.

Another interior from JNU. The lift lobby at the Social Sciences department where every available wall space is cluttered with everything from party propaganda to activism. Empty wall spaces are claimed by various political factions in advance. Comrade Chavez is eulogised next to Kashmiri Pandits. I don’t think the elevators are operational

Hostel Room as a Shrine

Khaliq a political science M.Phil student is leaving JNU soon. Khaliq thinks of his hostel room as a shrine to student life : political posters of all hues and persuasions find themselves next to artistic nudes. The room looks lived in, an accumulation of objects, doodles on the wall, odds and ends. All indecipherable clues to Khaliq’s time here.

Members of “Hujuge Sanchari”, a Bengali theatre group in JNU. They meet outside Sabarmati(hostel) to plan an event. The conversations start in English or Hindi, a polite gesture directed at the non-Bangla observer with a camera. As the conversation garners passion as conversations Bengalis talking Tagore sometime do, they switch back to mother tongue. I’m not offended, I’m here more to see than to listen.

The halls at Chandrabhaga hostel in JNU, home to students and a few stray cats.

Editorial Note : Pictures and Vignettes were part of story that fell through in the cracks of global publishing pictures ended up on hard-drive. 2013