Ragging

I came across this article tonight and it got me thinking of my days of ragging at IITK.

It was a rather smooth sailing for me. Most of the time I was merrily enjoying ragging and grinning away whenever I was made to do anything stupid. I bet I must've been the guy who had utaaroed muski the maximum number of times. It was a rather amusing ritual of swiping your hand off your lips (supposedly wiping off the smile with it) and putting it in your rear end so that it comes out from the front with some cool sound effects!! And this whole act made me go into splits, with the seniors making me repeat the whole exercise all over again!

Ragging at IITK was nothing but fun for me. The seniors couldn't touch you. After the first few hours you realized this fact when all you heard was words and no actions. It was worse at Mayo College (Ajmer) where the seniors could thrash you with hockey sticks and give you PDs (Punishment Drills). Compared to Mayo ragging was fun at IITK.

Simply put, at IITK, ragging is all about building mental pressure on the junior so that he feels cornered or scared. Most of the seniors try their very best to prove to some high ranking fresher that he was not fit to be in IIT - that he had defeated the system somehow and that he was a "fraud" Supposedly, this was to break the ego of the freshers, it was to make them realize that they were among people who had cleared the same exam as themselves and were equally good, or even better!!

Mayo was a different ballgame altogether. I wouldn't call it ragging there - it was more of bullying. How would one differentiate? (a) Ragging is prevalent for a week, two weeks, a month but after the freshers' party is over WHEREAS bullying continues the entire year (b) Ragging is about making the fresher do stupid things, like wearing a belt on his/her head, pretending to fuck a tree, etc WHEREAS bullying is about physical and mental subjugation - making the junior do menial jobs, taking away belongings (called "jacking" in Mayo) and beating/punishment drills if the junior fails to comply.

After being subjected to such a harsh form of bullying in Mayo, IIT was really a nice experience for me. And I just couldn't realize what the fuck were my room mates afraid of? Standing atop a chair and shouting Sholay's dialogues? Or, flying imaginary kites, playing imaginary cricket/badminton/whatever? Or probably they were afraid of the stupid questions that seniors would ask to prove that they were "frauds"? What's the Moment of Inertia of a breast? Hah - trick question moment of inertia can be computed of a rigid body only!

I mean I was probably the only fresher who used to go to the canteen and sit their to be ragged!! It was bloody fun! I got to talk to pretty girls cuz I was being ragged :-) Most of my batchmates would shy away from this!

I don't know whether ragging gave me a special bond with the seniors who ragged me or not - but at least it gave me some acquaintances. After a senior had ragged you for quite some time and you had made him "happy" he was supposed to give you his "intro" and then he was technically forbidden to rag you.

I think ragging up to certain limits should be permissible. You learn to laugh at yourself of all things! Plus under the aegis of ragging you can do so many unimaginable things which a sane person wouldn't dare!

When it was my turn to rag (in my 2nd, 3rd and 4th year), I started off with all the fanfare. Y'know the kind of feeling that it's now one's moral responsibility to rag the juniors and probably to take some form of "revenge" as well. After one or two hour of ragging and one or two juniors down, I realized this whole concept was plain and simple stupid. At least from the perpetrator's point of view. As the raggee its fun but as the ragger you start feeling like a complete idiot trying to seemingly enjoy a bunch of first yearites giving their introduction in chaste Hindi, or wearing their underwears outside their pants, or whatever!!

It's a brainless affair when you're the ragger but a whole lot more enjoyable when you're the raggee!