At the sacrificial altar

Thanks to CWG 2010, Delhi University students find themselves homeless.

There have been at least three Hindi films named Aankhen (the eyes). Of these, Ramanand Sagar’s 1968 espionage drama starring Dharmendra and Mala Sinha and Vipul Amrutlal Shah’s 2002 bank robbery saga (Amitabh Bachchan) were the better films, but David Dhawan’s 1993 mishmash was the most enjoyable.

Dhawan’s caper had an extremely candid scene. Widower Hasmukh Rai (Kader Khan) and bachelor Pyare Mohan (Sadashivrao Amrapurkar), childhood friends in the twilight of their lives, fall for the same woman, the ripe Anuradha (Bindu). They agree that one of them will have to sacrifice his love. As silence reigns, neither offers to forget the woman. Gently, then, each tries to nudge the other to make the sacrifice. Soon enough, they are abusing and punching each other to make a good case for sacrifice.

That is the nature of all sacrifice. One can call it an act of greatness so long as someone else is making it. Songs would be written in praise of freedom fighters so long as the song writers can have the right environment to fire their creativity. The US government and oil companies would sing paeans to the soldiers who died fighting in the Gulf, but no one would be willing to sacrifice the oil.

It’s worse when sacrifice is thrust upon you (though the act should by definition be voluntary), such as on the students living in Delhi University hostels. As you read this column, thousand of them are roaming the streets because their rooms have been taken away for the Commonwealth Games.

DU hostels are the great coveted oasis for students who come from all parts of the country to study here. Many of them have limited budgets, carved out from the many corners cut by the family back home. If they do not get a hostel seat, which is decided on the basis of marks and quotas, they are condemned to spend the years of their education in claustrophobic dwellings at the mercy of the landlord while paying rents that would be tantamount to extortion.

Those rents right now would be at an all-time high. Many of the landlords in the maze of lanes around the Delhi University — Malka Ganj, Jawahar Nagar, Kamla Nagar, Roop Nagar, Vijay Nagar, Indira Vihar, etc — would be salivating at the opportunity offered by the decision of many colleges to make their hostels available for athletes from the beginning of this session till the end of the Games.

The crumbs of consolation being offered are that the boarders would return to find their rooms in much better shape. But did anyone give them a choice? In their current ordeal, few would be thinking of their duty to the Games organising committee, which claims that it has built a better Games village than the one for the Beijing Olympics. Pity it’s not big enough.

On campus, it is easy to loathe St Stephen’s for its false haughtiness and love Miranda House for its genuine attractions. But both need to be equally admired for their decision to make their hostels available only for the duration of the Games, which would be the time for the autumn break. The others have probably engendered in their students a lifetime of hatred for these Games.

(suveen.sinha@bsmail.in)