Campus Diem

"The problem", remarked a friend wistfully as we stood up amidst stifled murmurs and blasé one-liners, "is that they think we're really stupid and we think just the same about them." I looked at her and nodded as we began to repeat after the voice blaring from the speakers. After we were finished taking oath, she clarified concernedly, "neither is entirely true you know!" So college started a few weeks ago, and we third-years had been practicing cocky swaggers, meaning to intimidate the fresh troop of students that will enter college next week. The new entrants are, with fashionable indifference,…

Films of the late ‘80s and ‘90s immortalized the student populace as fun-loving, singing-prancing, volatile peoples; as entities with rebellious tendencies and a penchant for settling rivalries through bicycle races, boxing matches and dramatic fisticuffs. Having been a toddler when those films were made, I can't comment on the veracity of projections from that decade. Nevertheless, these Technicolor profiles of boys and girls seem to have been etched deep in the minds of concerned elders. So much, that friendly folk well past the college-going age think they know it all when they liken the students of today to Bollywood's bratpack…