the poster incident

This incident was a sudden idea. We planned it last night and executed it the very next day.

Bhamri, Uday and I were studying together in night. We had had our dinner at 8pm, so by midnight our stomach asked for some food. We were really hungry and there was nothing to eat, no Maggie, no soup, not even a biscuit packet!

We all got frustrated, and then Bhamri started telling about his friends life in IIT Delhi; they can come out of there hostel any time and there are 24 hrs cafeteria and ‘dhabaas’; and in our college we can’t come out from our hostel after 10:30p.m.(now its 11 pm) and even if it is allowed , whats’ the use? We don’t even have a 12 hrs cafeteria.

The campus was little boring that time which added up our frustration and we decided to protest.
We thought of making a poster, mentioning our problems and get it signed by as many students as possible.

So I made the poster. It looked attractive, and it had all our problems written with the important ones highlighted. In the beginning, Uday and Puneet were trying to understand us that nothing would change by this and the posters would be torn away by the teachers, but on seeing our determination they too joined us.

Next morning we went to many of our friends’ room and took their signatures, so that when we display the poster, it already had about 20 signatures.

The most common place for juniors as well as seniors is coffee shop. So at about 5a.m. we pasted the poster there, and below it 5-6 blank pages for getting it signed.

At about 8 in the morning, I, Bhamri and Uday were sitting at the coffee shop to see no body tore the poster.

The first one to see it was not a student, but Mr. Srinivas and Mrs. Meenal Kaushik, our thermodynamics and biology professors respectively. They noticed it and asked us who had put it. We raised our hand. They talked among themselves for a while and then discussed the points in the poster with us.

Srinivas Sir discouraged us, but our biology m’am agreed with some of our points. Soon the students started coming, all of them saw it, but none signed. May be they were getting late to there class. We too went to our class. When we returned we felt happy that there are some more signatures.

That day many teachers came there especially to see the poster. Srinivas Sir met me again in the cafeteria and he wished me best of luck. Some of the teachers were also supportive and were even willing to sign. The director of our college also came there to have a look at that poster.

The number of signatures increased as the day passed. But it was only juniors who had signed.

At the end of the day, we had nearly 400 signatures and 399 of them were of juniors. (It is a great number, in a total strength of nearly 1000 students.)

Next day we prepared a detailed report of our problem and thought of giving it to our Students Union President Master Hari Sudan, to pass it to the director. But the director himself called in for a meeting of all the juniors in lecture hall.


He is a very polite and good man; first of all he said that he was not involved in the campus for sometime as he was busy in arrangements for Prime Minister’s visit. So he was sorry for that.

Then he started telling about the poster.

He said that the poster was very nice and attractive, and he had no problem with the problems we mentioned. The only problem he had was with the way we put it. He said the concerned one should have come directly to him and said their problems.

He talked about it for some time and he said that he is not at all angry. And to promise that he will look into the matter seriously, he then and there it self changed the hostel timing form 10.30 pm to 11.00 pm.
We were happy;

Puneet read out the detailed draft in front of all and later handed it to the director.

There was also an open discussion about the problems between the students and the teachers.

Of course the seniors were not happy. But we talked to them, and made them understand that it was not to show that they are not doing anything but it was for our rights and after all they are the one whom we are going to follow.

So this was of course a daring step taken by Bhamri, Uday, Puneet and me along with other friends.

And I assure that all the demands and the problems were genuine and necessary to lead a normal college life.