Last week I had been to a small district town of Orissa, Dhenkanal. The first thing you notice about this hilly district headquarters is its serenity, beautiful landscape and mystic character. I spent a whole year in this town studying journalism in the eastern India campus of Indian Institute of Mass Communication on the lap of the hills.
For a first time visitor, the place would really look attractive at the first glance enthusing a feeling of peace at your heart. But the moment it comes to your mind that you will have to stay here for a whole year, your head may refuse the idea. The place is bereaved of any source of entertainment. It doesn’t have any shopping mall, any proper cinema hall (let alone any multiplex), any disco theque or a good restaurant. So it is difficult for anyone coming from a metro city to accept this ‘handicapped town’. We all had the same problem. It takes time to adapt. Somehow we managed it and lived happily adapting ourselves according to the demand of the hostel life.
But some had problem with the taste of the food, lack of entertainment and every little thing. I had a batch mate (not mentioning the name for obvious reason!!) who had food with her hand/fingers for the first time in her life after failing to get a spoon at a picnic in a nearby village. She sat on a playground to have lunch on banana leaf. She was frantically looking for mineral water in that remote village not to drink but to wash the plate made out of banana leaf!
But this time I came across some interesting incidents. A father took away his daughter from IIMC within three days of admission. The reasons: the rooms weren’t air-conditioned, his daughter had to wash her own plates herself after every meal. He saw a lizard in his room where he was allowed to stay for a few days as guest. (Thank heaven he didn’t see the snakes that coexist in the campus and the legendary Black Panther that one of our darwans once saw!!!)
Adding to it was the height of inadaptability. This time some boys are using use-and-throw plates for their having their meals!!! The reason: they cant or don’t like to wash their own utensils after having their food. We couldn’t think of it at our time!!
These may be little things but what surprise us is that they are supposedly the aspiring journalists of a country called India. Are we all future journalists driven by the idea of ‘Page 3’ journalism only? I pity for them.
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