It has been ages, about 25 years. Yet this is a story that I never forget. When I joined J.C.E. girls hostel (Mysore) in ‘81, there was never a bulb in the ladies toilet: except when the warden came to visit.
I asked for one, and was fobbed off. I collected the girls together in a room and then said we ought to ask for a light bulb. We were dispersed.
There was a cook called Bhatta in charge. A bad, indifferent cook. A tyrant of sorts. The warden and the principal never visted the girls hostel.
My dad took up an assignment in Bundar college and he took me there. Things did not work out for my sister’s health and we came back. I got re-admitted into JCE, and tried to get back into the hostel. Bhatta fought tooth and nail. He told the warden and principal that I was a ring leader and not to be allowed back into the hostel. I looked unsuccessfully for accomodation outside.
My father met the principal and asked him about admission for me. When the principal told him about Bhatta’s view on me, my father told him about the light bulb. And about Bhatta’s prayers to the Sun in skimpy wet towels which my friends had complained to my dad about.
After a lot of back and forthing, I was allowed to stay in the outhouse with some other nice first year girls. There I came to know how corrupt the cook, clerk and warden were and how they swindled the girls and the college.
I was quiet, but harassed by Bhatta time to time, till one day, I burst into tears. Bhatta was appeased. But the gods were not.
One day the principal saw me outside his office in my traditional langa voni dress, books in hand. I had just topped my class (or come close to it). he asked me how things were in the hostel. I just said “as they were”.
Princi moved fast after that. Bhatta was thrown out, the warden and corrupt clerk re-assigned and we had a newer cleaner transparent management.
This was really good for the hostel. And very good for me.
And also a light, for future bad times. Whenever I ask for some small legitimate thing, I get snuffed out, discredited and harassed. Because that small legitimate thing that is absent is the tip of a criminal ice berg. As has happened in my work place now.
But I know, that in time, a strong visionary leader, like our principal, Dhananjaya will set things right. This is the hope that incident gave me for a life time.
