ARTICLE BUSY BEE COLUMN -JUNE

An over dose of Rahul did to me what cocaine couldn’t do to him. I must be still reeling under its obsessive effect or else why should I be writing about him? Well it is because Rahul and his ilk merit claim to OBC and deserve our attention for the same–they are the “marginalised” breed of insecure, imprudent, disillusioned and directionless modern youth who “snort” at the idea of “roughing it out”. In the good old days before Freud a “smack” of a different kind could have sorted out this peculiar malaise. “Deep childhood psychosis” as a modern day malignancy is more sensitive than the Sensex. Even Getafix the Druid would have no idea what combination of love, attention and parental wisdom would aggravate or cure it. My heart cries out for the future of our nation that will lie in the hands of these young adults like Rahul someday.

Meanwhile we have a serious issue with other hundreds of children of lesser gods who desperately need a springboard to come to the mainstream (or they too would be lost in life’s mire just as easily as Rahul). Unfortunately the social safety nets that work to redress social inequity with “affirmative actions” (such as reservation/gender policies) have their own limitations. They often stoke a different loop of discrimination instead. “Merit” has been the scapegoat recently dashing the hopes of several hardworking students and fuelling their ire. It is a Catch 22. Just as is Sushmita’s suicide. It is so unfortunate that it should be ‘used’ merely to brand the army as “gender insensitive”, “beleaguered” force instead of being taken as a case study in the psycho-biological connotations of a Venetian pitted against a Martian in unchartered territories .Are we missing out on the lessons somewhere? Be it Budhiya, Rahul or Sushmita can mere ‘opportunities/reservations’ unite the vast and diverse concerns of the modern world today in one fell swoop?

I realised I qualify to join the SC fray when the football fever caught everyone recently As a Sport Challenged individual I can’t make much of people running to hit, throw, catch, squash, strike, smack, punch, putt or drive a ball. I watched the dribble and dance of the bullion instead and worried about the billions who lost their precious sleep over it.

Fortunately the College Bees have very little mullah to mull over. Their neat little hives are built around their huBEESs and baBEESs and are forever in commotion as they scurry from pillar to postings with pots, pans and prams. We bid goodbye to JC - and SC – 104. We look forward to the next set of hives (with the renovations nearly complete) and voila we shall soon have a larger strength of Bees too.

Meanwhile here’s something to think over “Life is like riding a wave. Either we stay at the bottom of that wave or we learn to ride it. We all have the same difficulties. It is just the way we choose to handle them that determines how high we are on that wave."