How close shall girls sit?

What happens in that story by Italo Calvino called The Adventures of a Soldier?

A woman passenger sits beside the soldier returning home after vacation. He draws himself closer to her; then still closer; then...until there is virtually no gap between them. Then he slips his hands into  the long pockets of his coarse uniform. From inside his pocket, his nimble fingers slowly begin to explore her subterranean geography. Exploring hands encounter no defence, as Eliot put it. Eventually the train passes through under a tunnel. The soldier’s hands take unexpected liberties with the woman’s body...

Illyas was narrating to us the story of the great Italian master. Calvino has been his passion from college days; so much so that girls in the class used to call him Illyaso Calvino.

Shihab shot back: why bring in Calvino? We are not talking about sex-starved soldiers, but educated students studying at a college.  The authorities acted abominably. Will heavens plummet because a boy and a girl sat together? Despite all your admiration for Calvino and literature, you are still a fundamentalist to the core.

Turning to me, he said: What do you say?  Would you object to boys and girls sitting on the same bench in your class? Hasn’t this issue got to do with gender equality and ...?

I didn’t want to respond. For one, we- four college mates -were meeting after a long gap and a rendezvous over a meal of fried prawn and porattas was not to be marred by marathon debates over a question on which none was going to agree.

I dug into the poratta and gravy, my fingers more agile than Calvino’s soldier’s; but Shihab was insistent. Our friendship dated back to the callow undergraduate days in Farook College. For us, like everyone who studied there, Farook is more than a mere college. It defines the very essence of our identity, our being and becoming.   Just as it marked the moment of our community’s awakening from a long slumber.

Now it was in the news for no sane reason: the agitation against the so-called gender segregation and the suspension of a student.  Media is more interested in the nuisance value than news value. It makes a hell of a story that has a boy and a girl in it. The other night, I watched a star anchor (to be sure, he is not the guy about whose sexual peccadilloes rumours abound), quizzing interlocutors elaborately miming the consequences of a boy and girl sitting together. Why should anyone object to such an innocent thing? Would it lead to unwanted pregnancies and the birth of bastard children? His questions were directed at the only panellist who dared to defend the College. 

I said: as for me, I won’t bother if boys and girls sit together or far apart in my class. Actually I won’t even mind if they choose not to sit at all in the class, but at times I feel like what the famous Shaw character said:  get me to a Muhammadan country where men are protected from women...

Both my religious and liberal friends seemed furious and I found myself caught between their insistent firing: Would you mind if they sit in each other’s lap? The question came from a visibly angry Illyas.

I said: nonsense! They don’t do it in the class, I have never seen such a thing in any class; but a colleague once talked to me of such scenes while he went on a tour with his students. As for the teacher, he simply pretended to be dozing. The students at the University I teach are a mature lot...

Before, I could finish Illyas began firing his missiles one after other: this is what happens when you give students excessive freedom. What is the guarantee they won’t want such freedom in the class too? And teachers like you are responsible for this mess; you guys think that your only job is teaching them the syllabus and not inculcating any values...

As for me, I said, I am finding it hard even to cope with the syllabus. Besides by the time they reach our stage secondary teachers like you cram their minds so fully with values, that there isn’t any room left.

Shihab was in no mood to give in either. Like Illyas he had his values to fight for. While at Farook, he was an activist of the leftist students’ union. In his middle-age too he embodied the same passion: you guys should learn to be more progressive. What is wrong in boys and girls sitting together and learning; after all isn’t so in the West? Even in India, how is it in institutions like JNU? In some IIMs there is even cohabitation. What is wrong in such things?

Noushiq who had been busy wolfing down his poratta broke in at the mention of West (He had been to Europe several times and considered himself an authority on ‘West’): things are not as you imagine there; parents are touchy. You know the first time I applied to be a home tutor in England, I had to produce a certificate from the police in India saying there was no police case against me; no allegations of harassment. In England, a boy may sit next to his girlfriend but westerners do not like a stranger belonging to either sex sitting too close to them. In fact, the Farook College issue was blown up.  Dinu’s suspension was sad; he is a brilliant student and would have brought glory to the college. But he had to be cautious. When there is grievance cell in the college, he should approach it before going hammers and tongs. The media has vested interests in picking on Farook College. The other day a girl wearing purdah was so foully abused by the principal at a women’s college in Calicut. No mainstream media took up the issue. And then this whole brouhaha about gender segregation at Farook? Didn’t you see those youtube clippings where students protest against media attempts to tarnish the institution? Aren’t the boys and girls marching side by side in them?

Having found an unlikely ally in Noushiq, who had the reputation of being a lady killer during his Farook days, Illyas could not resist himself: there are restrictions in Farook College, just as you have in other institutions in Kerala. What is the guarantee that there won’t be any harassment when boys and girls sit together? After all, can education cure men of carnal longings? Are those journalists and great men accused of harassment, people without education? Wasn’t Bill Clinton a Rhodes Scholar? What about Tarun Tejapal? Is he an uneducated soldier? Why does the UGC insist on anti-harassment cells in institutions if such a menace doesn’t exist? And what about the new UGC directives on study tours? Doesn’t it stipulate that girl students should be taken on tours only under the supervision of lady teachers? Which Kerala college actually permits the kind of gender-mixing in hostels as some IIMs or JNU do? Many elite institutions in India are now facing a problem. Girl students find it difficult to find accommodation in hostels while there is excess space in boys’ hostels; this has to do with the changing demographics of our college population. Why don’t champions of gender equality march to such institutions and ask them to end segregationist hostel practices?

Before Shihab could counter, I chipped in: enough is enough. Actually, we should find a middle ground between puritan and liberal extremes. In a country like ours, we need different biospheres where different norms prevail. Neither the liberals nor the puritans should clamour for homogenous spaces. Farook being a minority institution will/ probably should not be like JNU.

--but you should know Farook is an aided institution run on tax payers money, Shihab put in.

-it is not only people like you who believe that there won’t be  gender equality unless  girls and boys sit next to each other that pay taxes. In Kerala, we too pay taxes, Illyas was fuming.

I knew that the debate was heading to no terminus.  It was 8 PM when we left the restaurant. Calicut streets were still busy with people. But there were few women in the crowd. Eying the all-male crowd I asked Shihab: How long will it be before there is perfect gender equality in your hometown?

 

(Dr. Umer Thasneem teaches English at Calicut University. The views expressed here are personal. He may be contacted at uotasnm@yahoo.com)