Crowds are fun sometimes. It’s easier to evade the ever-watchful eye of the observant teacher in packed classrooms and catch some sleep after a night at the Dhaba. DJ Nights are only worth attending when the fashionable fight with the shorts-chappal wearers for space on the DoMs stage. And, of course, the excitement that surges through your body when SAARC Law is chock full of people, full of energy, cheering on the Presidential candidates, is quite unrivalled.
But crowds also make life generally harder. It’s frustrating to wait in line at the mess when class starts in a few minutes. When Sundar Anna fights for his life, trying to serve everyone their cappuccinos. Or, when you’re simply trying not to feel alone. It’s surprising how lonely you can feel on a campus full of students. Walking against the flood of people on Flag Road, sitting beside huge cliques, and even finding a chair during those revision tutorials – they all seem scary if you’re alone. How dare you be alone when there are so many of us around you? What are you, some kind of loser?
There’s so much pressure to mean something when you feel like someone could look at you. No matter how loud you play your music or how great your earbuds cancel noise, it’s almost impossible to drown out the voices of what people could say about you. There’s a tug-of-war between the need to get away from it all and to fit in. For some of us, it’s a quest to be cool enough. For others, it’s a matter of having your very identity respected. How can you mean anything when those who parrot social justice in public are okay with denigrating your identity in private for some ephemeral clout? When people are almost excited to disavow a protest that merely recognises that misogyny is… wrong? How can your ‘self’ not feel alone amid all of this?
You know when you have to scrunch up your entire body so you can fit in a tight space? It’s kind of like that but for your head.
Okay, I don’t think it’s all that bad. It’s also hard to feel lonely when your doggy friends chase after your love when you leave class. When the air sticks to your body in this humid odd semester. When the trees loom over you with their magnificent presence, heavily intent on protecting you. When the birds sing their various tunes to catch your attention. When the sky wears pink or orange or all those beautiful colours just to impress you. When those hedges that, no matter how much they’re trimmed, keep reaching out to hold you and tell you that it’s going to be okay. And it will be okay. Because even if our university does not have space for you, our universe always will.
-Samvedh Eswar