लल्ला पुराण ३

I have underlined intensity of sense of belonging to and importance in shaping my person over JNU, no one questioned that! I will brief on my own.I accidentally  reached JNU in search of a shelter to live underground during the 2nd half of the Emergency to evade arrest under MISA in Allahabad. I knew and went looking for a senior, DP Tripathi 'viyogi' ji, as he was known in Allahabad, presently a Rajya Sabha MP. He was in Tihar. Subsequently I met a  an AU seniorl senior, Rama Shankar Singh from Sultanpur and started living with him. In less than a month, he went home for some work and came back after emergency with the start of new session and by then I had joined the university. JNU not only gave me shelter but welcomed me  with empathy(not sympathy) without ever giving me any sense of outsider or junior. Girls and boys discoursing  over a cup of tea and a drag of cigarette. First cultural shock was to stand in Que for one's thali of meal and one has to interact with the mess staff with respect and parity. You don't come in time, you miss the meal. This was unknown thing to someone for whom the "Maharaj" woud be at the room with garm chapatis and melted ghee.Talking to a girl was as easy as to boys. No sex bar in jokes. Even during emergency post-dinner debates and discussions, plays, film-screening, recital of own and other's poems on Dhabas by students-groups (many of them are big-wigs) was really a revelation going from AU of early 70s. While in JNU. I realized how feudal, genderized and casteist atmosphere it was. GNJha people would remember a D Block out side main hostel building with a separate mess. It was a small place but looked like an island in the ocean of universities.