Our Days in Gurucharan College: A Transition in Social Networking

Dr K M Baharul Islam

Gurucharan College is celebrating its Platinum Jubilee this year and as an old boy of this college we feel proud to be able to participate in this celebration with my Alama Mater. Only a few handful students of G C College will get this opportunity to be around at the time when the college is organizing such memorable anniversaries. We were perhaps the last generation of pre-Internet collegians (1984-86) who entered this great seat of learning recognized for its academic excellence in entire Northeast India. Inspired by the social reverence for this college, as only the best students of our times could get admission in this college, and also by the remarkable achievements of its former students in all walks of life, we came to this college in 1984. I thought, on behalf of our contemporary students, and also on my own behalf I would put on record not only a few characteristic reminiscence of those golden days but also trace the undercurrents of changes in the society that was slowly creeping in with the advent of technologies, particularly the Internet. It will be interesting to note how we were holding the last social bond in real world much before the onslaught of the virtual bond of social networking as it is today through social sites on the net like Facebook, Twitter and Orkut. It will also inform many of our younger mobile generation about the fruits of social bonding that we enjoyed at that time. While discussing our days in GC College we would also try to trace some of the social networking characteristics that were very much marked and real in our times. It will present a commentary on the transition of a generation to the Internet/Mobile culture as it appears today. Class Consciousness One of the first characteristic of those days was the underlining of our groups that was linked to not much to the college but our pre-college background. As we were the Higher Secondary (10+2), Science Stream students at G C College (1984-86), it was obvious that by the institutional benchmarks of those days, we came from the top brackets of our matriculation batch that year. Mere mention of HS (Sc) in G C College to anyone would have made it clear that the student is one of the bright boys/girls in the area. In fact many of our batch mates traveled long distances from other places in Assam to study science in G C College. Once in the college and in that HS(Sc) class of 1984, we were typically identified by our backgrounds which can be categorized into three groups. First, the elite Holy Cross and Collegiate School products who are fluent in English, who used to have an Alternative English1 aura around them and very familiar with the latest
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In HS course, those who pass out from English Medium schools are allowed to take a special English Language subject called Alternative English or just Altee instead of the MIL (i.e. Modern Indian Languages like

in English Music. Second, the largest segment perhaps, were the local reputed government schools like Silchar Government Boys HS School, Adharchand HS School, Narsingh HS School who got good marks in Matric (HSLC) to enter this batch and also belonged to this town and its surroundings. The third group was some brilliant outstation students who came from all remote corners of Barak Valley and outside who by sheer talent and hard-work in HSLC were in our batch. They stayed in Hostel, Mess, or with relatives in Silchar. Having passed out from Govt Boys School, I belonged to the second group. This group was mainly centered around the Park in front of Gandhi Bhavan. Some distinguished members of our group were Moon2, Chandan3, Shubha4, Amit5, Shibu6, Anis7, Shantanu, and Biswajit. I had some of my class mates joining me in G C College: I remember Biswajit Chakraborty, Partha Protim Dass (Shubha) and Santanu Shekhar Sen. A few joined our group from outside GC College also. So, there were marked class consciousness which remained more or less distinct in our social bonds Adda or Rock8. But, a few crossed over and synthesized with the larger bonding circle thanks to GC College. In fact the group we belonged to had a mixture of all the three backgrounds. This is perhaps absent in the world of Facebook or Orkut today where we meet by graphic interface and where typed words are the major indicator. Today, students are cocooned in their own world of competition so much so that the intermingling of various childhood backgrounds and their enrichment in formative years by exchange of social networks with others is missing to a great extent. While we mastered many a new things from the elite groups which definitely contributed to our communication skills and social relationships in later years we have also perhaps held onto that last generation of mother tongue proud mostly Bengalimedium tag. Social Life While social networking today means two or many islands of minds and people holding on together by wire or Internet, we had a very intensive real life involvement with each other. We had participated in every possible occasion in our friends houses be in a marriage or arranging a cremation in the locality. We used to feel like a family and often our social networking was marked by our acceptance as a group by our parents/families. I remember how we used to flood our friends homes where we met a large contingent of uncles, aunts and cousins who used to know us like one of their own kids. Here, I remember the house of Moon on Park Road where we used to be virtually pampered and tolerated by his mother Late Smt. Bandana Bhattacherjee. The other household I remember was the house of Shibu who used to live in a large joint-family kind of set up in Ambikapatty. Again
Bengali, Assamese etc). Therefore, opting for Altee meant the student was from an English Medium / Convent School. 2 Ratangkoor Bhattacherjee, now an Advocate at Silchar Bar. 3 Chandan Paulchaudhury, now an Asstt. Professor of Geology in GC College 4 Partha Protim Das, son of late Adv. Poyodhi Kumar Das, resident of DAS VILLA on Central Road. 5 Amit Kumar Dey was from Mariayni, upper Assam a diehard Amitabh Bachchan fan. 6 Debanjan Paulchaudhury, presently with Steel Authority of India. 7 Anis Rasul Mazumder, ACS, now posted as Asstt. Settlement Officer, Sonai. 8 Rock is the roadside groups of young adolescents who used to pass their leisure time a very distinct feature of Bengali society. Though diminished largely, till today we get those Rocks with young boys hanging around even today in many areas.

we were taken as their own kids by his lovely mother who used to tolerate our frequent visits. We even used to gather in the drawing room of his uncle (Shanti Paulchaudhury) to watch our favorite TV Show on Hindi Film songs in those days Chitrahaar - without any hesitation or hindrance. With people becoming more rich, savvy and materialistic I cant imagine such liberty will be allowed toady in any household. In fact we used to capture every bit of space in any house we used to raid as group at the time of watching Chitrahaar as it used to coincide with our week tuitions on Wednesdays and Fridays. So, we used to rush from the teachers house to one of our friends house nearby and those families will never show any irritation. Todays youths will sure miss such larger familial bonds with unitary families and their cumulative influence in our truly cosmopolitan and secular upbringing. Coming to that cosmopolitan upbringing, that came with the opportunity to study in GC College and having some of the best friends in life from that batch, I can remember how different religions have entered our mental space without any bigotry in those days. I remember participating in programs of Sharada Sangha (through Moons mom) in fact just acting like a volunteer around, or attending the evening sessions in Ramkrishna Mission and learning many aspects of Hindu religion that strike me even today as if the same thing is written in another language when I read my own religious books. These were besides our regular joint celebration of Durga Pooja, Kaali Pooja or Saraswati Puja in College. It was our golden days in mid-1980s when we were not still confronted by the vexing communal issues perpetrated by vested interests. Today, in spite of all the floods of Information and Internet revolution we find many young boys/girls so much ignorant about other religions and socio-cultural lives that we live in a makebelieve modern culture that is no culture at all. Our friends in GC College batch and their families gave me the sense of a secular/cosmopolitan India that many of us still carry within our hearts. A few of us were very much involved in our contemporary socio-political movements. I for one, was very active in the movement for a University in Barak valley (led by All Cachar Karimganj Students Union or ACKSA) or later the Language Movement spearheaded by Barak Upatyaka Sngram Samannay Samiti against the infamous language circular. One of our batch mate Tapas Paul (presently with The World Bank in New Delhi) stood for students union election and I campaigned for him. Sajal Acherjee and Pradip Bhattacherjee were our student leaders in college union. Though in our Group Cultural Transition We were perhaps also the last generation of live music enthusiasts as we did not have the luxury of MP3 and iPods. We used to wait for the live concerts of singers like Manna Dey, Anup Jalota and Pankaj Udhas. In fact we were still to get into the Micheal Jackson age, at best we were listening to Usha Uthoop and Remo Faranandez. We remember going to Sangeet Sammelans in District Library or waiting for hours in Ellora Hotel or Geetanjali Hotel to get the autographs of Manna Depy or Anup Jalota. Our times were marked by a soft touch in our contemporary cinema and music. While in cinema we saw a series of romantic

movies starting with Ek Duje Ke Liye and Love story, in Music we saw a new interest developed in Ghazals. I remember Shibu writing me letters/post-cards to me when I was in Aligarh Muslim University asking me meaning of Urdu words he encountered in Ghazals. So much was our interest in language of music. Today we passed on to a generation next that can access all our Ghazals in one CD/iPOD but hardly tell the meaning of a few words from Urdu. Is it the easy access to technology or just fleeting time that compels us to ask What man has made of men? Talking of culture in our time we did not have the choice Orkuting our relationships. It was pure crush, infatuation or platonic as the last choice. Some of our famous Jodis or couples whose names were written with a + sign on walls or blackboards never had a formal date. At best a few smiles shared and the just thrill of being talked about was their forte. Yet, in our own circles we had the highest respects for those souls and today we are happy that some of them are very happily married and bring back our younger days alive whenever we meet them. Again that adolescent love stories have mostly dried out with MMS scandals haunting the young minds and parents alike today. We have not seen much of the gadgets that students use today. Only a few could flaunt something like a Bike (as Anis did with this Rajdoot motor cycle which could easily take a place in any museum). It was of course not like that our parents could not afford such things but the Bicycle was more than enough for us. The Bike culture did not hit the scene and we were rather happy with that. Again it was perhaps the last of the Bicycle generation as we slowly passed the rein to the generation next who feel shy without a trendy bike now a days. Some of us were still reading as there was no surfing. We were members of two local libraries: District Library and the Arun Chanda Granthgar at Gandhi Bagh. Good books were discussed and we used to read a lot of Bengali books. Today when I see my kid unable to read Bengali I feel pain that in search of a good career we lost touch with our roots. I remember starting to read Desh a popular Bengali Literary Magazine when it was just 80 Paisa a copy. We exchanged literary books among ourselves and spending a few hours in the Library reading rooms was a must for us. G C College library was another source of our reading so was the interest we showed in writing for various magazines. The Gurukul In our days, we also had the last generation of teacher cum guardian who not only taught us with great sincerity but also acted as our guardians. With fat salaries, higher pay bands and social transformation to pay as you go culture in teachinglearning creeping in today, we hardly see those teacher-guardians. In our batch we had a few sons/daughters of our teachers. This was a double parental guidance for someone like me as my father late Prof. Md. Fokhrul Islam9 was also a college
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A G C Collegian himself in late 1950s, Prof Islam was a faculty in Economics at Cachar College (1962-1984), Principal of Lala Rural College, Hailakandi (1984-1991) with an political interlude when he became an MLA and Deputy Minister for Education in Assam (1978-82).

teacher for long years in nearby Cachar College. Many of my teachers like Prof Jagannath Roychaudhury, Prof Srimanta Dutta, Sri N Shyam, Sri Rajendra Brahachari, Dr Aparajita Caudhury later became our Principal were his close friends. My activities and performances in academics were promptly reported to my father and I had to be extra cautious about my ways. Our batch mates who were teacher-kids included Chaiti Shyam, Sandeep Dutta and above all the one and only Kanishka Roychaudhury. Besides the guardian teachers, we had some luminaries like Prof Partha Sarathi Chanda who was my Dronacharya in Debate. Years later when I represented my university (AMU, Aligarh) in various inter-university debates, or led my students (at REC, now NIT, Silchar) to win Northeast Regional Debate, I realized how much owe to Prof Chanda who initiated me in the art of parliamentary debate. He taught us English only in second year and I was inspired a lot by his logical presentation and arguments. It was partly due to his inspiring lectures that led me to decide about studying English Language and Literature at the graduation level leaving science stream after HS Class. We still remember his inspiring lecture on the first day of class about the importance of English and the favorable chance that brought English to India along with colonial rulers. Though English language class was generally bunked by many of us, Prof Chandas classes were a hit. We used to have three or four tutors at that time and it was a kind of Gurukul to us all not like todays competitive coaching classes. The teachers we used to attend were best of our times and perhaps of all contemporary times Prof Srimanta Dutta (Mathematics), Sri Rabi Bhushan Roy (of Govt Boys HS School), and Sri N Shyam in Biology. Most of our group used to attend these teachers. Now, I deliberately used the word Gurukul as we were not fee-paying consumers to them rather we were family kids to all of them. I remember how we used to be treated as their own kids in the houses of Rabi Roy Sir or Shyam-babu Sir. Perhaps, we lost that touch today with the coming of corporate culture in tuition classes and coaching. Unlike the tuition culture as it is today where classes in colleges are irregular, we used to have full attendance in college and the teachers were equally dedicated to classroom teaching. It is a kind of keeping ourselves in line with a regular observation and moreso to make us groom ourselves properly perhaps our parents attached us to these great teachers. Though, some like me never learn! I failed in Mathematics in HS in spite of the hard work done on me by Srimanta Dutta Sir. It was my fourth subject Biology that rescued me otherwise I would have actually failed in HS! But, we had bright Mathematicians in our batch like Kallol Paul10 who helped me a lot to pull myself together in Maths during my HS days but I failed him too. Nevertheless, I still remember the words of Prof Srimanta Dutta who said this to my father after the test exam: Doing 50% of all answers in Maths would not bring 50% marks rather writing complete answers to 50% of the questions would do. In fact, I did try every question in the examination but left every answer in the middle as I could not proceed with the equations. This could be the guiding principle fir success in all walks of life as one mission done completely is better than many missions half-done. There were many instances of such life learning in our Gurukul which we cant perhaps portray all here in this brief space.
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Dr Kallol Paul is now a Reader in Mathematics at the prestigious Jadavpur University.

As life moves on a fast track Internet bandwagon I feel nostalgic about those days in our lives when we had the opportunity to learn many a thing from or teachers who were in many ways our friends, philosophers and guides. When I became a teacher in university / college later, I tried to follow the mould but I found that in contemporary milieu it is almost impossible to enact that role in our classrooms/campuses. I remember even trying snuff from Shaym-babu Sirs box. He caught me in this mischief and made me take one tip in his presence! He told us about the effects of nicotine in our blood and nervous system and that was a difference subject altogether in Biology that evening. Today, we have syllabus bound and success rate conscious students and teachers with much less space for learning from life activities. Friendships in Real Time Our days in G C College were thus marked by our friendships in real time we were meeting daily in our Adda and also growing with the life experience from each other. We were not hiding ourselves in cyber cafes, bed rooms and chatting. We were rather talking to each other face to face. The strong undercurrent of our social life was thus held together by our going to the same institution G C College. The College life as such was the moving element in our adolescent days. The teachers were our constant guides and we dreamt together, we learnt together, we played together. Much of that has changed today in our networked world today where each of us live in our own islands always worrying about someone else overtaking us in life. In our rate race for marks, jobs, careers and social upward mobility, perhaps we have lost that golden era. Today G C College stands as a center of excellence in the entire Northeast Region. We have had the opportunity to learn in this college. Many of us are now well established in our careers. But, at the time of celebrating its Platinum Jubilee let us also think about how we can contribute something to our Alma Mater. Let this Jubilee be only occasion to get together, rather, let us make a resolve to meet every year and act as a group once again. I think that will be a befitting tribute to this institution and its teachers.

-------------Dr K M Baharul Islam is the Chairman and CEO of South Asian Regional Development Gateway (SARDEG), a regional ICT for Development portal which is funded by the World Bank initiated Development Gateway based in USA. He is pesently on an assignment with African Development Bank as Consultant for Mauritius ICT Strategic Plan Review. He taught at the National Institute of Technology, Silchar (India), Kigali Institute of Technology (Rwanda) and later appointed as an Associate Professor at the University of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) in Nov 2003. He has a doctorate from the Tezpur University (India), Post-Doctorate from Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok) which focused on new technologies in education system. He has double Masters degrees from AMU, Aligarh and the University of Strathclyde (UK) where he did his LLM in Telecom and Information Technology. He did his LLB from A K Chanda Law Colege, Silchar and B.ED. from Silchar College of Education. Email: islamb@un.org