Gyaan gurus return

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Once outside the cocooning of school, youngsters discover that a college campus is a microcosm of the big bad world — a predictive prelude to personality types and situations you will encounter as an adult. And like canteen philosopher, Rancho, in 3 Idiots, life-explaining, diktat-expounding preachers are aplenty — after all, if anything in life is free, it is advice. But as the life-enriching, senior sages get into overdrive, are the teens listening?

Shaking off school’s straightjacket, Mihir Chadha, 16, at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan learned to enjoy freedom and formed close relationships with his college seniors. But, he didn’t bargain on learning “not just how to go about solving problems with new perspectives, but also how to create them,” he quips. “I was introverted in school, but in college, I became outgoing. Earlier, if I’d bunk college, I’d tell my folks. My senior suggested that there was no thrill in bunking if one informed parents. Taking his advice, I bunked college and was 15 km away from campus on my bike, when I got a call from my mom asking where I was. I didn’t know what to do, so I turned my mobile off and went underground. Apparently, my folks were at college to pick me up for a surprise family trip to the outskirts. They called up most of my pals and eventually we were all frog-marched into my house and lectured. Then, my senior did a turnaround and chided me for not informing my folks about my bunking.”
Edward Philipose,17, thought he was learning lessons on brotherhood, “My friend would tell me how it is important to watch your buddy’s back and how to win the girl of your dreams — ‘You have to say what you feel about the person in his face.’ Well, it’s funny how when I once got into a fight, I was hoping he’d turn around and be there for me. He was instead, too busy wooing his girlfriend to notice! Still, I got a whole new lesson on ‘practicing what one preaches’ that day.”
And Swetha Bala, 17, learnt not to give any credibility to street-cred, “I was told by my seniors that to ace the exam, one only has to solve the last three years’ exam papers; that was supposedly the holy grail to topping exams. I took their word for it and only just scraped through. And the seniors went underground after the exams.” Moral of the story: Talk is cheap but can cost you dearly.