Was in the university for a guest lecture. How wonderful is the very idea of a university, one realises on such occasions. For one thing, the expanse of the university is huge and beautiful. With the current lashing monsoon rains, the greenery was afresh, content, clean, and in the best of natural attractiveness. Even the buildings, et al, had a neat, clean look due to the rains, adding to the laissez-faire, laid-back feel of a typical university campus.
This feeling of peaceful contentment was enhanced as i met a few former students who remembered with affection our lectures. Should be genuine praise as now nothing would be gained by such an act, right? Even otherwise, my students know very well that i am rather amused by fulsome praise. So! Anyways, the youthful optimism in the very air was cute, to say the least .
The actual lecture started rather late, was not much to write home about. The post lecture discussion was quite interesting. As usual, quite extreme opinions were floated, the main thrust areas got ignored. For example, the idea of absolute evil, beyond any socio-cultural constructs rooted in any political-economic paradigms, was not even touched upon in a discussion of "criminality from Sophocles to Shakespeare", while Iago in Shakespear's 'Othello' is a great example of such 'motiveless malignancy'. There was at times the typical academic 'bias', very conveniently and comfortably and righteously 'radical', et al, built in to the debate.
As i had a lecture at 2 p.m., i rushed back to the Main Gate. The usual humdrum reality, the busy traffic, et al, were in full flow. That contrast truly made the idea of a(ny) university so very clear, as a cocoon, a h(e)aven of the wor(l)ds, tangential yet important for the (op)positional sustenance of banality! Long live universities, the self indulgent islands of thought in a world busy with daily 'norm'al living!
Pratima@Thoughts, too, are actions. That is the real and great idea of the university.
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