I came to Swami Vivekanand Subharti University (SVSU) for my sabbatical on 1st
of Feb. There is some excitement and some apprehension. I don’t know where I am
staying, I don’t know what I am doing (literally and figuratively). Everything is new, except India…always the
same. Crowded, noisy, smelly and dirty. But it is still my India.
The campus is on Delhi bypass, the gate is big
enough and there were guards to give us a parking permission slip. Manoj was
driving, and we asked for directions to the guest house and were taken to the
guest house. I had already spoken to the person I was given the phone number of
to confirm my stay. The guest house was
very spacious.
I asked Manoj to take me around the campus before
leaving so I could get an idea of the size of the campus and location of the
science building. It is a huge campus!! I am glad Manoj was there. The science
building was on the other corner of the campus.
Dr. Bhatnagar, the head of department of chemistry, was there, so I
introduced myself and sat for a few minutes. She told me to stop by and see the Dean also.
I did. Dr. Kaushik was a small unassuming man. He did not say much and I left
in less than 5 mins. All in all, within a day I got my sabbatical assignment
and within a week I was shifted to the hostel from the guest house, where I
will stay for the rest of my sabbatical.
My first views is that there
are communication issues within the administration and within the sciences. Despite my calling from the States, it did not help. If
they had communicated well, I would have been settled in the hostel the same
day with the bedding and all. I would have also known what my assignment was
before being present physically. The
latter was not a big issue, but moving from one location to another is a little
bit of a pain.
The university itself is huge! The entrance in not
welcoming. The hospital is right in
front of the main gate, so the front is always full of people and there is just
too much traffic. It does not give a feeling of an academic environment. Only when I passed a second gate inside the
campus did it get better. All this crowd just makes it a little too much for me.
I kept thinking of the peace and quiet of DSVV.
There are buildings everywhere. It is a
residential campus, so most faculty and students live on campus. The residences are interspersed in the
academic buildings. The layout is good.
The landscaping is nice and maintained but just looks shabby. There is dust and
dirt everywhere. The stone sculptures need restoration – they have degraded
over the years. There are various sizes of gardens everywhere but the grass
could be thicker. There are flowers in a number of places and they are blooming
– and they definitely look pretty…but something is missing – the up keep?
There are garbage cans everywhere to help keep the
campus clean – but they are not helping. In fact, the garbage cans are so
conspicuous that they are all I see.
There are stray dogs everywhere. I just don’t like
that. Either make a park for them so they stay there or keep them off the
campus. All the people and all the dogs
have issues….there is spit and poop everywhere.
At least I have to watch out where I step and look, as these things just
gross me out. Sometimes the smell of
poop is everywhere.
The guest house and hostel rooms are nice layouts,
but the work in them is unfinished. The
paint is incomplete, the doors look old, some of the sidings and light panels
are chipped. With a little more care and
money, this place could look and feel really great. But they leave that last
touch which makes it look old.
I had thought that there would be no men inside the
girls hostels, but because of the mess, they are all around. Why? I did not think they would be allowed to roam freely in the girls hostel or sit around the doors. I don’t
feel comfortable going in my night gown to eat dinner, as I used to in RG.
There is a sense that someone is watching all the time. Well they also are, there are CCTV cameras
everywhere!!
The classrooms are also good size but again no
good material is used. The chairs are the worst I have seen. When the students
drag them they sound like a train screeching to a halt at a station. Or when
they get up they just slam up instead of slowly rising up. The blackboard is small and does not have a
place to keep chalks. The professor’s lectern is broken. The lecterns are all
slanted and things keep falling off (because the lip is not there
anymore). There is no table for the
professor to keep books and pens. Forget about technology. My office table is
in poor shape, the drawer is falling apart, the door of the little shelf
does not close. And they got plug points in each office just the day before I
came, which were stuck so poorly that a little pull on my computer wire pulled the
socket out of the wall….I feel guilty!
And the damn gates!! What’s with the gates closed
all the time? There are gates and road blocks everywhere inside the campus.
Why? There are three main gates (or more) to get into the campus – can’t they
control the traffic? There will be this huge gate and on the side, they have
this little tiny curved path for just one person to walk through. Rubbish!! And
then there are at least three guards on each gate, just sitting and talking and
watching. I just hate going past those gates. Why are there men just sitting on
their butts? Why can’t they at least get rid of the dogs?
The roads are worn off and need resurfacing. It
really looks like village once I look past the big buildings. Most of the
canteens look like sheds. The one decent one is hidden behind the hostel. The shops inside the campus and near the
hospital could really use an upgrade. If they could spend just a little more
money it would make this place look and feel so much better.
And maybe I am feeling this because I am an outsider. It could be that to
most Indians this is normal.
Why? Why does India do this? JV Jain, RG
College and now this…all looked similar. This one should look much better; they have the funds and manpower. And their fundamentals are good.
I had not known what to expect from the campus.
But after being here for three weeks now, I can say that definitely things
could be better to make this campus look beautiful and welcoming! But then its
also possible they don’t need the welcoming….there are already people here…Am I
being overly critical? I will post pictures soon....and I can make my point.