RAM leela

If there is anything that we Indians have been driven to in greater and greater numbers in the past few decades, it is RAM worship. And proof of this does not lie in mandir movements, yoga camps or hungerstrike venues but at the temples of modern learning that go by the name of colleges.

And this RAM leela — a ritual celebration RAM (Random Access Memory) as the maryada purushottam, the epitome of the highest discipline expected of humans — happens each year at the same time as thousands make the pilgrimage to confluences called universities, in search of deliverance.

And yet each year salvation seems that much more unattainable as cutoffs rise exponentially, making college admissions as difficult as achieving nirvana, for they both demand near-perfection. Only in the latter's case at least, ultimate knowledge is not judged by the results of senior secondary school or technical joint entrance examinations.

It would then have been tough for a mere mortal to achieve enlightenment surely, considering even high school marks demanded by colleges have hit 100%. Clearly, the authorities do not believe that to err is human. Or they imply that such shortcomings are not acceptable in humans who seek higher education.

The fact is that much as we claim to be moving towards a modern, globalised culture, RAM worship as a means to a better future remains deeply ingrained in the psyche of all Indians. No short-term strategy or ministerial intervention can supplant it.

Besides, any move by the youth to gravitate towards a more attainable and amiable god also comes a cropper thanks to a hidebound system. Indeed, every time institutions of higher learning demand the impossible from students, they are willy-nilly giving new life to desperate calls to RAM.