IHM, Goa: A Tale of Social Discrimination!!!

I still ask myself whether I’d have been better off at IHM, Pusa. My AIR (All India Rank) in the Entrance exam was good enough to secure me a seat at Pusa or Dadar, the best IHMs in India and I chose to be at IHM, Goa.

I know what you’re thinking; Beaches, babes & booze, right? Wrong. For one, I don’t like beaches that much. Two, I never had a dearth of babes, irrespective of the place. And lastly, I was a teetotaler & I still am.

I chose IHM, Goa coz I knew for a fact that Goa was culturally different than the rest of the country. And I needed to experience the diversity and the exposure. And yes, I did get all that I came looking for, and a lot of other crap.

Maybe a little more than had I bargained for.

The three years of college at IHM, Goa broke me down!

You see, IHM, Goa is more than an educational institute. It is a way of life. The students here are as diverse as the flow of tourists that Goa gets each year. So imagine a random mixture of students hailing from different communities, each with their own set of values and beliefs, coming into contact with each other. What do you think you’d have? Chaos?

Wrong. You get Discrimination.

These students might get together on social networks & look back at their times at IHM, Goa with nostalgia and swear alliance to each other, irrespective of which community they belong to. But from where I was standing, all I saw in my batch were groups of people, each from a different community with a sharp sense of contempt for the other groups.

Yeah, they were civil with each other and smiled and talked to each other, but if you looked at them carefully, you’d sense this undertone of contempt & discrimination. And its not their fault, you know. Its what we are taught to believe right from our childhood. The seeds are always there, they just grow in certain surroundings.

My problem was that I was a minority, not the religious kind. I was from a state that was unanimously considered backward. And even though, I had been brought up in a very progressive family, was smart and spoke well, most of my batchmates thought of me as a villager. And they treated me accordingly. I made quite a few attempts to get along but I sensed that I was never accepted. Eventually I gave up.

Just because I was slightly different from them, I was shunned, made fun of by everyone, treated like a leper. My self esteem took a serious blow. Even the faculty weren’t understanding, many of them were outright mean. The girls always behaved as if they were from a superior race. The popular kids made fun of any attempt I made at performing, thus dampening my spirit for good. Anyone who saw me in college wouldn’t believe I was the same Ian who used to be there on stage for every occasion in school.

The three years changed me. I lost the optimism that I had come to Goa with. I saw others dealing to the hand they were dealt. I saw my best friend become a drug addict. I saw a few of my batchmate buckle under the social pressure and drop out. I saw a lot of guys become cynics. I saw myself lose a part of me, the jolly, confident part.

I can safely say that I didn’t pass out from IHM, Goa, I SURVIVED IHM, Goa.

It took a long time to rebuild the self confidence & self esteem. But it happened. I have no regrets. In a way, IHM, Goa shaped my life. Or maybe it was just the kind of eye-opener all optimists need to see the world for what it really is, a dark & dirty place.