Of Jeans, burgers and Bangalore

“But how can they be ok with not wearing Jeans to college?!”

The Bombay boy in me just refused to see how, just how, the students of Christ college in Bangalore were ok with the imposition of this dress code.

I mean, here I was. Not being able to imagine my peer group without their faded jeans. Not being able to imagine what they would scribble on when an unbelievably boring professor refused to shut up in class! I couldn't’t imagine, just how I’d bring myself to getting my trousers washed ever so often, if I wasn’t allowed the luxury of wearing jeans to college…that can go unwashed for weeks together. Months sometimes, if they manage not to stink!

And yet somehow, there were these students from Bangalore, who couldn't’t understand what the fuss was all about. They couldn't’t get my sense of revolt.. and I couldn't’t understand their, almost warm acceptance, to this “No jeans” dress code.

I mean, no short tops for girls, I understand. No spaghetti straps in college, I understand. No miniskirts in college, regretfully so, but I still understand. But goddammit, it’s jeans! Its what we live in!

And that’s when it made sense to do this take Minus 30 around the country to see what makes the youth tick, and so differently, at that! That and the fact that we wanted to do something new..of course.

For my cousin in Simla, her Bombay trip was not going to be complete without a trip to Mc’Donalds. I swear, on the counter..had she drooled anymore, I’d need a mop to clean my sneakers! Although the fact is, to her a burger (56 grams of fat in under five minutes, btw!) had the same effect on her peer group, like wearing a Ck shirt maybe perhaps would for me. It was her definition of ‘cool’.

So there she was, gormandising this burger, something she viewed as a symbol of being well travelled and ‘with it’. And here I was, thinking, I hope to god you have a treadmill back home in Simla! Quite like some insurance ad, (if I remember correctly ) that stems on -different people, different needs.

So that’s what the showz going to be around this season. The burgers, the jeans.. and the larger idea of understanding things you can only understand when you are in that space. Why do boys and girls have separate water-coolers in some college in B’lore? And what’s the reason, an engineer wants to return to Assam after years of studying abroad to finally help his father with his cardamoms? All that and much more unfolds, as Minus 30 returns, May 19th…… (this is where I imagine you sitting in your chair applauding) ;)