Shakespeare said the world is a stage, and I’ve always said that Universities are great theatres in which to hear some of the world’s most riveting debates. You’ll get the hottest issues argued by the sharpest tongues and finest minds (although you’re just as likely to find such delightful duelling via the screen more than on stage, in these oh-so-digital days.)
Oddly enough, students’ love lives are the source of one such roaring debate at the Lahore University of Management Science a prestigious Pakistani educational institute. The tete-a-tete started when a female Pakistani student sent a mass email on the university’s mailing saying she sick of “on-campus indecency.” One student has described the mail entitled “To love or not to love,” as a “social suicide bomb.”
According to an article in Zee News from October 09.The Lahore University of Management Sciences (or LUMS for short) is “divided between conservative, retro-revisionists, ultra-modern, party-hopping and next-generation liberals.”
Great! Sounds Like Fun… Where Are the Matriculation Forms, Please?
The anonymous, yet sincerely outraged female student who sparked this heartfelt debate claimed some senior students have to “seek physical consolation from the members of opposite sex many times in a day” on campus and in public sight. In fact, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, she went as far to provide specific examples and collected photographic evidence.
“Standing at the main entrance, a girl stands on tip of her toes and kisses a boy good bye; lying in the lawn in front of the library, a boy rolls over the girl lying down beside him and remains in this posture; sitting in the academic block, a boy constantly rubs a girl’s leg…”
Is The Bigger Picture – Crooked?
To round up her case in point, the student claims that because of such behaviour, “aunties spread rumours that doubt the chastity of girls studying at LUMS.” Calling for a “religious, cultured and social” environment at the campus, she asked the university administration to outline an inter-gender code of conduct on campus.
Well, fair point I guess, after everyone is entitled to their opinions, but to love or love not, you just can’t please all of the people all of the time…
Strong Responses on Campus
The anonymous students calls for discretion have met with a flurry of responses. Some endorse her requests; others dismiss her allegations of ruin to the institute (and its female students’) reputations.
One commenter questioned why she had tolerated such behaviour for almost four years, yet chose to bring it to light just 6 months before she was due to leave LUMS.
The “I Have Sinned” Email.
One Pakistani male student added his confessional to the great love debate of Lahore.
“I shave twice a week and my ‘painchas’ (trousers) hang obstinately below my heels. I have a penchant for ties that resemble the Christian cross and my satanic dress code is causing me to stray far, far away from the straight path. During the holy month, instead of attending Quranic recitals in the mosque, I was listening to the demonic sounds of Pink Floyd.”
He blamed “deviant professors” for this transition, whose theories, he claimed, made his moral compass go awry.
The debate continues…
