[Cute.Sid]

OK so maybe some students of a famed b-school were caught cursing on a camera. Maybe it is an important issue that some of the brightest minds in our country who some of the less bright look up to behave in an obscene manner. It is something which should be debated over. But how can putting the video, which is well circulated over some of the most popular uploadings, in PG spotlight be justified. It has been just about 3 days and the thread has more than 20,000 views. What was the need to publicize the video?
Anyone obtain the unedited version of the clip by performing a simple search. Why publicize such a clip just to make the junta aware of so called "traditions" and have a good debate? Why do those girls have to pay just because they belong to a famed b-school and were recorded uttering profanities?

Aren't we capable of having a good debate without making someone a scapegoat?

[The Raven]

Originally Posted by shrikanthk

I don't think colleges ought to be in the business of imparting moral education

I disagree. Let me give you an example. Say your a company making branded computer with monitors alone sourced from a different company. So if the monitor is poor you can't I am not in the business of making monitors. The brand is for the entire package your selling and thats how the brand will be evaluated. Same is the case with college brands. The entire person who emerges out of the college is evaluated holistically and thats what makes the brand of the college. If a person from a college is caught for corruption, it does bring ill repute to a college. So the same way the computer company has to take steps to ensure quality of the monitor, colleges have to ensure good morals among its students.

[The Raven]

Originally Posted by abhishek1711

unverified -

SNIP
Reason given in the post below.

Moderators please edit this guy's signature to remove the link to the other site having the original video. I think his signature is against PG rules too as it is a link to a commercial site.

[abhishek1711]

Originally Posted by monsterkartik

Dude, its a sincere request to remove these names from the post, please edit it asap . This is no way to put up some names here , if they committed a crime, i think you are also doing the same by specifying all these names and uploading these videos on different sites and your blog. Would again request you to edit your post

Cheers

MK

only if they had accepted the mistakes and expressed remorse....instead they defend with baseless logics like - women empowerment, campus culture etc etc - so if they arent ashamed of it , what harm in having thier names in open if its so cool and common for these pple ???

[Jackal]

Well the train of thoughts seems very lost and direction less, even after some great points being thrown around on this thread. Was trying to avoid posting on this thread, but that wasn’t to be.

Well I know the HQ gang long enough to understand their intentions behind this but as someone said, we can agree to disagree and still be friends.

Putting my perspective clearly, I am one of those people who advocate legalization of prostitution.If both the concerned parties are willing and gaining something out of the whole process, I as a part of this society should have no reasons to blame anyone for a practice which exists but is as useless to me as my appendix. I liberally use all kind of slang myself in my language has got nothing to do with me advocating any sides on this thread.

My take:
Swearing is like smoking, a personal choice. So no point discussing that here, the point here is that ‘people are being forced’ to do that.

I say if people are smart enough to get into premier B-schools, are they not smart enough to avoid situations which they don’t like? (Read: getting coached for tasteless swearing)
Oh yeah and if they can’t, just for the fear of being ostracized, don’t they deserve the situation they are in?
These are the situations in life which build your strength, even if you go with the practice or against it; it builds some spine for you. I would very clearly classify these people as losers who:
- Cannot accept a certain practice and yet not protest against it.
- Crib to third parties like PG rather than solving their problem with college authorities or the people who are ‘forcing’ them to get involved in such begrime activities.

Talking about healthy practices, which is the government sector which has highest spending of our tax-payers money? I hope you all know what kind of ragging incidents happen in their training institutes. Don’t these institutes have the finest gentlemen and the bravest people we have in our country? Do you know how much such ‘crass’ activities have a role in making them what they are?? If something does not work for you, it does not make an activity useless or demeaning to all.

There are a lot of choices this world give you. Nobody and I repeat Nobody can force you to do anything. It’s always the choices you make (compromises are also choices you make).

Putting the ‘forced’ issue at rest, coming back to the initial analogy I gave, your appendix does get infected at times, but this is not that. What you are trying to do is pull out the appendix just like that so that you never get appendicitis.

C’mon dude Apurv, you can do better than Tehelka. I think you can gain solace from the fact that whoever has tried to change the world has been protested against in a similar way, but is that really what you are doing? You are really very very lost or on a useless tangential plane which just gives your own self some satisfaction. You can write as much as you want for your own pleasure but PG is a people’s forum ain’t it?? C’mon dude.. do some introspection. I’ll wait for your reply.

[Apurv]

Originally Posted by abhishek1711

only if they had accepted the mistakes and expressed remorse....instead they defend with baseless logics like - women empowerment, campus culture etc etc - so if they arent ashamed of it , what harm in having thier names in open if its so cool and common for these pple ???

Abhishek,

I think the point we are arguing is that it is not their individual mistake for which they should be punished, but the culture that propogates coaching of abusing. To a large extent this is the college's responsibility to moderate it because left to itself, any bunch of people will deteriorate their collective behaviour.

This is not also an XLRI and IIM C thing but stretches across to a lot more campuses, as you have seen people reporting in the previous posts. So let's focus on the ill rather than people.

[rockball]

Originally Posted by shrikanthk

I don't think colleges ought to be in the business of imparting moral education

I fail to comprehend why we're talking abt educational institutions while discussing an issue which is clearly beyond their realm. India today is in the throes of a cultural revolution similar to what the West experienced in the sixties. Ideas of what constitutes acceptable behavior have altered radically. I'm not trying to launch a defence of contemporary culture. But it is pointless to be a "Golden Age-ist" yearning for a way of life that has sadly gone with the wind.

We're living in an era where a Best-Picture Oscar winning film (The Departed) features over 230 instances of the f-word and its derivatives. Sad, but true.

It is in times of growth or such radical change that ethics count for a lot more. Morals and ethics never go out with the wind. The basic rights and wrongs will remain the same irrespective of the cultural changes sweeping us.

Again, I am not at all against the IIMC-XL fight. Its fantastic to witness that zest and spirit. Frankly there seems nothing spiteful in it and just pure unadulterated fun. There is nothing sad about The Departed too. A brilliant story. Whats good is that enough freedom was given to express the story well.

[pendyal]

Originally Posted by Jackal

Talking about healthy practices, which is the government sector which has highest spending of our tax-payers money? I hope you all know what kind of ragging incidents happen in their training institutes. Don’t these institutes have the finest gentlemen and the bravest people we have in our country? Do you know how much such ‘crass’ activities have a role in making them what they are??

it has been said earlier by someone also that similar incidents happen in the armed forces.....but arent the same armed forces taking a stand now/coming under fire for sexual discrimination and harassment? the same officers who we call gentlemen when they behave disgustingly with their female colleagues are being investigated......wud these army officers keep quiet if their sons/daughters used the same principle of welcoming a new member in the colony in the same way their parents did when ther were students in the academy? i dont think so.......

the fact that it happens in an institution as old and respected as the army doesnt make any of this right.....and we shudnt hide behind this logic......

[Cute.Sid]

Originally Posted by Apurv

Abhishek,

I think the point we are arguing is that it is not their individual mistake for which they should be punished, but the culture that propogates coaching of abusing. To a large extent this is the college's responsibility to moderate it because left to itself, any bunch of people will deteriorate their collective behaviour.

This is not also an XLRI and IIM C thing but stretches across to a lot more campuses, as you have seen people reporting in the previous posts. So let's focus on the ill rather than people.

Exactly. I must say I have got to see some good posts but then again what exactly is the requirement of that video. Don't you think many of the people who are posting on this thread are already aware that these things happen and those who are not could have been made aware by a decent post explaining them how things happen. Yes maybe such things which we consider mundane and don't make a big deal out of it at times may invite some significant views.

But, really why publicize this video in order to support the thread. Just because the faces were blurred does not mean that the task is done. What was the need to publicize such a clip of which unedited version can be obtained by a simple search.

We could have focused on the ill rather than people. There was no need of such a shocking video just to give a clearer picture.( I was not really shocked. However, did found it a bit amusing . Good thing I had the headphones on. ) If one gets to see an edited shocking video, the first thing he wants to know is the source. It is anyone's guess where to find such clips. It is good that we should concentrate on the issue rather than the people involved. But really posting a so called shocking video and naming the thread accordingly does not really help.

My last post on this issue. If I want to post more on this thread I will concentrate on the ill rather than the people involved. Now that majority of people actually have a clearer picture, I think we can do without the shocking video for the rest of the debate.


A b-schooler has to be really careful these days. One unguarded instance of swearing ,next thing you know a video of yours is uploaded on some uploading and you have become a bad example of how your college is not able to moderate itself, exactly in which direction is today's youth heading and how the very people who are taught to be tomorrow's leader give in to peer pressure .

P.S. I thought I had a point to make, will not raise this issue again.

[Oxymoron]

*Rant ahead ..read it at your own discretion *

The more I get into this by talking to people who I know and trust studying in these institutes frankly the more murkier it is getting But speculations aside there are many disturbing undercurrents to these stuff than the rather ostensible “swearing”. First of all these are my personal takes on the couple of issues which has been highlighted in this thread.

1.Swearing as an intimidation technique

2.The IIM A top 5 dorm culture.

This isn’t an attempt to take a “moral superior” stand or anything. Heck anyone who knows me well know that I am liberal to a fault. ( Except of course I am a staunch Conservative when it comes to tolerating stupidity ). So frankly I am all for your right to swear ( What did Voltaire say? “ Thou might be stupid and an imbecile but I shalt protect your right to be one! “ Ok so he said something else in French but it got lost in translation ) .

But the point that really saddens me is here you are supposedly the crème de la crème of India and no doubt “the smartest of women” some have met but when it comes to “intimidation” all you can do is, gasp!, come up with swearing?? ( Imagine the expression of the scientists when the super computer which was to answer the qn of meaning of life, universe and everything came up with “F***”. ) Of course of course no one means it etc etc but that doesn’t deny the fact that for an outsider it is very surprising. And here’s another thing about “swearing”.

It’s very very uncool. Take that and smoke it in your pipe. I don’t know about you but if I see someone ranting and raving my first impression is to ignore him and not take the person seriously. And no Tarantino’s dialogue is not art. You are not being a rebel. You are being an idiot.

You are welcome to swear needlessly and worse as “intimidation” technique but allow me to ignore you and declare your behavior, well for want of a better word, crass.

Point 2 about expressing the sexual fantasies. I think it’s a great idea! In fact I would say with some people the only meaningful conversation I can possibly have is to discuss their sexual fantasies. I am not going to take any moral high stand that it “objectifies” women and denigrates their feminity. Heck, I subscribe to the view point that the homo sapiens species are nothing but automatons and seriously how much more reductionist can you get than that?

But what I really object to is the under current of patriarchcal influence here. I mean I found it extremely unfair that not all are invited to the party so the women can choose their top 5 ( men or women. We are all for equal opportunity ) and comment on what they would like to do to the men. ( What was that about castration anxiety? ) . Wouldn’t it be delightful if we could recreate Stanley Kubric’s “Eyes Wide Shut” part deux ?

But actually my greatest disappointment from the posts here is that there was not one single person who posted that

1. 1. Yes I like Swearing and I do it out of my own volition. Sue me.

2. 2. Yes I have sexual fantasies about my friends. Your problem being?

But no. they had to take refuge in “tradition” ( “Oh I wouldn’t dream of swearing and I am goody too shoes but then you know it’s the culture and tradition..in other words I was a kind of victim though I had fun “ ).

We have a term for that. Called Sheep mentality.

Ok here’s a simple thought experiment. Make a laundry list of your dorm culture and ask your director to ratify it. No marks for guessing what he would do. Why is it so hard for you guys to come out of your “institutionalized” mentality and understand exactly how all this seems to an outsider? And what’s with the asinine argument that “You are not part of the institute so don’t comment”? Really? Is that the best retort you can come up with? Has anyone ever tried taking a democratic poll of your own students and see what they actually think of all these “traditions”?

And what’s with the post rationalization that all this prepares you for the “big bad world” outside ?

Right. This is what happens outside. Board room meetings where one swears at one other.

It builds “character” indeed.

And now you want to shoot the messenger. Awesome way of damage control.

*End of rant *