THE iNFINITY

Of egos and clashes

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In my rather uneventful life, I have never had the opportunity to see mob clashes or even a stampede to say the least. So media reports that said weird things about people loosing limbs and in extreme cases even their lives, seemed a rather dubious exaggeration to me, of course unless they were supported by video footage, the one you would classify as high quality.
That, was until yesterday. My presumptions and notions about what a mob can do, have undergone a drastic change in the one night that it was.
It all happened in my university yesterday. The build up was rather stupefied, but when I look back at the whole thing, I have problem figuring out, what was not. It started with a junior asking a senior for a glass of water, a case of mistaken identity, as far as I would like to believe, but that was just about where the mistake part of it finished off. From there on, insanity took control, as two majestic egos clashed and what followed were rounds of gang fights with honors being shared equally, depending upon where the fight had occurred and which camp had a stronghold. So what was it with the mob that makes me write a whole blog post?
That is where the great human tendency came into the picture. People who were not even close to the two parties fighting over a trifle, joined hands and voices in support and soon we had a complete buildup to a riot steaming over. I could see some of my seemingly sane friends as a part of the herd. "Are they crazy or what? ", I asked myself rather sheepishly.
But then Samuel Johnson's speech after the tyranny came to my mind - "Get together a hundred or two men, however sensible they may be, and you are very likely to have a mob."
So what I was seeing in front of my eyes was indeed a mob that could turn violent any moment and turn the tables. The administrative and teaching staff's fear at being faced with the ever mounting number, literally baying for each others blood was all but visible. And soon it happened.
Students from a so called professional IT university were striking each other with what ever they thought, was a good enough weapon. And in no time, we had 15 or so on the injured list with an additional bill of what is referred to as loss of property.
And in between, during the pauses, every now and then, a retort to violent ways was being applauded, both sides. They say " It is proof of a bad cause when it is being applauded by a mob", which meant this cause did not require any more proof of what it was.
Some two bloody and nerve wrecking hours later, the situation was brought under control when the registrar arrived at the scene with the police in tow.
And what followed on the morrow, i.e. today was a series of suspensions and restrictions on students moving around. But things had begun to settle back on track already, as if the surreal happenings of the day before were just that, a mere dream.
And all this over... a glass of water?
Ah! So much for the clash of egos.

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2 reflected back...:

in such a confusion u were remembering Samuel Johnson's speech ????


I'm reading gandhi's autobiography these days...
so it was kind of there in my mind at the time.


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