Post by Nikhil Sheth on Feb 26, 2014 11:40:40 GMT 5.5
One of the younger people on our team was assigned with accommodation responsibilities. First because of the non-closing of registrations, they got the data they needed very very late. Then, when they were assigning accommodations, there was direct interference from one of the senior organizers.
In the case of non-family people, accommodation was being planned to put males in a room and females in a next room and still overall to keep it mixed. No one from the ground team had any issues with that, it would have kept things in balance; given singles a chance to interact with the opposite sex in a safe way yet not make anyone too uncomfortable. But the senior got into Brahmin mode and decreed that all the men and all the women should be put in separate 'wadas', far away from each other. He easily overrided the much younger person who was assigned the responsibility. What happened as a result, is very poorly understood by a sexually segregated culture so I'll have to elaborate.
When you do not have a natural mix of sexes, both sides get more desperate and the healthy interactions that we want, lose possibility. When all the women have to only be around each other, they don't get along. The boys get along, but the conversations go into non-constructive domains. There was a total loss of socializing space in the mornings and night.
Plus, safety as a whole was reduced in the night time. The locations were big, spread out and everything was out of eyeshot and earshot, and it was easy to get lost.
What happened in the place of healthy interactions, was not foreseen at all. Being in an all-guys wada, some of the guys made the common room a smoking/drinking den. From the second night of the even itself it had begun, but in the atmosphere of love-all no one took any action. Some participants who are of more aggressive type were in these groups and their presence scared the others.
From the very initial stages of the event, it had been explicitly shared that smoking and drinking within the campus's facilities was a strict no-no. To do this in the common room of all places, whose one wall is all glass and the insides are visible to everyone passing by, plus it has the only drinking water cooler in the area and the common kitchen : this was not just people in need because of addiction; it was a typical college-style dare; look, we can do this and get away with it, kya kool hai hum, to hell with authority. People could have done the same things easily in secret : this act of occupying the common room for the purpose, was not out of physical needs of addiction (as was mentioned in their defense), it was a symbolic statement meant to impress upon everyone else and assert power/ego/whatever. And this put the organizers in direct violation of the use of the venue. There were security guards there and of course this wouldn't have been any secret from the venue staff and managers.
While I was pointing fingers at the immediately visible culprits at first, after hindsight I no longer share the view of "hey this is wrong, how dare they so and so", and I have no agreement with the way this issue was addressed at the end of the event, with the senior organizers marching to the "gents" wada and taking the guys to task and burning the midnight oil scolding them while they (so predictably) lied outright and denied that any of it took place. It's like a person has titled an open bottle downwards, and is then scolding the water inside for flowing out. I saw this as an unpredictable yet inevitable consequence of the Brahminical interference, and all culpability I put on the senior who interfered and overrode the plans of the accommodation-in-charge the day before the event.
Why? Had there been a healthy mix of males and females in adjoining rooms, all the common rooms would be serving wadas with a mixed gender population. With a sizeable number of women around, those guys would NOT have been able pull the stunt and pollute the air of the common room (it was totally sickening for me every time I went in to get water, plus I got teased by the ringleader) in front of a steady stream of women of different ages regularly coming in to drink water; mixed groups coming in to use the common room for what it's supposed to be used for : healthy conversations and activities together. The situation that came up here, was a result of bad design. In stark comparison, I found out later that the common rooms of the other wadas were used for cooking, playing, rich discussions.. and we totally missed out on all of that.
So, regarding Accommodation, my feedback : A mixed gender distribution, with logical separation at the inside-room levels, is WAY MORE safer than out and out segregation.
And, to the seniors : Please do not interfere with the people who have taken responsibilities. If you know their intentions are right (which is why they got the charge in the first place), then just go with the flow. You do not know all of what is good and what is bad for the event, esp when it comes to handling younger populations. Times are different and your parameters are outdated.
In the case of non-family people, accommodation was being planned to put males in a room and females in a next room and still overall to keep it mixed. No one from the ground team had any issues with that, it would have kept things in balance; given singles a chance to interact with the opposite sex in a safe way yet not make anyone too uncomfortable. But the senior got into Brahmin mode and decreed that all the men and all the women should be put in separate 'wadas', far away from each other. He easily overrided the much younger person who was assigned the responsibility. What happened as a result, is very poorly understood by a sexually segregated culture so I'll have to elaborate.
When you do not have a natural mix of sexes, both sides get more desperate and the healthy interactions that we want, lose possibility. When all the women have to only be around each other, they don't get along. The boys get along, but the conversations go into non-constructive domains. There was a total loss of socializing space in the mornings and night.
Plus, safety as a whole was reduced in the night time. The locations were big, spread out and everything was out of eyeshot and earshot, and it was easy to get lost.
What happened in the place of healthy interactions, was not foreseen at all. Being in an all-guys wada, some of the guys made the common room a smoking/drinking den. From the second night of the even itself it had begun, but in the atmosphere of love-all no one took any action. Some participants who are of more aggressive type were in these groups and their presence scared the others.
From the very initial stages of the event, it had been explicitly shared that smoking and drinking within the campus's facilities was a strict no-no. To do this in the common room of all places, whose one wall is all glass and the insides are visible to everyone passing by, plus it has the only drinking water cooler in the area and the common kitchen : this was not just people in need because of addiction; it was a typical college-style dare; look, we can do this and get away with it, kya kool hai hum, to hell with authority. People could have done the same things easily in secret : this act of occupying the common room for the purpose, was not out of physical needs of addiction (as was mentioned in their defense), it was a symbolic statement meant to impress upon everyone else and assert power/ego/whatever. And this put the organizers in direct violation of the use of the venue. There were security guards there and of course this wouldn't have been any secret from the venue staff and managers.
While I was pointing fingers at the immediately visible culprits at first, after hindsight I no longer share the view of "hey this is wrong, how dare they so and so", and I have no agreement with the way this issue was addressed at the end of the event, with the senior organizers marching to the "gents" wada and taking the guys to task and burning the midnight oil scolding them while they (so predictably) lied outright and denied that any of it took place. It's like a person has titled an open bottle downwards, and is then scolding the water inside for flowing out. I saw this as an unpredictable yet inevitable consequence of the Brahminical interference, and all culpability I put on the senior who interfered and overrode the plans of the accommodation-in-charge the day before the event.
Why? Had there been a healthy mix of males and females in adjoining rooms, all the common rooms would be serving wadas with a mixed gender population. With a sizeable number of women around, those guys would NOT have been able pull the stunt and pollute the air of the common room (it was totally sickening for me every time I went in to get water, plus I got teased by the ringleader) in front of a steady stream of women of different ages regularly coming in to drink water; mixed groups coming in to use the common room for what it's supposed to be used for : healthy conversations and activities together. The situation that came up here, was a result of bad design. In stark comparison, I found out later that the common rooms of the other wadas were used for cooking, playing, rich discussions.. and we totally missed out on all of that.
So, regarding Accommodation, my feedback : A mixed gender distribution, with logical separation at the inside-room levels, is WAY MORE safer than out and out segregation.
And, to the seniors : Please do not interfere with the people who have taken responsibilities. If you know their intentions are right (which is why they got the charge in the first place), then just go with the flow. You do not know all of what is good and what is bad for the event, esp when it comes to handling younger populations. Times are different and your parameters are outdated.