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Have you ever studied in an all-girls school or college? I did when I passed out of school and joined the prestigious Sophia’s College in Mumbai. Till then over multiple cities, I had always studied in co-ed schools. That was the only normal I knew. In a sense, I feel that a normalcy around male-female relationships is inculcated early on when one actively encourages friendship with the opposite sex in children and also a natural, easy mingling of the two. So, I was used to having boys around and quite enjoyed their company. But, lo and behold, enter a college that felt worse than a prison.

If you had wardens and deans like we had in Sophia’s who ran the place with an iron fist, you would feel so too. The discipline was worse than school. College was meant to be more fun, right! It did not seem so. There were so many young women around, only women which felt really strange. There were some who’d wear burkhas while traveling and then emerge out of it dressed in trendy clothes and complete makeup. Style was the mantra! Of course, there were male teachers in the college but very few. So they were in great demand with the girls. I remember a Physics prof who most girls found very cute :).

And there was a definite invisible entity in the college everywhere – boys! I mean they were on every girl’s mind, and they were definitely in conversations. What I also found amusing is that each look and each comment of a guy they knew was thrashed out in detail perhaps because they attached much more to the entire interaction. Yes I saw a sort of obsessiveness in the girls even a desperation to be wooed, courted, loved and paid attention to. Somewhere, boys had an all-pervasive presence because of their absence. And we had a Polytechnic attached to the college which had men enrolled as well. No wonder, many girls found excuses to go buy yummy goodies and ogle at the boys there :). The discipline was stifling. And frankly I found this “aura” around men quite amusing.

And outside the college, there was a steady stream of boys. On any given day, you would find bikes with good looking boys parked outside the college gates.  A premier South Mumbai college, it was a matter of prestige to have a Sophia girl as your girlfriend. And, yes Karishma Kapoor was studying in the college in my time. I saw her perform in some song and dance when she participated in the extremely popular Fest of the college.  I think she dropped out during her 12th or after it, not sure. All of us got a massive discount in fees that were already pretty low to begin with for being girls. Not that most of us needed it given the profile of the girls who studied there.

After two years, I changed college to do my graduation in Chemistry. Guess what, Sophia’s did not offer graduation in Chemistry or Physics in those days because apparently girls did not opt for it! It was pretty well known for its Biology specializations. Even if they had offered it, I was ready to go. I was happy to get out and get into a college where I could bunk sometimes and be back to having male friends in my life. I do adore the men in my life :). They make for the best of pals.

For the men who were sulking after International Women’s Day, this post is a light-hearted effort to tell you how much you matter to us. We dig your presence in our life. Life is rather dull without you!

Of course, ek ladka aur ek ladki bahut achche dost ho sakte hain! Stupid Bollywood movies!

Pic courtesy: Freedigitalphotos.net

91 Thoughts on “The men in our lives!

  1. Nyc post….. Keep wriiting

  2. By and large men do make good friends….straightforward and uncomplicated. I studied in an all girls school and regret it. A healthy interaction during growing years is mandatory.

    • I agree Alka! They are uncomplicated and no unnecessary jealousies are in place as well. I think, it does matter a lot to our confidence and to our interactions in life with them depending on how healthy our childhood interactions with them have been.

  3. interesting post ! ”
    I too went to a girls college (GCG chandigarh) after studying in Co-ed till 12th and was taken aback by the goonda gardi there !
    When the sexes are together there appears to be a mutual civilizing effect:
    and the pre-occupation with the Boys ( meeting them,impressing them ,seducing them )is also soo much less

  4. I did my BCom in an all girls. And was shocked really. I mean girls took care to look good, there was more domination etc but luckinly it was govt. collee and not so strict. Those were the best 3 years of my life

    • College is always fun, Bhagya. In fact our years in school and college are the best years of my life. But compared to my school and other college experiences, this one was a bit of a let down. Not to say that I don’t have girlfriends from back then that I did not enjoy with.

  5. Nice read..:-)

  6. Never studied at an all girls school/college so I have no idea what it feels when you don’t have men for company. They do make great friends. Kudos to the men in our life, as well as the men-bloggers around us. 🙂

  7. Nice post, Rachna. Boys and girls, when they study together have a healthy attitude towards life, which they develop in co-ed school/college..

    • Thank you Ushaji! I agree too. I believe parents should encourage this as a way of getting boys and girls comfortable around each other as well as in developing a healthy outlook among genders.

  8. Interesting post, and ditto my thoughts for the same college! Getting out of there was a relief indeed!

  9. At last someone sees virtues in men:)Co ed is the only way to to bring out the best of a healthy relationship and develop bettter understanding between the sexes, as ou summed up Rachna!

  10. Ha Ha. Nice. I am reminded of my Bulgarian friend who used to tell me men make much better room mates.

    Guess true the other way round also. I know from personal experience. After 12 years of next to no interaction with women, when I landed up among a crowd of girls at a software company, my head was literally spinning all the time. Took me close to a year to get used to it.

  11. Rachna your post is especially informative to me because my daughter graduated from Sophia College Ajmer.I found all this very amusing & am satisfied that we chose such a caring college.Haha i know you disagree–just joking!!!

    • hehe Indu! I gave you my views as a student, and your views are that of a parent :). Of course, you may disagree. In all honesty, it is better to let girls and boys interact in a normal manner right from childhood.

  12. I studied at an all girls school and it was the same atmosphere. Since I always had boys as friends while growing up, I too used to find it amusing.

  13. vishalrathod76 on March 11, 2013 at 5:01 pm said:

    Wonderful Rachna.
    Never read something like this…A very good one .

    Travel India

  14. Pretty much the same with me, co-ed till school and College was a nightmare. It was just yours, daughter of a Chief Justice was our principal and she was so strict that we had stairs and washrooms marked. Adding to our misery was the appointment of Kiran Bedi in Chandigarh which meant no boys even outside College gates. Seriously, life sans boys a’int fun…

  15. Now I can heave a sigh of relief! I had just about concluded that the women of the world had decided to dispense with us guys 🙂

  16. My situation was exactly like yours. I went to a co-ed till 10th, and then an all girls christian college till 12th. Gawwdd!!! It freaked me out. And that was the time when I got into more trouble without having any guys as friends. I can completely imagine each scene you described. Unfortunately, I had to do my Grad also in a women’s college as it was the best in town. That was not bad as I had plenty of guys to hang around after college in the tuition and all that..I always had less hassles with them than women..Man!! I need men in my life…the more, the better 🙂 Just loved this one!!

  17. I went to a co-ed high school where the boys outnumbered the girls five to one and where teachers actively discouraged us from speaking to members of the opposite sex. (I remember one teacher telling us to “pretend that the girls don’t exist”.) I don’t know what’s worse, going to a single-sex school or going to a co-ed where you’re not allowed to speak to one another.

    Junior college was an all-boys affair, but the girls were housed within the same campus in a different building. We used to catch glimpses of their feet on our visits to the mess and back. I remember I developed a crush on a girl who used to wear a pink salwar, white pajamas and Bata slippers to her study hour. I have no idea to this day what she must have looked like.

    I think we’re all built the same way. As much as we crib and rant about the other sex, we need them in our lives. Nature has bound us together and there’s no getting away.

    • Hi Sharath, Welcome to my blog! Thank yo for sharing your experience so candidly. I find it so foolish that something so natural is made hullaballoo about. Wow, now that girl in pink salwar story seems so much like a movie! Yes, men and women complement each other. And the more we are allowed to mingle and feel natural in each other’s company, the better it is for society at large.

  18. LOL!! Cute post, Rachna! Yes, I remember those teenage hormonal times! Who said girls don’t lust after boys!! 😀 Especially the more conservative girls used to be pretty batty over boys!!

    • 🙂 And therein lies what I am trying to say. People think that by cloistering they are suppressing what is an otherwise natural interaction among the sexes. The effect is quite the opposite, I am afraid!

  19. Very cute. You are so right… men are so important and specially when they are not easily seen 😉

  20. Most of my schooling was in all-girls convent schools, grad in all-girls university and PG in co-ed. But never have I been overly conscious about the boy-girl factor, perhaps because of the way we’ve been brought up and treated and also the friend circle which has largely been a gang of tom-boys! Albeit, I certainly understand where you’re coming from, as I have seen such out-of-control girls in my grad school, who were so desperate to just have a glimpse of the boys!

  21. I was nodding my head throughout the post 🙂
    I studied in co-ed till class 12th and then has to join an all girls college because of some admission problems…those were the worst days of my academic career. Ragging was there which anyway revolved around lusting boys…ewww!! and as you mentioned discussions about boys & boys only was there when those girls talked. I was lucky to change that college after couple of months when I got through some subjects of my choice in a co-ed college. I yearned for a healthy or just friendly chit-chat with my male friends.

    • Absolutely! I can so understand what you went through. It is kind of a freaky place these girls-all schools or colleges. Thanks for stopping by Nibedita!

  22. I have never understood the concept of seperating males and females in schools. I think it is very degrading and uncivilized. I have never studied in a boys only institute. Such places should be banned.
    Such places make you too conscious about interacting with the opposite sex and face the world.

    • Exactly Amit! How stupid the entire concept is. And this is the crux of treating men and women differently and making a hue and cry of normal intermingling of the sexes.

  23. I have studied in all girls school, Sophia (a strict one at that) and again in an all girls college. Our gang of science stream girls just couldn’t see beyond the labs and dissections. But I know there were a lot of girls who were so very crazy about the cousins/brothers coming to drop sisters or the boys from the neighboring engineering college. Some of them were simply obsessed! 😀

  24. you are absolutely right …men do make great friends … and life would be boring with out men

  25. Haha..nice one! I do find men to be more uncomplicated in friendships! 🙂

  26. insignia on March 12, 2013 at 7:15 pm said:

    Cute! Yeah I think most of us were in a similar situation. I did my schooling in an al-girls convent, then 11th and 12th in all girls college. The engineering days had co-ed but the guys were behaving like girls! But ever since I joined worked, my gang is a big gang of all boys and me the only girl and its nice I can bond with them more. They do matter to us a lot in all walks of life

  27. Life is dull without them. True 🙂

  28. Such a sweet post Rachna 🙂 I can imagine that as I too did my schooling in an all girls school with strict rules. Although college was a co-ed, those days we did not have the opportunity to mingle much with the boys. But those few boys I had made friends during that time have been the best friends.

  29. Grin!!! What a women’s day post!!! I enjoyed it–more not from being so different a post on such a day but because your writing style in this has evolved to an almost D.H.Lawrence like psychological take and analysis of the situation. I just loved how you documented girls’ lives in the girls’ college-the words flowed and the thoughts so utterly delicate. For me, in terms of writing (not topic), this is your best piece that I have read till date.

  30. Rachna..
    It’s, crazy.
    I have posted comments here twice,but,they disappear.
    Kya Karen?

  31. Interesting read, I agree that males make better pals.

  32. “boys had an all-pervasive presence because of their absence” funny line 🙂 I do agree that its not fun being in an all girls institution…In the name of being strict they can go crazy!

  33. I so agree with few of your lines about Men making best pals, and how they are always present by their absence in all girls institutes and how life is plain boring without them. Life is indeed incomplete without them 🙂

  34. When I studied in the women’s college, I missed my male friends from school too. They were instant helpers who never wanted anything in return. Their innocence and let-go attitude can never be fully imbibed by us. Nice read!

  35. I studied in a girl’s college too after doing my schooling in co-ed schools. It was definitely a different experience. Yes, the whole aura around boys was kind of weird too. But I really enjoyed my three years there. Perhaps it was because it wasn’t ‘that’ strict or anything or may be some really good friends I found there. But yes, there were silly rules – which were seldom or never followed. 😉
    And I do believe one must study in a co-ed at least at some point. A sweet post for the men in our lives. 🙂

  36. I had both the experiences, however, I enjoyed studying in the all girls college very much. Anyway, boys were always around, whether one liked them or not.And we also had one very handsome professor teaching Company law, and also unmarried, and we all used to watch out for him although he was not teaching us. College days are always fun, and when we look back now, we often wonder how we could have behaved like that.

  37. i’ve always studied in a co-ed school so has no idea how it feels to be from only boys or only girls school .. but 1 thing i would like to say while i was in school we hardly used to talk to girls considering i was very shy and secondly i thought girls are dumb .. no offense .. this thinking was then not anymore…!

  38. Very true. I have always studied in a co-ed and have no idea what it is like to study in an all-girls school.

  39. Well written. I hope few of the feminists too read this post. Mingling between guys and girls at a very early age makes the understanding better and in a way, removes the other evils. People who studied in co-ed schools and colleges are the ones who gain respect from the opposite sex.

  40. Been in co-ed through -out ! Dont think I would enjoy an all girls school or college ! At the risk of sounding let me also say that sometimes boys make better pals 🙂

  41. haha…good one Rachna. i have been a co-ed through out but yup i can imagine how it will be without guys!!! and, yes boys do make good pals. of course girl friends are also important!!!

  42. absolutely, we need both sexes in our lives :). Thanks for reading, Swati!

  43. Hi, Just read through. Hey, initially I saw only the title and had posted today on the same topic but yours was a light hearted take and mine was an emotional one 🙂 Anyway, what you have said is true. We need the men in our lives. They make life more interesting ::)

    • hehe Poornima! I have come across a lot of male bashing in the blogosphere. While there are many evil men and women around, that is no reason for singling out a gender for condemnation whenever we speak about women’s rights or crimes against women. Thanks for reading! The take is lighthearted but the message is deeper :).

  44. Ha! We have a day too 🙂 Nice

  45. Really can’t say much more than, Thank You, Rachna. To be honest, it’s a refreshing change to see “men” being appreciated. And of course, it’s a great post!

  46. Thank you, Sid! It makes me feel sad that an entire gender is painted negative regularly quite often whenever something hateful happens to women. I have read enough rabid posts and updates to understand that. Why has it transcended to a war between the genders instead of a war against evil no matter in what gender that comes is what something I’ve never understood? Thanks for reading!

  47. I think guys make good pals. Less complicated relationships actually. I have some good pals in my life I am really grateful for !

Do not leave without commenting. I love a good conversation :).

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