Jamia Notebook – Reading Edward Said in Gulistan-e-Chomsky General by The Delhi Walla - July 3, 20084 GO STRAIGHT TO CITY CLASSIFIEDS & CITY EVENTSGO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries. Jamia Millia University is Delhi’s gateway to the world’s most eclectic personalities. [Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi] What has Noam Chomsky to do with the burger eating, Levi-wearing, Gucci-buying, mall going, America-dreaming generation? Can Yasser Arafat be a pop icon? The Delhi Walla urges you to take a walk in the Jamia Millia University. It is the Capital’s only campus where these much-ignored idols seem to be in. Institutions, centers, halls, gardens, gates and even lanes are named after personalities as eclectic and diverse as Qurratulain Hyder, Habib Tanvir and Mridula Sarabhai. There is Noam Chomsky Complex, the big Edward Said Hall, the smaller Yasser Arafat Hall (why is Arundhati Roy missing?), and the smallest K M Ashraf Hall named after the Marxist historian. Not to forget the coolest spot to hang out – the Castro Café with its award-winning white and black design. There are the slew of buildings named after freedom fighters: Gulistan-i-Gandhi, Jauhar Bagh, Sarojini Naidu Centre for Women’s Studies, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Enclave, S R Kidwai Hostel, Zakir Husain Library, the Ansari Auditorium and a residential complex named after Hakim Ajmal Khan. Athlete-types can jog down the Saadat Hasan Manto Lane. If you like cricket, there’s Virendra Sehwag Viewer’s Gallery in the university cricket grounds, named after its famous alumni. The most interesting incident of naming, by far, is the Hall of Girls’ Residence named after Halide Edibe, a Turkish novelist, historian and feminist political leader who stayed at the Jamia in 1935. What’s in a name? You might say. Plenty…as far as the Jamia authorities are concerned. A name may reflect an entire worldview. For students, names of institutions, buildings, parks and gates can have lasting memories. Perhaps when all else has dimmed, the memory of sitting in the Bagh-e-Nanak – with a good book, or a good friend, or both – will outlive all else. Tanumoy Misra, M Sc(Final) student in Bio Informatics, derives a simple pleasure from looking up at the immense Ghalib statue every day. He says, “When I pass by the Dabistan-i-Ghalib, I am reminded of the golden age of poetry.” For the faculty names can be resonant with deeper meanings. As the Jamia’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Mushirul Hasan, says, “These names reflect Jamia’s cosmopolitan and secular character reflecting a continuity in its history and a link with future.” The Delhi Walla agree totally, sir. FacebookX Related Related posts: Campus Notepad – Reading Chomsky in Gulistan-e-Gandhi City Hangout – Castro Café, Jamia Millia Islamia City Monument – Mirza Ghalib’s Statue, Jamia Millia Islamia University City Hangout – Batla House Qabristan, Near Jamia Millia Islamia University Letter from Jamia Millia – One Night in the Boys' Hostel
i wonder if the name has some bearing on the pedagogy of the university…have my doubts but can never be too sure. hope it does and hope Chomsky is not just reduced to a complex…
If all the kids I see wearing kaffiyahs at my university, and the pro-Palestine turnout at the Israeli 60th anniversary celebrations are any indication at all, then Yasser Arafat can most certainly be (and already is) a youth pop icon (now let’s hope he is not degraded the way Ernesto “Che” Guevara was). But there you go again with basing the present college-age generation (less than a decade younger than you, I conjecture) on mere superficialities. I’ve been discussing Chomsky with my friends and classmates since I was 15, and we are very much a part of the, well, “the burger eating, Levi-wearing, Gucci-buying, mall going, America-dreaming generation.” Ok, random rants about your generalizations of my “generation” aside, this was a great little piece. I love how the names that these Jamia buildings have automatically infuse character into the place because you connect the building with the person it is named after, and the building automatically develops a personality of its own (is the Edward Said hall an Orientalist, if a hall can be an Orientalist? One wonders). On a similar note, a piece about the different road names in Delhi might be interesting too. The names chosen for places say so much about the history and identity of the larger place they are a part of!