When the SLC chairperson first sent a mail regarding this issue, the reaction among the students ranged from bewilderment, outrage to unadulterated amusement. “How can they control student life”, “I am neither a lark nor an owl” and “What’s next” were the phrases being used. In fact, a little birdie tells me that a professor, when told about the same said somthing like, “It must be a spam mail.. Ignore it!”

For those who came in late, the whole fuss in the campus is about a mail which attempts to segregate the students into owls and larks- people who sleep early and those who prefer to go to bed late in the night. The reason cited for the same was to create a ‘congenial atmosphere’ for those who wanted to sleep early. The idea was to create seperate wings for the so-called larks. Besides, each wing would have a prefect to make sure that silence is maintained between 10 PM and 5 AM. To ensure that the arrangement worked succesfully, classes would end at 3 PM. While this has created another problem which would be dealt with in a later post.

We are concerned about a few things. The first, of course, is the amount of control which is being exercised over student life. Isin’t this a (non)issue which the students can manage on their own? The student body has been by passed. This sets a dangerous precedent. The other, is the fact that such a thing will possibly divide UG1 students, probably preventing the natural course of social interaction. The rest of the students might not really be concerned about larks and owls (I don’t think seniors would opt to stay in different wings, in spite of the sleep timings)- but UG1 students have not experienced life here- and dividing them along these lines could be precarious. The third – how are you going to implement this? What if larks suddenly decide that they want to be owls? Will the wings be changed again? How many times can you do the same thing? In fact, there is a black and white division being contemplated- which is wrong.

Last heard, there was an FSIS meeting on the issue today. Apparantely, a lot of issues were raised, and the faculty finally agreed to refer the matter to the Student Parliament. Lets hope that better sense prevails!