Dubai Diaries: Life without a campus is no fun

He should have been around his peers, hanging out in the college cafeteria. Bunking classes. Borrowing money from peers. Making new friends. Falling in love. Getting his heart broken. And yeah, understanding the complexities of human mind in between all of these. As a true-blue parent, I am guilty of lecturing my son too often about the importance of education in life. All parents do.

We tell them to study and study some more with the unflinching conviction that the sole purpose of going to college is securing a shiny certificate. It was drummed into our heads by our parents and we repeat the drill. There is no doubt that thick textbooks and lengthy lectures helped us pursue higher education and later land a job. But our true brag rights come from our college escapades. In fact, the college exploits are the most harmless kind of bragging we can get away with.

No one will judge you if you say you have bunked classes and copied from your friend’s answer sheets. Tell your colleagues about your hostel brawls and they will nod their approval. Tell your boss that you used to swipe from your dad’s wallet, and trust me, he will not question your credibility.

Whether you are a bureaucrat, vice president of a company or editor of a newspaper you can always brag about how you left behind mountains of unpaid bills at the college cafe, nursed a secret crush on a teacher or fell in love with your best friend’s boyfriend.

The fun, fights and feasts of college days are best-sellers anywhere we go. Our hard-earned grades or shiny certificates are just boring vestiges of an otherwise fun era we had. The pandemic has taken away many precious things. For young people like my son, the virus has taken away their future bragging rights. I imagine him telling his colleagues how he slept off during a sociology class or swiped mom’s credit card on Zomato when he was too lazy to cook.

I imagine him telling his kids about his crush on a girl who had a beautiful face. We can hope that wearing masks while hanging out with friends or surviving a semi-lockdown will seem like a thrilling adventure in a few decades. When life gives him a pandemic, let him learn to make pancakes with it.