Live-ins are "in" for Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students. Officially, JNU has separate hostels for men and women and live-ins are illegal, but tell that to the students who have been living together "openly", with even hostel wardens sometimes looking the other way, or fining them Rs 200 when they catch them. But the students are "scared" about giving their real names. "Do not name us or else we will be detained," was the common refrain. Some senior students had been detained in the past. So most of the names have been changed in this article.
"What is the harm in living together in the same room? We are adults. We are not twelve anymore and are capable of taking our lives' decisions. Plus this has been quite common here," said Janakya, who has been in three live-in relationships with three of her classmates over a period of one and a half years that she has been in JNU and is on the verge of leaving her third partner.
JNU has 18 hostels on campus, including a working women's hostel. Out of these hostels only six are for girls and the other 11 for boys.
"Hypocrisy is evident in JNU as the girls are allowed to enter boys' hostels, but the boys are not allowed to enter girls' hostels. Even some faculty members had objected to this discrimination, but no action has been taken so far. Living together is very common on our campus but it is not really allowed. However, our faculty is particular about these rules. If they find students fooling around they impose a fine of Rs 200 on them, especially when they are on attendance rounds at night," said Abhi, who is not in favour of the idea of live-ins but does not dare to say anything because of peer pressure.
"JNU has always been a world-renowned university. Why should we bother about such petty issues? We are happy with the advanced thought process we have. It is no big deal if students are staying together. We are intellectuals, unlike other college kids. We can differentiate between what is wrong and right. We even have boys staying with their male partners in the same hostel. And let's not even talk about how many one-night stands we know of," said Amrita, who has the reputation of being in the know and is said to be one the biggest gossipmongers of JNU.
The most famous in-house couple (we are allowed to give their real names), profiled by various publications, is Sree, 27, who is finishing his PhD at JNU and his girlfriend Gargi Bhattacharya, 26, who is a lecturer at St. Stephen's College. "For the past six years we have practically been living together in Sree's hostel room," said Gargi.
Sree and Gargi say that they never want to get married as they do not want to bear the burden of in-laws, children and "grief".
Other students share similar thoughts and are happy that they get to live with their partners and decide about their relationship's future based on their experience. They say that JNU makes life less complicated for couples as it gives them the "option" of living together. But they firmly believe that this does not affect their studies because they are studying in JNU to fulfill their respective goals.
2 October in The Sunday Guardian.
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