Tara: I’m trying very hard not to remark about his missing top (meaning brain). Yes, it’s a joke. But no one’s laughing.

Anindita: The regression that Bangalore is currently facing alarms me. It was the “coolest” city, how on earth did this come to be?

This is the same man who, in the carpentry workshop, told me I would not given priority because I was a woman, and the men needed to learn these skills more than I would. I would anyway not be using this education, and it was a waste of our parents’ money to send girl children to engineering college.

Not only were women not allowed to wear trousers of any cloth, we were forced to wear either salwar-kameez sets with a dupatta draped over our torsos or saris. The men, of course, did not have a dress code, for it was the woman’s fault that the men were “distracted” by them. When we tried protesting and started talking to print and tv journalists, we were shut down with threats of suspension and expulsion, threats that were followed through in some cases. A weak student’s union that was run by the administration did not help.

The idea of self-expression in these institutions is a joke. The idea of anything creative or individual coming out of these institutions is a joke.