Almost two decades ago, I stood with some friends at Delhi University, discussing plans for the day: which classes to bunk and which, if any, to attend. Suddenly, a motley group of slogan-shouting students emerged from the dhaba. They exhorted us to join the protest against the recommendations of the Mandal Commission, which had been implemented a day earlier. Although none of us was clear about the issue or its repercussions, the prospect of bunking classes was reason enough. Thus we too joined the sloganeering. By the time the self-styled leaders had commandeered a few DTC buses, nearly 200 postgraduate and doctoral students had gathered at an intersection, which later became the epicentre of protests and was rechristened euphemistically as Kranti Chowk. 

Students from various medical colleges of Delhi were already there, even as buses from the North Campus reached India Gate. The leaders goaded the “revolutionaries” to move towards Parliament, where the monsoon session was in progress. But we encountered police barricades much before that. Some hotheads tried to gatecrash, provoking the policemen into action — they charged ferociously, dispersing the crowd within minutes. We were at the rear, and managed to escape the dragnet by jumping into the shallow canals around. A few students were bundled into waiting police vans and taken to the Parliament Street police station, where they were detained for some time before being let off. 

That night, Doordarshan telecast news of protests. My sister-in-law looked at me suspiciously, knowing my proclivity to land in trouble. But the matter didn’t go beyond the glance that day. As old-timers will recall, this was only a curtain-raiser: an unprecedented frenzy of student anger was to engulf Delhi for several months. Other participants like me must be nudging the 40-year mark now, and the grind for our daily bread and butter would have long extinguished any revolutionary embers. But every year, about this time, my mind revisits those tumultuous days.