NOWADAYS the tradition of 'ragging' or rather assailing with silly questions, ridicule or horseplay, which started in British universities, has also picked up in Pakistani universities.

The start of a new academic year is marked by this decades-old tradition of Rag Day which is now becoming increasingly popular to the extent that ragging is now officially allowed in certain institutions.

Seniors take pride in coming up with novel ideas for ragging freshmen, making them sing film songs or pop hits and perform daring tasks. All this and much more is done as part of ragging in the name of fun and under the pretense of mingling with juniors and helping them to settle.

I had a bad ragging experience on the very first day of my university. A group of seniors came to my class and snatched my bag and took out all my belongings from it, taking away my notebooks, tearing out pages from them, taking all my accessories, money and my cellphone.

Similar incidences took place with other students all over the university, but my experience was the worst in that my cellphone got stolen, which was expensive and contained pictures and personal data.

This is of extreme concern for me since nowadays such content can easily be misused. I have taken the initiative to report it to the authorities concerned and have been assured by them that appropriate steps would be taken to identify the involved students and retrieve the cellphone. However, it has been two months and the cellphone has still not been found.

It is important to realise that the start of university life marks a turning point in an individual's life when all of a sudden s/he is being pushed out into the real world and has to face the pressure of fitting into a new crowd. During this phase, one needs support from those who have already been through these difficult circumstances and thus seniors instead of helping new students as much as possible are subjecting them to further tension and pressure.

ANOOSHA TABANI
Karachi