Instituto Scenology

When someone comes up and asks me which college I had graduated from…the reply’s reaction would come to the consensus that I studied at Instituto Scenology. Situated at one of the most developed part of the Chennapatnam, the institute specializes in driving people mad for no accord, converting thair sadam girls to gossiping bitches and transforming porikki pakkiris to hunks. To make it simple, I studied in one of the most premier institutions, for fashion in Chennai, which, teaches illiterates to learn, ape and emerge into a fashionista.

The first reaction I got from my anna when I had said that I got into IS, was “So..a tailor in the family..huh??”. I felt like bashing him up. When news spread around that a family member was going against principles of taking up engineering/ CA/ MS, people started getting concerned if I will ever get a job with at least some pay. During one of the family functions, this uncle of mine walked up to me and started his interrogation.

Unc: Is that how you get into modeling??
Me: (considering watermelons look much thinner than me!) Er..No…

Unc: Oh…do you work for FTV then??
Me: (Trying not to look embarrassed and mentally cursing the maniac who had bought FTV to India) Err…No

Unc: Iliya?? Then what do you actually study? Oh…designinga?? You designing from handkerchiefs for the skinny models then??
Me: (Irritation and a persistent rage and a negative patience never helps!) Ile uncle.. its more to do with production of garments.. Blah blah..

By this time, the uncle who was inquisitive himself felt bored and buzzed off to bug another cousin about his US visa, thus bringing any further explanations to an end!

And that hadn’t been just one uncle. I’ve lost count of people shooting weird glances at me whenever I am enquired about my college. Getting into this fashion school isn’t as easy as it might sound. It needs a strong mixture of over-confidence, hope and a mighty bit of logic. The faculties who teach here are handpicked..er..they are actually the alumni of IS swayam. Subjects would range from Fashion appreciation (that’s when you get to how Gucci is actually pronounced like!!), Pattern Making (the art where you learn that bell pins aren’t as friendly as they look), garment construction (yeah!! A sophisticated way of me admitting that am a good tailor), and more importantly, textiles, fibers, fabrics, dyes(not hair dye) and every little thing that you would want to know about how the damn shirt you are wearing right came into existence. This added with a couple of management subjects (read as time pass).

As a well bred maami, I initially used to find it very uncomfortable in the college. There were certain unwritten rules ranging from ‘Compulsory boyfriend for six months’, ‘dress code= low denims + even shorter tops’, ‘college slang’s starts with the WTF’ and etc,. Ragging part was even worse. Proposing to the college faculty was just a start! But being a part of the fashion College would give you a sense of freedom. Every now and then, a fad would begin. Suddenly you would see people wearing pink tops; this would include the guys also!! Then, another day, you would bump into a gang of girls with colored hair and bam!! Another fad… exchanging boyfriends would become a weekly thing. There was this certain peer pressure on me to get a boyfriend; but how much ever I tried, I could never find another spoilt thayir sadam for me. Sigh! Coming to academics, practical classes were the best. You could turn on the music, and sing along with it, compare dress patterns with your pals and still get off with decent marks. Bogus submissions would vary from getting caught for sewing clothes by giving it to a tailor outside by forgetting to remove the tailor shop’s label! And there were no books…at all!! You just had one library which would have been taken kutthagai by the padipps of the class. The back benchers were left to ‘study’ photocopies of class notes which were lost and cajoling the padipps to help out during the exams. Copying in exams was a usual activity and we used technology to the best. Students would actually activate GPRS, and fish the internet for answers, sms the answers to the rest of the class. The answer papers would look very similar, worse, even with the same wordings, but still, there would be compulsorily a minimum of 3 guys who would have failed the exam for no reason. Industry visits would be fun and Tirupur would always end up being the destination. The industrial visit would be scrapped for a day and plans would be made to visit Ooty/ Coimbatore. Also, Tirupur, being a haven for shopping- You could get a Kappa/ Gap t-shirt for as low as 30 bucks!

When it comes to learning, rather than academics, I must admit how much I’ve learnt to deal with people in the real world. This is the place where I learnt to gossip, to understand relationships, to never to trust people too soon, and that, life is never fair. Hard to admit, but I do miss my college life. The craziest college, but the best!! Adios IS!!!

PS: Credits to veniceranger for reminding me the crazier aspects of IS and making my days better there..