A new book suggests that young Indians’ use of recreational drugs points to complex class politics

I am tired now of talking about everything that’s wrong with a young country’s pre-eminent schools, so it is time to move onto something more positive, and, as a byproduct, also explain this memory loss I keep talking about.

One of the first images to surface when you Google certain keywords is a picture of a bed in a student hostel, whose cover is strewn with what can only be 4,000 marijuana joints. These have been made in preparation for something called the “GGP” – let’s call it the “Great Green Pastime”.

On the left-most side of this picture is the “Big Fat Lady”, pastime the size of a newborn baby, which, legend has it, inaugurates the festival. A ten-member committee is in charge of planning and hosting the GGP. Some versions of the legend hold that the sixty-five-year-old professor of introductory statistics goes up on stage with the Big Fat Lady with the kids he once taught.

Over the next three days, the remaining approximately 3,999 pastimes are lit and shared amongst the students and the pass-outs, who grow in number even though no more academic years are completed. The committee has probably rolled a little over and above the public count of pastimes, a...

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