I was an impressionable 16 in the first year of college. There was the heady freedom of being out of school.

College believed in a certain lifestyle, not without content, but not always too closely connected with the world outside. There was a sense of achievement of having 'arrived', by the sheer act of joining the college. There was the search for an ideology that would give a larger meaning and purpose to our young lives. There was also the unsullied tug of idealism. The naxalite movement was then raging in Calcutta. Many of us were swayed by the seduction of radical politics.

There were other hobbies one sought to pursue. Those were the days when the film Guddi was much the rage. I sought to start a Jaya Bhaduri Fan Club whose only activity was to meditate before her portrait in the Reading Room. It did have more than one sitting.

Pavan Kumar Verma was a student of History at College in the early 70's. He is now a Diplomat and the author of the highly acclaimed 'The Great Indian Middle Class'