i was in college in the 1970s and it was a very exciting time i started the film society in lsr in 1977 my political awareness and consciousness came during my college days because i started my college in 1975 during the emergency and through college we were very aware about politics in a strange way we were very free in our college space despite the emergency when i became a teacher in gargi we kept that spirit alive i started the film society in gargi as wellira adds that teaching in du and jnu is quite different i was teaching undergraduates in gargi and that is very intimate teaching jnu is a live campus and so the ma and mphil teaching is very different here in jnu you will see a lot of discussions debates and dissent because this is the culture of jnu but being critical and analytical is now being considered antinational this is the first time when something like this is happening in this country i was telling swara the other day that i grew up in an india that was much better my childhood and my college years were better because we had the freedom to think she says swara adds that she felt a lot safer in jnu than in du and it saddens her when people create a false perception about the university she says du is a much larger campus than jnu the biggest difference for me was that jnu was safer as girls we could move around in the campus even at 3am the politics is also quite different in the two places in du the parties may claim that they are fighting for issues but in reality those are not issues du elections are fought on the basis of money but in jnu it is an ideadriven election the jnu presidential debate is an iconic thing to be watched and i think jnu politics represents the ideal and the best students politics it should be about debates and issues but i had a great time in both these places jnu opened my brains to realities other than that of someone from delhis upper middle class i met students whose parents were farmers i met students who had grown up in mud houses people have created such a false perception about jnu it is a place which has given the nation its bureaucrats soldiers and the best of teachersswara my dad was horrified when i said i wanted to be an actresswhen swara joined the indian peoples theatre association ipta in jnu she knew that she had found her calling however the actress says that she has always been a nautanki and loved an audience i wanted to become an actress because i am a complete nautanki person and i love having an audience my parents would call me isadora duncan because i was a drama queen every day after school it was a ritual that we had to tell our