Graduates teach us lessons

Yes, it is sometimes extremely essential to break old ways and traditions, simply because they no longer hold good in today’s time. Change is eternal so we too need to change our ways, conducive to the times.

Just like we did away with the ugly and uncomfortable looking head gear for judges, a legacy of the British era, these students of Telangana are showing us that the graduation of convocation gowns also need to go. Better still, we can keep the gowns but can use local fabric, encourage local textiles and use that to make the gown.

Instead of the regular black graduation gowns, students of IIT Hyderabad at their recent convocation paid tributes to local weavers by wearing Pochampalli ‘capes’ made by them. This Pochampalli textile is woven by the villagers of Pochampalli and that is where this IIT is located.

Usually the students rent the traditional black gown for Rs.450 but now at the same cost, they can have their own while encouraging these weavers. The convocation capes had colour codes - BTech wore deep brown; MTech wore light blue and PhD scholars were given yellow. Offsetting them perfectly were white kurtas and pyjamas, though the students were also told they could wear dhotis. The capes had the IIT Hyderabad logo also woven onto it.

This is a great initiative and hope all states of India, where each state has its own unique fabric, could do this, keeping the art and weavers alive.