Most of us do not have a positive attitude towards curfew timings when we are young. We block all attempts at parental or institutional control — and when we slip onto the other side, we conveniently forget our youthful objections and vociferously take up the cudgels for strict enforcement of rules!

A recent tragic incident at a university campus led, quite naturally, to a reassessment of rules and hostel timings for students. Equally naturally, there were protests from the affected students about the new timings.

We had our share of curfew protests in our growing years. With the eldest being a boy, there were not too many rules about when he could get home from his jaunts into town, but middle sister knew it would not be so easy for her. She watched from the sidelines, made her notes and when her time came, had solid facts and figures to back up her case for equality — and freedom at midnight! That she wanted this freedom a few years earlier on the age scale than Big Brother had got it was glossed over by her — but noted well by the next in line!

When the time came for the youngest to fly, she tried taking a cue from what middle sister had done, with a simple, “When she was in college she was allowed to ...” This refrain was chanted often — but turned a deaf ear to. She was not yet “old enough”. And there was no fixed age at which she would cross into that magical sphere of being “old enough”. Perhaps, being the youngest, maturity took a longer time coming to her and therefore rules that had never existed before sprang up to provide for her delayed onset of good sense ...

When she finally left home to join the ranks of the gainfully employed, she entered a working women’s hostel — where, for the first time in her life, there were actual rules for daily living, unlike those malleable ones at home. Now it was breakfast at 7 — you be there or you forfeit — and so on through the day. She looked around her and everyone else seemed okay with the rules. They did not necessarily follow them — but they found a way not to go hungry. She obviously had a lot to learn!

As for curfew, it was fixed for 7 in the evening! No dinners out with friends, no moonlight strolls, not even the evening show of a movie. Impossible, she complained! She was no longer a student — she was a lecturer in a college — a role model for senior undergraduates! She knew how to comport herself! She didn’t need written rules to tell her when to get back to the hostel! How had curfew followed her here in adulthood?

Of course, there was nothing she could do, except, like the others in the hostel, find ways to “adjust”. (There was, after all, no guard at their gate!)

And so, when the city hosted an all-night live performance of the country’s top pop singers, she and her friends set off after an early dinner, planning to be back by breakfast. “We’re not breaking any rules: we aren’t returning after curfew,” they said smugly.

Imagine her surprise when she found droves of her students from the college hostel at the show — long after their curfew (which was at least half-an-hour before hers). What’s more, they had sneaked past wardens and guards and then scaled the high college wall — quite a bit of “bending” of the rules in contrast to her tame early exit from the hostel!

But before she could question them in adult style, her students ran up to her and exclaimed indignantly (like roles were reversed and they were the teachers), “How did YOU get here?”

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.