By Azera Rahman, IANS
New Delhi : It’s a unique trip aimed at fostering friendship among youths from South Asian countries, but many of the 105 university students gathered here for the SAARC Cultural Festival are complaining of teething troubles.
Some are talking of improper accommodation, others are saying they have not yet got a chance to interact with their counterparts from other countries and yet others say there is too little action.
They are among 15 university students and 10 school students each from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Nepal who have been invited to India as part of the festival that started Sunday and will be on till Dec 9.
Tanzeel from the University of Balochistan, Pakistan, said their team reached India Dec 1 but until Tuesday he and his friends had only seen the area around the hotel in Karol Bagh where they are staying.
Interactions with students from other countries had also not taken off in earnest.
“It’s been nearly four days since we have come here and today is the first day that we have got a chance to meet the other delegates, let alone interact. The itinerary seems to be changing every now and then,” Tanzeel told IANS.
“Tuesday we were to go to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) but that was cancelled at the last moment. Also there is so much in Delhi that we want to see…we wish that we were taken on a tour of the city,” Tanzeel said at a lunch gathering organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).
While the school students, who have been put up with the families of students of four schools in Delhi – Sanskriti, Vasant Valley, Shri Ram and Sardar Patel Vidyalaya – have no complaints, the university students are not very happy with the arrangements.
“Since we have come, all that we have done is shift hotels,” said 21-year-old Manisha Joshi, a student of fashion designing from Nepal.
“We arrived Dec 2 and the hotel that we were taken to was so bad that we had to request the authorities to shift us.”
Similarly Nader Rahman of Bangladesh while complaining about the accommodation said it was a case of poor management.
“We were to see the SAARC rally exhibition Monday evening but the bus organised to ferry us from our hotel to the venue didn’t turn up,” he said.
Three teachers from each country are accompanying the students.
Rehana Rashid, one of the professors from Pakistan, said: “There has been some mismanagement, but let’s hope that everything will turn out well later.
“The students wanted to visit Humayun’s Tomb and Qutub Minar, so we went on our own but since we are foreigners, the entry fee was high.”
Pavan K. Varma, director-general of ICCR, admitted there was a certain amount of confusion initially but now every care was being taken to make the meet a memorable one for the students.
“We must remember that this is the first time something of this kind and capacity has been arranged. We are catering to more than 1,000 guests. There are 105 university students alone, then there are school students, host students, their families, teachers…”
“I agree there was some confusion but everything has been ironed out now. We are taking care that this meet is a memorable one for the students and it serves the ultimate purpose of fostering friendship. The larger picture is good,” Varma told IANS.