Lycra...Rae Bareli Ke Bazaar Mein

veryone knows why the country’s eighth NIFT was set up in Rae Bareli, the constituency of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Naturally, there has been a fair amount of scepticism: fashion and lifestyle have little in common with this tiny town. And three years after it was set up, the institute continues to function out of a small, makeshift campus, hastily leased out by the “sick” Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) unit.

“But that is no worry for us as we are soon going to get a larger share out of the ITI land to expand on a 12-acre area,” asserts registrar R.K. Sharma, a the key figure on the campus, in the virtually perpetual absence of a “non-resident” director, who is said to be bogged down with the burden of a dual charge in Delhi. What has been equally disheartening is that not one of the five NRI quota seats has been filled in the last preceding years.

The students on the campus, however, feel otherwise. “I do not deny that Rae Bareli is not a happening place and fashion may not figure even remotely on the radar of the town; but once you are on the NIFT campus, you are in a different world,” final year student Apurva Jain told Outlook. Apurva was the first student to get enrolled in this campus. “Though initially one did go through a brief phase of shortcomings, today I have no regrets,” she stressed.

Other students like Manpreet Singh and Naved Khan admit that there are pitfalls of doing fashion technology in a small town. Khan laments the absence of a single visit by any famous designer. The best exposure to fashion for the 180 students (spread over three years) on the campus is UP’s capital city, Lucknow, 83 km away. The 11-member faculty though is confident that the campus will  get top-rung placements when the first batch passes out in 2011.

And what about the locals? A couple of short courses—like Home and Fashion Accessories—were started to extend opportunities locally. More such courses are planned. Here, at least, fashion begins at home.