Do But Don't Die! The Reality of a Student Revolution

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I first met Krishank and his mates in the cool corridors of Osmania University. I was researching a story on Andhra's Naxalites but had heard that the underground movement was being supported by thousands of people fighting for an independent Telangana including and especially the eternally protesting students of Osmania University. This lent a twist to both tales.
At the outset, I would like to point that inspite of, or perhaps because of my Andhra origin, I and my entire family have been vehemently in favour of creating Telengana. Even before I met Krishank, this conviction had been reinforced several times over.
Uttarakhand, Uttaranchal, Jharkhand had all come into existence just years ago. And here was the issue of Telengana -one of the oldest and most legitimate demands - being placed yet again, on the backburner. There were lame mumbles about how India's other states would all disintegrate, if Telengana were granted. It has been almost a decade since the a aforementioned new states were created, and so far, there has been no sign of that kind of disintegration of the Indian republic elsewhere.
My curiosity about Krishank and his mates also stemmed from the fact that I am the mother of a college-going son myself. Elite universities of Delhi and Mumbai had long lost their forceful students' unions or in Delhi's case, even began to serve as platforms for various mainstream political parties. I was curious to see who these kids at Osmania - in the fastest-developing city of Hyderabad were. Why were they always in the news? Being beaten, dragged off, arrested while others of their age were checking out the latest cars, fashions, trends and riding the wave of emerging India? Why were these Osmania kids willingly allowing their academic careers to be repeatedly disrupted and their futures stained, when their counterparts in other cities were fine-tuning their own and plunging into the rat race with great gusto?