Goodbye To Life as We Know It

These are the Editor's words to the readers for THiNK : 0

The name of this piece. Its a homage. To Pink Floyd.It's taken from the name of a special in their Dual DVD edition of PULSE.
And it describes the feeling I have had at every major experience I care to call a watershed in my life. This one, the launch of THiNK zero, is up there with the best of them.

Well, I wont lie.This isn't my biggest moment ever.

Not as great as listening to Hey You on a perfect English morning on the lawns of Oval Maidan just before sunrise. Free . Floating.

Not as great as sitting on the deck of Libra, under a pale moon, with theocean stretching out in every direction, listeing to Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture. Feeling Omnipotent. Feeling Alive.

No. But this is what I have put my heart and soul into over the last sixmonths. Sometimes, I came close to giving up. Sometimes, I felt like crap. Mostly though,I was a happy deluded ignoramus out to change the world and people's perception of it with my small idea.

But always, their was this feeling, this shimmer of hope, that I ain't alone in believing in expressing my thoughts. that there are others here who have something to say out to the rest of us.

That my motto is not mine alone. That it has meaning for others as well. My motto, my statement, my answer to everyone who asked me to explain my actions.

I Am.
Nothing else. Just that. A plain two word reply.

Coming back to Floyd. I first heard it 8 years ago. And have rediscoveredsomething new everytime I lay back, closed my eyes and floated away.

That was the first Goodbye. This is another one. I hope it is one for youtoo. That this effort on part of my friends who took the time out to shape this dream into something concrete has some meaning to you.

Maybe I'm hungry. Maybe I'm Foolish.
Maybe you understand. Maybe You Don't.

But at the end of the day, all that matters is those two words.
Your Answer. Your Justification for Your Existence.None.

I Am.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THiNK : 0 shall be launched on the First of April 2007.

An ode to Counter Strike

The bug has bitten us. The Counter Strike epidemic is spreading. And fast. I guess it's one of the side effects of a "wired" life. All you hear all day long now in the lobby is: "Fire in the hole!!" No one seems to be able to resist the Counter Strike juggernaut....AOE fundamentalists have converted. Warcraft is passe. In the realm of LAN gaming, CS rules supreme unchallenged. No one seems to be caring about the exams either!

So do I like what's happening? Can't say. I'm an addict too. I mean yes I'm tired of the snipes and headshots that I end up on the receiving end of, but then there's always that desire to keep playing.

Bleary eyes, aching metacarpals and throbbing temples..... no physical discomfiture seems to be strong enough to curb the zeal for the game. Servers run 24x7, interrupted only by the not-so-infrequent power cuts( that are greeted with the choicest expletives). DC++ forums are flooded with CS talk... casual banter on the games of the day and innumerable requests for CS IP's....

Wonder if this will ever end. I know for sure I don't want it to. 2 months of summer vacation may only increase BIT's obsession for CS.... So next semester when placements commence, don't be surprised if you hear a distressed call from inside the cell... I'd bet I heard something like :"Need Backup!!"

A Design Contest

THiNK is having a design contest, sponsored by JAM.

Here is the deal :

YOU draw/sketch/paint/create(as in collage / or on the comp) a piece of art, based on the theme provided by us.

In return,
The top 2 Entries get an year's free subscription of JAM,
with 3 Runner's up getting a 6 month's free subscription of JAM.

In case you are wondering what JAM is,
see it for yourself at JAM

Here is the theme:

The basic idea is to depict the need to break down walls created by social conventions, dogma and prejudice; to explore what lies beyond, irrespective of the consequences.
stay hungry, stay foolish !


One possible image (a suggestion) has been described by Zog, as:

Image :
From the perspective of the viewer :
He/she sees a wall. On the side of the wall, facing the viewer, he/she sees a numbar of fetal forms breaking the wall down with hammers/pikes/any other instruments they can lay their hands on.

Fetal Forms :
In the later stages of human fetal development, the embryo looks like a worm, with ridges on the back, a somewhat disproportionately large upper half with enormous eyes and a tapering tail like formation at the lower half. This fetal structure, with the hands and legs attached is the "Fetal form" of the image. They represent, in a sense, curiosity and freedom from predisposed notions - the ideal state for an anthropod.

What lies beyond, on the other side of the wall, is unknown, and yet something really big. It's nature however, is ambiguous. We do not know for sure, whether the knowledge of the unknown can cause a beneficial, malevolent, or other influence. Whatevr the case, explore it we must, because it will definately change the way we see ourselves and the world.

Hence, The ideology of THiNK.
The question to be asked is not Why? Its Why Not.

Honour, Courage and Fear

They say that a man can lose anything in his life and still be himself. But if he loses honour, then the man that was him does not remain. We will all disagree because in this world of ours, honour counts for nothing. Honour is just another commodity that people are willing to sell in the market for some price. Maybe it is money, maybe a favour or maybe even the hand of a person you have wanted for years. In any case, the word honour and the ideas associated with it have disappeared or are fading away like a dying sun in winter. Maybe a twilight sun but dying away nevertheless. To such an extent that a man who keeps his honour is called a fool, taunted and made fun of behind and in front of his back.

In times like these, a man of honour should have one more thing. They call it courage. This is not the courage that you associate with a person on a battlefield. Yes, the basic ideas are the same but then the essence will change a little bit when the courage a man possesses is for the protection of his honour. Contrary to what the multitude thinks, courage is not the antithesis of fear. Courage is not even the absence of fear. Courage is what keeps a man going even when he is afraid. Fear is a sickness. A man living in a community, if he becomes afraid of anything, starts reeking of fear. The fear that he walks around with is contagious it spreads around him wherever he goes. It brings a feeling of unease into people even when they do not know what they are afraid of. Maybe nature has programmed us to be afraid when we do not know what is waiting for us out of our eyesight. This makes the mind make up a figure that maybe waiting for us. For people who have had a bad experience in life with something else, a frightening one maybe, this figure in their mind takes that shape. For the others, this figure remains a faceless one, on without identity or name. Maybe we are made that way so that we survive a longer time. What is waiting beyond your sight maybe a harmless monkey. But it may also be a ferocious and wounded lion. The dangerous kind. So why take chances, isn’t it?

Why take chances….this seems to be the mantra which people follow in their daily lives. If anything is going on well, why take a chance and ruin it all? There is only one area where people have been known to take great risks believing that that elusive lady called Luck may kiss them one more time. It is called Gambling. But then when a man is confronted with the possibility of losing his comforts, wealth, happiness and all that he holds dearly if he takes a risk, will he go for it?

I am drifting away from the original topic. Courage is a great thing, and one that is for a honourable causes automatically becomes greater. But then excessive courage becomes something that we are all very familiar with. Folly. Courage and folly are cousins, according to some and brothers according to others and twins according to the cowards.

Modern literature does not say much on the concept of honour. Some areas where you can see courage and honour are in the ancient epics, be it Indian, Geek, Norse or Egyptian. Commentaries on these books are abound with mentions of honour of heroes, heroes who would give up everything to keep their honour intact. And in the end what does it serve them? A man will die no matter what. So why can’t he keep his honour in some dark corner of his conscience to save what he loved?

We cannot answer this question. Why? Because we don’t know what it is to have honour. We don’t know what it is to feel like when we and our nearest suffer to save the honour. Weird thing, this honour. Coming back to modern literature’s take on honour, if one searches hard enough, he will reach the realm of fantasy literature in his search of honour. No, I am not talking of Harry Potter. His world is set in our own time and hence the concept of honour does not apply. But if one cares to look at those literatures which create a timeline and world of their own like Tolkien’s Legendarium, or George R.R Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”, honour stares back at us from every page. You always have people saying yes or no according to the situation for the sake of honour. Not necessarily theirs but for honour nevertheless.

Bismarck said once that the End Justifies the Means. This is the line that is a reflection of our thoughts. No one cares how success was achieved as long as it was achieved. Loss of lives or honour does not faze these success addicted people. A good example would be of course The Great Adventures of George.W.Bush, Jr. I am not going into this topic as it is a clichéd subject and there are many others who will willingly write a 1000 page treatise on this topic.

I have been thinking about the thing called Fear. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that it s a disease. Two people traveling in a plane talked to each other in sign language. A woman who saw this got scared. Pretty soon the whole flight was scared to death and the next thing you know, two fighter planes escorted the plane to an airport and the people who started it all were interrogated for hours. This is what the terrorists are so good at doing. All they have to do is strike fear in the hearts of the common folk and the next thing you know is that half the countryside is scared shitless.

Even history is full of accounts in which invading Kings have used nothing but the power of fear to conquer cities. One good example is Genghis Khan. He would attack a city and sack it. The battle finishes fast but the slaughter continues. You have rape, pillage and murder all going on side by side. Women are raped and killed in front of their husbands, children are killed in front of their mothers and in the end, Genghis would have a mountain of heads belonging to the former occupants of the city. The few people who manage to flee the sack rush to the nearest city and pretty soon all the cities in the neighborhood are drowned in fear which makes it easy for the great conqueror to finish off his job.

But there are also instances when armies pushed off fear and fought to the death instead of cowering like cowards. Take the case of the Battle of Thermopylae. A huge Persian army numbering million according to some, hundred thousands according to others were facing an army of less than thousand Spartans. The Persians waited for days hoping to intimidate the Spartans by the size of their army. The Spartans, seemingly unconcerned about the opposing army’s size also waited for the Persians to attack. The Persians were incredulous that an army numbering barely a thousand would dare to face its huge army. So then they fought, and the Spartans made the Persians pay dearly for each life that they lost. The Persian army won but not before the bravery of those Spartans was etched for eternity in the annals of history. I believe they are now making a movie out of it…

Read history, it is a fun thing. So much can be learnt from it that no one can teach…

Targaryen

You Are Fortunate If, Your Mom Is 'Mean'

the foll. is taken from the 'Speaking Tree'(TOI)


Some day when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, i will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me: I loved you enough... to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.

I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover that your new best friend was a creep. I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken me just 15 minutes.

I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children: Parents aren't perfect, you know.

I loved you enough to let you assume the responsi-bility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.

But most of all, i loved you enough... to say "NO" when i knew you would hate me for it. Those were the most difficult battles of all.

I'm glad i won them, because in the end you won, too. And some day when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, you will tell them. Was your Mom mean? I know mine was.

We had the meanest mother in the whole world! While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast.

When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches. And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You'd think we were convicts in a prison. She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them.

She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less. We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labour Laws by making us work.

We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash and all sorts of cruel jobs.

I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do. She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds and had eyes in the back of her head. Then, life was really tough!

Mother wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them. While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16.

Because of our mother we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalising others'property or ever arrested for any crime.

It was all her fault. Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom was. I think that is what's wrong with the world today.

It just doesn't have enough mean moms!

METAL GAUNTLET

One of the major and most popular forms and styles of music is metal. It is so popular in some parts of the world that many people believe that it’s a way of life and it fulfils and completes them when they feel inadequate. This style of music can be traced to its origins in the late 70s and 80s along with its cousin ROCK. Influences to this style are many and some ironic such as Blues, Folk and operas. Many of the major scales in the guitar work have been adopted and imbibed from these styles. One of the founders of this kind of music has been BLACK SABBATH, a British band with an inclination towards the dark side of the human psyche. Along with bands like Judas Priest, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath created a huge impact on people who wanted something different, something raw and something aggressive. From then on, there was a rapid increase in the number of bands, styles and subspecies of metal.

The most popular subspecies were Black, Death, Goth and Heavy. The front runners in Death were Cradle of Filth, Corrosions of Conformity. Death metal was ruled by bands like Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, Venom etc. Heavy Metal bans were Pantara, Sepulture etc. Besides three subspecies there were many variants such as Doom, Melodic Death, Blackwave, Darkwave, Speed, Trash, New Wave of British and American metal, Metal Core, Viking, Operative, Symphonic, Industrial, Shock and many more.

One thing common to all these styles and variants was that they all exhibited an aggressive and rebellious attitude towards the normal man and his way of life. They showed their uniqueness by their music. Many of these outfits came under fire for their antics and views on sensitive issues like society, religion etc. They did not create their music to go commercial but to express their emotions on certain issues. Another important feature in metal music is that most of the metal outfits deal with emotions of man such as hate, pain, sorrow, misery, envy, greed etc. these bands create songs related to their past experiences and their feelings. Since they are commercial they hit right in the hearts of people who can relate their feelings to the songs. With the rise in the styles of music, there have been many new techniques invented and practiced to perfection with a flare of uniqueness.

Growling gutturals and screeching vocals, galloping bass, screaming guitars and thunderous drums are the main stays of metal. In a glance the combination of all the above may sound like noise to any layman. But people with ability to understand can appreciate and enjoy metal. Its like any drug, once you have tasted it you want more and more and are never stop loving it. It’s so addictive that it becomes a part of you. One last thing, people who don’t appreciate the beauty, superiority of this music and claim that they are music lovers, I can say only one thing ---- F*#Φ YOU.

Leper.

RIPPED

Alone on a misty road, when the night froze like hell,

When the snow from God’s womb reaches down with a chilly smell,

My ripped heart that drips with sorrow, in vain I try to fill the holes,

That fire burning inside me as it slowly smokes my soul.

Slice by slice my life was cut and my world came crashing upon my feet.

Hopes shattered, dreams lost, alone I was facing that strange cold heat.

Many questions were unanswered and even more answers unasked.

I tried to search the missing in me but a tear slipped and dropped.

Under the dark night sky I walk, with nothing but a heavy heart,

I question the existence of this overburdened life and the answer cuts me further apart.

I see a ray of light in that dark tunnel of pain,

I looked up in search of a hint and down poured the rain.

For those times we spent together,

Those promises to each other we made,

All disappeared like castles on the beach,

When they are hit by the coming wave.

With an ambiguous mind and a restless soul I hope that you return,

A single birth was too short for me to know you and I never got my turn.

I hope that we cross again and that love between us always stays the same.

No matter how many times God takes you away from me, I will be born for you again.

Ankur Saxena

HEROIN-FROM BUNKER 13

Aniruddha Bahal

It was during that period (Renaissance) in the sixteenth century that the Swiss-German physician Bambastus von Hahenheim accomplished the pharmacological breakthrough of producing a tincture of opium by mixing it with alcohol and calling it laudanum. The concoction saturated Europe and civilization was on track for sedation on a mass scale. The following generations fiddled with Hahenheim’s pharmacological forerunner, which became the indispensable tool of medicine in the eighteenth century.

In 1805, however, it was left `to another German, Frederick Serturner, to isolate the alkaloid of morphine from opium. This separation of the principal ingredient from the parent compound was a dazzling feat. It unleashed into the market a drug ten times more powerful than opium. There was another first for Germany, when Bayer company started the commercial production of heroin in 1898.

Heroin wasn’t Germany’s only area of chemical triumph. In 1855, the German physicist Frederick Gaedcke isolated the active principle of cocaine. World War II also saw the invention of methadone as a substitute for Heroin in Germany.

Brace up for the future..

I don't belong to the doomsday cult and I'm not a pessimist, but there are reasons to believe that the future MAY not be as rosy as we may want to expect. India has had a honeymoon run in the past three years....everybody's feeling great....and there are a lot of jobs out there....But we have reason to believe that things might change. The US is going the recession way. Any American slowdown will imply a global slowdown and recessions in emerging markets like ours...The symptoms were clear yesterday.... the Sensex crashed not only due to a sucky budget but also because global markets are sniffing an American recession... and India's markets being more globalised than ever could not have stayed unaffected...

We've had it pretty good in the last couple of years haven't we? Plenty of jobs in the marketplace..higher salaries...lots to choose from....but any reality checks will force companies to constrict their recruiting habits...which will affect us directly...

Of course all this may never happen. In which case we may continue our dream runs.....but it's nice to know the possibilities

Medical college blues...

This is an unedited version of a letter my sister sent me recently. (Unedited except for the identity of my latest crush and yes, why I want to blow BIT up). She wrote it for THiNK, hoping that I would convert it into some sort of story. I don't have time. She's 8 months into her MBBS course. The letter follows:

Dearest Chechi,

I’m sorry I was so late sending this thingy. How are you? Do you still feel like blowing up the place? Sometimes life is boring, you just have to bear with it.

You asked me to describe the first few months in medical college. You know I ‘m not much of a writer or an observer, still. When it comes to memories, dissection table would be the most distinct. After the first dissection, we felt so sick. We had lunch break right after dissection. Most of us used to miss lunch the first few days…coz after spending time with the cadaver it was impossible for us to swallow anything. (Note that we are not allowed to use hand gloves so that we got over the disgust and we also got the real feel.) Its funny, coz nowadays, it’s dissection that seems to stimulate my appetite. Weird how things just become a part of your life I remember how we used to wash our hands with Dettol and God knows what else before we used our hands for anything, now who’s got the time? It was weird standing in front of a naked body especially after studying for 10 years in a girls’ school. Thankfully we had two classes to get accustomed to the situation. I guess our Profs sensed our discomfort. Tsk! Tsk! A guy was the only person who fainted in our batch. That shows the power of today’s girls! (Chechi, just some of my own feminist crap). The first day we opened our dissection box, the scalpel, the blade with which we mercilessly tear open the bodies (it’s real sharp), fell on a girl’s foot. Soon we got accustomed to these minor mishaps; most organs were not a problem. But when we did external genital organ, I still remember the guys gasping when the penis was cut. When we took out the testis from the scrotum, I felt really disgusted. I never took the trouble to hold it and find the anatomical position…n guess what??? I got it for my internals. I was forced to hold it. I guess a Doctor just has to know something of EVERYTHING.

Nothing however would rival the shock I got was when I realized that we had to get our own real bone set, not plaster of paris, but a real person’s bone, and everyone was telling me about how difficult it is to get it. Why all the stressing on a real bone set you may ask. Apparently, every individual’s bones are unique and there are certain contours and properties of real bones that synthetic substitutes can never perfectly reproduce. Back to my story, sometime later this real scary guy came up to me, he looked real creepy. He was trying to sell bones on campus and was milling with the outpatient crowd to avoid being noticed. He was ready to sell a bone set for 1000 Rs. You should have seen the bones! They were fresh! I mean they had a little bit of flesh on them. Damn scary, real bones, like they just popped out of this horror movie show or something. And I, carried away by that new feel of being independent, guess you lose your senses in the battle to prove yourself, bargained for 800. But my friends told me not to buy it coz it was fresh or something like that. So after all that mindless bargaining I told the guy I wasn’t going to buy it…and the guy started crying. His soulless, grey eyes were actually filled with tears. Guess everyone has feelings. Later, my friends told me he was a grave digger. I was petrified-the real world of medicine exposed in all its gory details. To save a life, we take another person’s dear ones remains…sad…and I bargain for it. I felt like crap. It suddenly forced itself on me, like an immense burden, how man has to go to the extremes, just to survive. He forgets everything. Even I forgot in the heat of being a good medical student. I sort of hated myself then. But now, I have become insensitive to such things. I carry the bones of some person in my bag whenever I go for osteo class, sleep off with them on my bed. Guess it’s a part of being a doctor.

Recently we learnt about the skull. And I was listening in class as usual, answering anything I knew (which was not often), when sir brought a foetus skull. You should see it, it’s so small. The bones are not ossified. You could really see what a delicate thing it was. It was so sad, a mother’s hope, her greatest dream…still-born. And here it is - a specimen for us at the embryology lab. There are all kinds of specimens here, kept soaked in formalin, for us to study. They are all so cute, you couldn’t possibly believe anything was wrong with them, but yes they were still-born. A mother’s 9 month long wait and just one of the many specimens in every medical college. It’s pathetic really. To save lives, for medicine to go on, we have to become so ruthless, so insensitive. But without it, there would never be medicine coz you can never understand without seeing. It’s just not about mugging up. It’s another one of those paradoxes in life that you can’t explain.

But it’s not that bad. We get to see every guy in our batch bare chest, not something you get in every college. I still remember how shocked we were when the tutors asked us if any of the guys were ready to strip up to the waist for us to study. I mean we were like: What was she up to? And the worst was when she asked each one of us to come up and feel for the apex beat. It was really weird. It was like they get a free massage in exchange for stripping. But now whatever, every other person is just a subject. Who cares! (Except for the fact that I screwed up my percussion during the exams) It’s fun in a way.

And you won’t believe it, every week I prick my finger more than three times just to get the blood and test it. I hated the idea. Pricking my delicate fingers. Some of my friends haven’t been able to get over it yet. You see, we even shed our blood to get through these five years and become the so called doctors. And as if that wasn’t enough, we need another ten years to be able to practice. But the good part is- it’s fun all the way. Why? Coz we deal with people. Real people. And you just realize how unique each human being is. Not just character-wise but also anatomically - the arteries, the nerves, the veins, the organs, everything is so different. No two specimens are identical. And you have to be so careful. It’s amazing. You actually start thinking: Can Science explain everything? There is something supernatural about life that defies comprehension.

Whenever we go to the college there is a shortcut through the leprosy center. Most of the residents have recovered fully and yet no one has come to reclaim them. As we go by, they just look at us, passing through the center to the college, waiting, to see if someone would come for them someday, someone they can call their own. I’m so lucky to have everyone. And sometimes I think I am real lucky to belong to this generation, a generation without prejudices like the one before. Then again, I think maybe I’m fooling myself, maybe we’re just a generation with a whole new set of prejudices.

The psychiatry and alcohol rehab center is another place we have to cross always on our way to college. I remember when Sameetha was walking by one day, one of its inmates called out "Hello sister! On your way back, get me a pack of cigarettes." They used to call us by all kinds of names when we walked by, hoping we would respond. It was like try your luck. If you hit, you get a girl to look back at you (mostly in fear / anger / annoyance), otherwise you have nothing to lose. For us, it was our silent zone. We used to be so quiet while crossing these areas. Now they know us by name, and we are the least bothered, after all, we are all humans. In fact, Sameetha got her first and only proposal from one of the inmates. It’s sad how life can just slap you right across the face. Whenever we walk, we get flattering comments like- you look so pretty, and I love you and what not. It must be so difficult to be stuck behind those rails. Only they know what they are going through, and boy! How desperate they must be. It’s sad and, I must confess, funny at the same time.

The best part of my first year would be, when I finished just one month of MBBS and I went home for vacations, our domestic help came up to me with her lab reports, asking for my opinion on the case. I just stared at it the X-ray and the blood tests results. And I am like, what in the world is going on?! It was still Greek and Latin to me. Then I go like what the doctor said was absolutely right. (Sophisticated nod plus grave raised eyebrow) AND she surprisingly agreed, when I didn’t even ask her what the doctor said.

It’s so funny how people think that less than one year of MBBS is more than enough to make me a super specialist in every subject in the medical world, even better than the super specialist he/she is visiting, who has spent more than 20 yrs dedicated to the subject.

My first few anatomy classes felt like entering foreign territory –phalanges, superolateral, nasion, cerebrohematoma, shentons line. I never used to follow a word. It took me 2 whole months just to get used to the lingo. These days, I see how the interns come in the morning after working the entire day, just to see that there is no food left. And I keep thinking, that’s me in five yrs. No food! I can’t even imagine the situation. Oh well! From here to there there’s still five years. On the whole I am so happy where I am. I love my college, my batch, my friends, everything! It’s a profession I am sure I will love. It’s tough, requires a lotta determination and focus but I think its fun at the same time. You feel you’re doing something useful, important, relevant. And I hope that this belief stays for the next five years.

Love
Nandhu

POLL

Sample population: 20 not so randomly chosen BITians

Question: Where should BIT be located?

The Answers:

1) Goa
Reason: So that the guys would have something else to look at

2) Alaska
Reason: So that we have interesting sports during P.T. like skiing

3) Saudi Arabia
Reason: So that all the girls would come out in burkhas

4) Bangladesh
Reason: As it is people speak such pathetic English

5) Cherrapunji
Reason: So that due to heavy rains we get lots of holidays

6) Chocolate factory
Reason: Because I love chocolate

7) NIT Durgapur
No comments

8) In my bedroom
Reason: So that I have an excuse to sleep in class

9) On the internet
Reason: BIT would be virtual

10) USA
Reason: That’s the place where I eventually hope to land up

11) Gujurat
Reason: I’m so obsessed with Ekta Kapoor serials to think of any other place

12) Kashmir
Reason: The lovely scenery

13) My dreams
Reason: I open my eyes and it’s gone

14) On some planet where there is no reservation
Reason: It’s very obvious

15) At the centre of a square with Mc Donalds, CCD, Pizza Hut and Barista at the four corners
Reason: I’m a foodie

16) Floating on the sea
Reason: No reason

17) On the ramp
Reason: Censored

18) Singapore
Reason: That that we have a better place to go shopping

19) Hollywood
Reason: So that I get to see Tom Cruise every day

20) Wherever there is complete internet and cell connectivity


Submitted by: Manasi Khare (BE/94/05)

Wonder Years

"Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house like a lot of other houses, a yard like a lot of other yards, on a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back, with wonder."

If it were a novel, it would be my favourite one and I’d read it through all my joys and sorrows. If it were a movie I’d watch it over and over again till I knew all the dialogues but still be amazed by it. But it is a TV series that spanned 5 years and something I grew up with.

Wonder Years tells the story of Kevin Aarnold as seen through his eyes. It is narrated by an older, wiser but equally wacky Kevin. Kevin is a typical boy somewhere between boyhood and teenage. In each episode he shows us the world around him( USA in late 60s and early 70s). He has a loving mother, an indifferent( yet sometimes amazingly caring) father, a hippie sister and a dumb bully elder brother. He finds an amazingly loyal friend in Paul Pfeiffer. His life also revolves around Winnie Cooper, the beautiful girl next door and his classmate.

Kevin tells us about his first kiss with Winnie (most of us waited for it with more anticipation than our own first kiss), his crush on his English teacher Miss White, his physical fights with his brother, his neighborhood and school. We experience his friendship with Paul grow stronger through many minor tiffs. Over the years Kevin realizes that it doesn’t matter if your friends are not typically ‘cool’, what matters is that they care. Winnie and Kevin go from being neighbors to friends to lovers to friends again. The best part about their relationship is that every time they break up and have a round of faultfinding and yelling they sit together and discuss where things went wrong.

The unique thing about Kevin’s narration is that he blows up the most ordinary of situations by his theatrics and talks in the simplest of terms about the big, complicated situations in life.

There are few things in life that are timeless and Wonder Years is surely one of them. No matter how old or young you are once Kevin starts speaking you can’t help feeling that he is talking about the best part of your life, your childhood.

So, go watch it. It is being freely shared on the LAN. The warmth it gives you is nice to experience in these cold winter nights.

Ancients knew how to catch the water

Water scarcity has become a serious concern. The security experts are already trying to find ways out to avoid possible water wars in future. Water was a commodity that was freely available to us. Partly due to anger of the weather god and partly due to our own doings, per capita availability of water is declining fast.
Mismanagement of available resources, over exploitation, tendency of people and also the government to make money out of water, pollution of surface resources like rivers and encroachment of ponds and lakes are some of the factors that are making the situation grave. The viable resource left now is groundwater. Pollution of ground water is rampant and due to excessive drawl and less recharge the aquifers are becoming dry. As the days pass water is becoming scarce even in the areas where it was thought to be in plenty. It is important to take lessons from the pages of history and learn what our ancestors and elders were doing in the past.
For them water was a revered commodity.
Water conservation in ancient India:
It appears our ancestors understood the significance of conservation of water better than us. The water harvesting techniques used by them reveal their amazing ingenuity.
Mohenjodaro and Harappa (2600 BC) on the banks of the river Indus in the north and Dholavira located on a low plateau in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat have well developed underground drains. In the Western Ghats about 130 km from Pune exists one of the ancient water harvesting systems in the form of square tanks cut in the rocks to store rain water along a route frequented by the tradesmen.
In the Himalayan terrain, despite scarcity of water townships were established on ridge tops because of a number of flowing springs. One such town is Almora situated on a ridge in Uttaranchal. A strategic location and presence of about 200 flowing springs around the ridge was one of the main considerations for Cahnd Rajas to establish the capital there in 1560. In Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal small tanks were constructed to allow the spring water to accumulate and these were subsequently covered with a roof. These structures are called as ‘Naula’ in Uttaranchal. Names might vary, but the objective was clear to our forefathers; conserve water.
Apart from ‘Naulas’ the other methods of water harvesting in Uttaranchal include ‘Dharas’, ‘Panderas’, ‘Mangras’, ‘Khals’, ‘Chals’, ‘Guhls’ and ‘Gharats’. It is interesting to note that a ‘Naula’ becomes a ‘Dhara’ when an oulet is provided. ‘Guhls’ are same as ‘Kuhls’ of Himachal Pradesh. Water from a river or a stream is diverted into a narrow drain ‘Guhl’ at a point much higher than the village or fields. Water is thus transported long distances by gravity. In Himachal Pradesh the village ‘engineer’ or ‘Kohli’ repaired the temporary bund of boulders and the channel (Kuhl) to the fields before the beginning of the sowing season. ‘Kohli’ also manages and ensures water supply to individual fields. ‘Gharats’ are the water mills common all over the world.
In addition to above in Hamirpur, Kangra and Mandi districts of Himachal Pradesh ‘rectangular, deep pits are made on the hill slopes in hard rocks where rain water is collected. These are called ‘Khatris’ and traditional masons construct them. There are ‘Khatris’ that collect rain water from roof tops as well. Depending on terrain a ‘Khatri’ now costs around Rs 10 to 20, 000.
In the matter of water harvesting/conservation the traditional methods of even northeast were not lagging behind. A system to impound runoff, termed ‘Zabo’ is still in vogue in Nagaland. Rainwater is impounded on the highest terrace and as it trickles down it fills up ponds for the acttles in the middle level terraces and finally irrigates the lowest paddy growing terraces.
Ganga plains forming the huge agrarian belt of U.P., Bihar and west Bengal had a large number of ponds (locally termed as ‘Talab’, Talayya’, ‘Pokher’, ‘Pukur’ etc). These were either remnants of cut-off meanders of the rivers (Ox-bow lakes) or dug by the community. These were and still are the ideal harvesting structures. In Tikamgarh in M.P. and Udaipur in Rajasthan dried up smaller ponds were used for cultivating paddy Next season again the pond was available for harvesting water. Unfortunately in the urban areas such water bodies have been meticulously and systematically usurped by the land mafia and to some extent by the government as well in the name of ‘land development’.
In Western Rajasthan rainwater from roofs was directed into underground tanks. The statues of elephant at a lower level and horse at a higher level in some tanks of Jaiselmer worked as water level indicators. If water touched the elephant’s feet meant water will be available for the locality for two years. If the water level rose and touched the ears of the horse, indicated availability of water for five years. Despite being in desert Jaiselmer never had famine for more than five years in the history, says eminent waterman of India, Rajendra Singh. The forts of Burhanpur in Madhya Pradesh, Golkunda and Bijapur in Andhra Pradesh and Aurangabad in Maharashtra still have underground baked earthen pipes and tunnels that transport water to distant tanks.
While surveying Mehrauli area for groundwater resources in 1966 author had observed three medium sized ponds with bore-wells. Within three decades the traces of ponds was obliterated. Similarly in Mellur area of Kolar district in Karnataka village ponds made on ‘Chettu’ or weathered granite held sufficient water for the population and also for luxuriant sugarcane crops. Now Mellur is a drought affected area.
In the contemporary circumstances rainwater is the only ray of hope for replenishing the groundwater reservoirs. Need of the hour is to use a mixture of wisdom of the ancestors and modern technical expertise and catch the water before it is lost into oblivion.

VK Joshi

IS THE ENVIRONMENT OF ALMORA ENDANGERED?

Almora Township is situated on a horseshoe shaped five-kilometer long ridge at an altitude of 1646m. An important district in the newly formed state of Uttarakhand, the historical town has a mention in the Skand Puran as well. It has been described as a holy mountain between the Kaushik (Kosi) and Shyamli (Suwal) rivers.
During the dynastic rule, the Chand Raja shifted his capital of Kumaun from Champawat to Almora due to strategic reasons. Apparently the location on the ridge gave an unhindered view of the approaching enemy. The availability of plenty of water from the springs surrounding the ridge must have given the place an edge over others.
At the time of independence the population of Almora town was around 5000. Now it has crossed 60,000. The rising population and the pressure of tourists have brought the ecosystem of the area under great stress. Land for urbanization and water for drinking, both are in short supply. Hill towns situated on the ridges require special attention of the planners and builders. Construction activity on the hill slopes upsets the slope stability resulting into landslides. Though no major landslides are reported, yet during the monsoon of 2000, as many as 17 landslides were noticed around the ridge of the town.
The pressure on the land is tremendous. While constructing houses people ignore the fact that a construction across the dry nala bed can be hazardous. Any construction on the slope has to provide adequate drainage for the rain - water. This is ignored and consequently due to pore pressure water bursts out from the weak points of the retaining or breast walls. Result is a small slide, causing misery to the people living in the houses down the slope. The daily requirement of water in Almora town is nine million liters whereas the available supply is only five million liters. Though population has increased in logarithmic proportion, the waste disposal system for solids and fluids, both has not been developed. Consequently, litter can be found rolling on the hill slopes. Even today the waste is burnt on the slopes. A proper sewage disposal system is the need of the hour. Since the availability of water is scarce the sewer system should be of a type which can be run on small quantity of water. A biological degradation of waste should be preferred.
The natural hazards plaguing the Almora district are: earthquake, landslide, and scarcity of water, forest fire, and flash floods. The anthropogenic hazards that affect the environment at Almora are: unchecked urbanization, lack of sewer system and interference with the springs
When Chand Raja established Almora as the Capital of his kingdom, the strategic location and availability of water from about 120 springs situated around the ridge must have been the guiding factors. Later generations of society in a hurry to develop the historical town into a tourist center perhaps ignored this fact. Today only a handful of springs are left as remnants. The springs located on a ridge can have only one source of water, that is rain. No doubt the change in the rainfall pattern must have affected the discharge of the springs, but the human interference cannot be absolved of the responsibility. Efforts can be made even now to save the remaining ones.
In a recent study published by the Geological Survey Of India, it has been recommended that rain water harvesting in Almora town will definitely help to boost the scarce water source. It may be mentioned here that hill women practiced this in the recent past and Almora was no exception. The concept can be scientifically and practically popularized amongst the townsfolk once again. For the development of a sewer system it has been recommended that the town may be divided into four sectors, two on either side of the ridge, and treatment plants be suitably located to take care of the waste product. GSI has also carried out a slope study for the Almora town and slopes on the northwest towards Kosi River and southern slopes have been found suitable for urbanization.
This pristine, historical town can revive its glory with just a little care on part of planners and a firm hand on part of the authorities. A balance between the demand and supply of resource like land and water has got to be struck. If the construction activity goes on unchecked and rampant, the day is not far when fresh drinking water will be available at Almora in bottles only.

-- VK Joshi

Engineer

Engineer woh hain

Jo aksar phasta hain

Interviews ke sawaal mey

Badi companiyon ke jaal mey

Boss aur client ke bawaal mey


Engineer woh hain

Jo pak gaya hain

Meetings ki jhelai mey

Submissions ki gehraai mey

Teamwork ki chataai mey



Engineer woh hain

Jo laga rehta hain

Schedule ko failane mey

Targets ko khiskaane mey

Roz naye-naye bahaane banane mey



Engineer woh hain

Jo lunch time mey Breakfast karta hain

Dinner time mey Lunch karta hain aur

Commutation ke waqt soya karta hain



Engineer woh hain

Jo paagal hain

Chai aur samose ke pyaar mey

Cigarette ke khumaar mey

Birdwatching ke vichaar mey





Engineer woh hain

Jo khoya hain

Reminders ke jawaab mey

Na milne waale hisaab mey

Behtar Bhavishya ke khwaab mey



Engineer woh hain

Jise intezaar hain

Weekend nights par dhoom machaane ka

Boss ke chutti par jaane ka

Increment ki khabar aane ka



Engineer woh hain

Jo sochta hain

Kaash padhaai par dhyaan diya hota

Kaash teacher se panga na liya hota

Kaash ishq na kiya hota....

Kaash..............................


by an Ex-BITian

Free Publicity - The Virgin Way

More Poems

Brother
For 16 yrs. you have been with me;
A staunch support, an inspiring tree,
whenever I went wrong you corrected me,
Whenever I went right you applauded me,
U have never been far away,
So far as happiness,
The last few words of you are a reminder to me
'prepare well',as tears fell,
The train whizzed by,
I shivered in my solitary...

Lost but Won
I had a dream in my eyes,
My goal was to touch the skies.
I had worked hard to achieve it,
But never thought would lose it,
My dad said Be victorious
My teacher said rise
With the early sun in my eyes,
I set off to the journey of skies.
I lost in an event not prepared,
But had faith would survive
With a success on my head
And a fire in my eyes
And then came the final day
when the results were declared
Lost had i in all the events
Tears melted, dreams shattered like a
piece of glass that falls
I had lost but we had won
I had lost but we had won


Passer By
My world was invaded by the thoughts
the thoughts of this passer by
The roses were red and asked me to
Think. with closed eyes;
The feeling brought a new life
to every object in my world
what was it... i could not describe.

The melodies seemed to make sense
the passer was very kind
but i thought it was a state of mind
and would blow off into the air
i was wrong...the thought was right.
Though i could never speak
i was wrong...the thought was right.
i wish. i could speak

Copyright © 2007 by Pratik Dhaboo

food line in h9 on sunday

A Crush

These are those few days in college when I get to stay alone … all by myself … when I can think back into time… think bout those days when all I would have to do is go to school and come back … do my homework at times and then happily indulge in extracurricular activities… then came the days when to the same routine… “ going to tuitions “ had to be added and then we started indulging in more taxing extracurricular…..where less of running around and brainwork was required and more of eye exercise was involved … along with extra rounds of oohhhhs and ahhhhs and 50 more of “ oh!!! He looked at me.”

It was only the second week of going to physics tuitions … it was tiring… coming back from school at 2:30, somehow stuffing myself with “ daal, bhaat and ever so necessary fish curry” , watching ninja robots from 3:30 and then rushing to the tuitions and making it by 4:20 when it would start at 4...

It was on one of those unusual days when I left early for tuition or rather was thrown out of my house so that it appears that I have left early for my tuitions…. Neways… it was pretty cloudy and already had started to drizzle…

It was a perfect weather to njoy outdoors .. For a fast bike ride….just feel the wind blowing past ur hair … ur clothes clinging to ur body as if some gaint vacuum cleaner is following u. I was passing by the k4 type quarters when I heard his voice for the first time… it was so mature, so full of bass, so … mesmerizing that I almost fell off my bicycle… for a split second I was Tran located to some sort of a paradise where the air was full of the sound of the church bells … a lively choir singing their heart out … small children enjoying on a Sunday morning… and all of a sudden it all came crashing down as I crashed into a huge banyan tree and landed inside not so well attended drain… in order to retain the tinge of honor left in me I quietly and quickly got up , brushed myself …. Picked up my then wave like cycle… left for my home as I was too late for … actually too dirty for my tution…

Before leaving …for once i had to analyse the cause of this disaster …. So I looked back into the house from where the voice had called out for me… or atleast I thought had called out for me….but once again … twice in one day I was too late… all I saw was the huge banyan tree laughing out at me…

It was the tution day agin and I would not embarass myself today again by leaving early and colliding into a dumb big tree… so I left late…I was crossing “ the house “ with my complete concentration on the road… I had promised myself that I will not get misguided by any voice of any kind… so I was alert… I had almost crossed the gate… man was I pround or what that soon I heard the voice again… and I stopped (without falling)… turned back for a quick look and what I saw made my heart skip a few beats…I couldn’t breath and could feel Goosebumps coming up … I stood there spell bound with my mouth half open…

I knew what to do if I heard “ the “ voice but what bout when I get to see the one with “ the voice”… and that to when he is someone so cute to look at … his dark brown wavy hair… with a brilliant shine… his brownish grey eyes… gazing at me… I wondered if he liked the look of me… and I don’t know why but I quickly combed my hair with my fingers… he was tall… pretty tall for his kind… kind of well built a little on the heavier side but I didn’t mind… though he had a serious expression something bout his face suggested that he was smiling…he was breathing heavily… probably because he must have been exercising … playing throw ball with his friend…
I soon realized he had come to the gate and was calling out for someone to pass him the ball which had rolled out of the gate and into the drain…but even after this realization dawned on me … I didn’t move a step forward or backward instead kept staring at him with my eyes and mouth wide open…he called out to me again and I got anchored back to the real world…I picked up the ball and gave it to him…and with it flew away a part of my soul … as for him… thanked me with a “ u’r weird “expression turned around and with a big “hhhmmmmfffff” ran back to his friend…

I stood there for a moment … trying to figure out what just happened? And I couldn’t so instead I rushed for my tuition half dazed…

Surprisingly this Sunday I was up and ready very early for my tuition… like a good child I finished my breakfast and zoomed off on my brand new cycle… I had to show it to “Monty”… oh I forgot… after that day of meeting my dream man… I went back to gather more information…
Series of undercover instigations followed… peeping from a hole in the back yard wall when Monty played throw ball…gathering information from sources bout what kind of a being was he? About his relations and all that a gal needs to know bout “the one” . as we noticed that he was very attached to his mom … prerana and myself started meeting his mom more often… more of “namaste aunty ,s” , extra waiting at the gate for quick chats with “aunty”… we even started gathering flowers for her morning pooja….so that she would let us play with her son… after lot of hard work we finally got what we wanted… permission to interact with Monty …. We used to play his favorite throw ball… and then chasing squirrels up the tree…. At times we would also play hide and seek… or just sit back and relax , speak to each other bout how our parents don’t understand our needs… or what’s the need to learn or go to school… or how best friends hurt our feelings and we couldn’t do nething bout it…

Soon we grew very close to each other… I started spending more time at his house… I started bunking classes… and went for walks with Monty… racing to the next lamp post…
we used to walk up to the lake on early Sunday mornings … v had carved out a small niche for ourselves… it was a patch of barren ground surrounded by three big boulders… and all around it grew huge evergreen trees… and our feet would touch the warm water as we enjoyed the filtered sunlight… I would spend hours watching Monts plays with the shadows of the leaves… enjoying the fragrance of the sweet small white wild flowers… careful studying the chirping birds… I was amused to see the strong bond between monts and the beautiful nature… It was a pleasure to play “ catch “ with him… it was fun to be chased round by or just run after monts… he looked so handsome when he would come running to me… his long hair bouncing with every step… his face full of a big smile… ohhhh… how much I wish he could be mine forever….
One day when we were resting after a big throw ball game beside the lake… monts slowly crawled up to me … lay his head gently on my lap and snuggled in… then slowly as if unknowingly put his hand on mine…a shiver ran down my spine and my heart felt as if it would burst into million pieces…and soon I fell asleep…

Only an hour had passed by when I suddenly woke up … and I saw Monty sitting straight up in front of me … and looking into my eyes… I felt as if he had thousands of questions to ask me but somehow couldn’t express himself… after a few seconds of staring at each other I couldn’t stand it nemore and shied away… I could feel my cheeks burning … and am sure they must have turned red… Monty understood just how i felt so he soon got up and signaled for me to follow him… and so did I… as we were walking back it dawned on me … that my exams were coming that meant I would no longer be spending time with Monty…

I had already started missing him…

We reached his house first… I looked into his eyes…trying to tell him all I could in just one look but I failed… as we were standing on the road we had to part for almost 3 weeks with this last stare only…

My head bent and more than semi wet eyes… I started heading for my house… then I suddenly turned back ran to Monty who was about to enter his house… and unabashedly planted a small kiss on his cheek… and ran back home ….

That night as I lay on my bed all I could think of was “MONTY” … his eyes… his hair… his soft yet sturdy body…as ne other girl would have done I at once called up m best friend and spoke to her bout all this… she couldn’t help but laugh at me… I was disappointed and at once cut the line….

Days went by in gloom… and atlas the blessed exams came to an end…

Again it was time to get back to my love… as soon as I came back from school I got ready and left for Monty’s house…

With various plans cropping up inside my head…and my heart full of glee… I almost flew to Monty’s house… but what I saw left me utterly confounded…

A big lock on the main gate… I didn’t know what to do…so I tried trespassing the property and of course got caught…

As the nosy neighbors scolded me for my behavior, all I could think bout was what if Monty was some where inside the house… if only I could get a glimpse of his smiling face but all I could see was darkness…

My voice cracking … I somehow managed to ask what had happened …soon Monty’s friend recognized me and came running to me… it was such a relief to see him for now I was sure that it was only a matter of seconds that I could meet my monts again…

I asked jaggy what happened to Monty and his friend replied “ sahib to chale gaye…. Doosre sheher mien. Saath mine le gaye Monty ko… mem saab to keh rahi thi ki usko bechne ko….par sahab aur baba nahi mane….”

I couldn’t believe my ears…this couldn’t be true….

How could they have left without informing…I didn’t even get to meet Monty for the last time…
Monty’s owner had left for kolkata and had taken him with him… he was the best dog I had ever seen and my best friend ever since the first time we played throw ball together….I turned to leave when I saw something near the gate …. I turned back for a second glance … the bright red ball lay near the gate with a grim expression, feeling unwanted, perhaps missing Monty as much as I was or may be even more…. I picked it up and held it close to my heart…. Closed my eyes and started weeping loudly regardless of the fact that I was standing almost on the main road…

That day I was forced to think if its really true that
TRUE LOVE CAN ONLY EXIST BETWEEN A MAN AND HIS DOG…..
And today when I sit on my bed finishing this story… I m forced to think again and am missing Monty even more…. Wish he could be mine …. MINE FOREVER.

-- pooja

Poems

CHIMERA

Stealing the light of the candle
She had danced with the shadows once.
Shadows
That now stand
Stripped naked.
The candle,
Extinguished.

CHASM

The soft, silent pain in your eyes
Betrays the silk in your laugh
And questions
The love between us.

FILLERS

Interlinked fingers
A face buried in the hollow of a neck
Lips tracing the meanders of an ear
The swirl of a tongue around a navel
An embrace erases the gap between arms
An insertion swallows up the chasm between legs
For love is all about filling the voids
As is sex

LOST

I slipped in my dream in your eyes, quietly
While you were looking the other way
Thinking it would flourish
With other dreams of yours
Would be nurtured by you
That you won’t know it from your own
I saw it from a distance for several days
Growing
At times, it would rush to one corner of your eye
(I could see it when you smiled, when your eyes crinkled at the corners)
Then, to another
Ready to flow down with a tear
Trembling
Making me tremble
But then you pushed back your tears
And with it, my breath
When you threw up your head to laugh the other day
It was sparkling with a new lustre
It warmed my heart to see it there
Resplendent, in all its glory
I moved a light finger to touch it
The lashes fluttered
The elusive elf vanished
Into the unknown recesses of your eye
Now I don’t know my dream from yours
Keep trying to find it
Sifting yours

--by Ankita

Raat Ki Daastan

Raat ki pakad dheeli pad rahi hai aur chaaand bhi ek taraf chala ja raha hai. Akhir wo jaana kahan chahta hai? Shayad wo kahin chhip jana chahata hai. Subah ke aanchal me chhipne ko betaab ye chaand bekhabar hai suraj ke us tez se, jo uska namo nishaan tak mita jaega. Shayad.....andhera hi chaand ka ujala hai. Sab ujale se pyar karte hain, chalo andhere se kisi ko to kinaara mila.
Raat hoti hai to har taraf hoti hai bas khamoshi,sannata aur andhera, sab so rahe hote hain, bas akela chand hi jag raha hota hai. Sundarta aur prem ka paryaay bana ye chaand sari raaat idhar udhar bhatakta hai , talaash hai use apne humsafar ki, lekin wo abhi tak tanha hai. Hamsafar ko khojte khojte subah hoti hai aur chand ko lagta hai ki uska hamsafar use milne wala hai. Ab chaand bahut khush hai lekin ye kya? Chaand ki chamak pheeki kyun pad rahi hai? Kya suraj pe uska itna vishwas karna galat hai? Aur ye kya, suraj ne to pure chaand ko hi nigal liya hai. Jispe itna bharosa kiya usi ne itna bada dhoka diya. Lekin shayad chaand hi galat tha. Usne galat shaks pe vishwas kiya. Usne us cheez ko paane ki koshish ki jo kabhi uski ho hi nahi sakti thi aur hoti bhi kaise, puri raat pagalon ki tarah uska saath dene wale andhere ko jo usne chhod diya tha. Aur dekho ab khud ko hi kho baitha hai ye chaand. Chaand pe agar sabse jyada haq kisi ka hai to wo hai andhere ka lekin... sabhi darte hain andhere se ki kahin wo unhe nigal na le. Andhere ka dard to koi samjh hi na paya. Bechare ne ghut ghut kar dum tod diya aur apne sangharsh me haar gaya. Kya andhere ka kasoor sirf itna hai ki wo khamosh hai,dard lapete hue hai,bilkul tanha hai???
Praveen(IIT Kgp)

Courage!

This is the effluvium of emotions of a person who has to leave her love because of this unjust world.

There is no sun today. Its foggy. Probably the way my life is, or everybody thinks their life is. People are praying for the sun to come out, but its already out in my imaginative world- spreading its radiant arms over my body, inciting me with its warmth. I’m probably still in dreams, but I have to come out of it, open my eyes and face the reality, howsoever harsh it might be.

I start to draw my inspiration from the sun perched in my dreams. I do not love the beautiful rising or setting sun. I like the cruel sun, at its peak, at midday. There it shows that it had the talent to go up and has the courage to come down and come up once again the next day.

This reminds me of the altruistic moon. The most unselfish nature’s gift. It has nothing of its own to offer. It receives light from the sun as alms and that too it donates to the people on the earth, as insignificant as you and me, without keeping anything for itself.

There is a faint line of dark nimbus across the skies. People say the storm blows and dies, the flood gushes in and leaves. They are evanescent. I learn from them. Howsoever small their life may be, they fulfill their purpose and then leave. They shatter and annihilate all that comes their way pillaging their way towards their goal. The goal matters the most and as far as remembrance is considered, people do that for ages in their nightmares.

The nimbus has already made the trees start dancing to its tunes. Trees show how a relationship is made to be broken, how the people you associate with are the ones who leave you and go. The leaves start their life there-sprout, bloom and sway. The tree cares for it as a mother does for her child-food, protection and love, but what happens of the relationship? One fine day all of a sudden the wind comes and says lets leave and even without a goodbye the leaf leaves the person who has cared for it more than himself. Who thinks how the tree shall bear the loss, but it does and does not debilitate in the process. It comes out of it and prepares itself for another generation of leaves.

Somebody said you cannot derive inspiration from the nature because they cannot speak, but I think they are a bigger source of inspiration than us who can at least speak to give vent to our sorrows. Taking a real life example- when I had dropped a year for IIT. I used to attend tuitions and there everyday a beggar who was physically bereaved, had the same torn shirt on for all seasons, used to spread out his arm in front of me with that somber look. I would never even give him a nebulous glance, but he persisted. There was not even the faintest glitter of hope of receiving even a look of sympathy from me, leave aside any penny. He still persisted and at the end, on the 365^th day I gave him Rs 365.

Why then despite so many examples I cannot learn from them. Why then is it that I cry for every loss, give lachrymose performances foe every dolour. Why then I cannot bear not living without one person-who’s thoughts, actions and words tirade my soul. Why then are my parameters for judging a person dependant on the characteristics of that guy. Why cannot I take in things without thinking about him. Why do small things afflict me. A mosquito crying initially generated the response-“switch on the good night”. Now the acrimonious response is–“kill the bastard”. Why is it that I look for a coffin when I smell of flowers.

Who gives me the right to say I cannot come out of this. Why do I demand to forget my own responsibility towards the whole world as I become answerable to just one person. Nobody. I don’t have the right to spoil other’s expectations from me to coerce myself to come down correctly on one person’s expectations. I don’t have the right to take my life. If not for myself I have to live for my dad who even when I was a kid, held me in his arms-not affectionately but as you display a prized trophy, up in the air. Things change, but change is natural and I do not need to change here. Rousseau said freedom is the power to choose our own chains and I decide to desert this chain. I shall get up and be what I always dreamt of being- a girl of poise, belligerent and filled with oodles of attitude and I think by writing this article I have already started doing so!

I Am Grateful ...

That day is vividly etched in my memory. I remember clearly the ride in the auto that brought us (me and my parents) to BIT. It was a bright sunny afternoon, and after a two day train journey I should have been exhausted but somehow I wasn't. I was too excited for trifles like that. I watched amazed as we passed the long hostels. The perfect facade of the BIT institute building emerged out of nowhere and offered a sudden breath-taking view. I hadn't experienced anything so imposing before. Whoever says that he wasn't awestruck when he first entered BIT is lying. I was astounded too, and though I acted cool about it all, I saw being here as a culmination of my efforts of the last few years.

Somewhere in between the pride in their glances to me, my parents must have harbored a deep concern for me. As such, amid the sense of achievement there was a silent under-current of apprehension. It was then that I decided, I will belittle all the sorrows this place gives me and herald all the joy I am afforded. "That should be easy", I said to myself. I couldn't have imagined how hard it would be.


The first rude shock was that I was to share a small, nay, tiny room with my roommate. (Looking back it wasn't that bad). The ordeal of the admission process, complicated further by the gutkha eating, incompetent babus and peons in the offices. One of the first things to strike me about this place was that security guards were all over the place, and were getting things done...they were more helpful then the officials. "There goes meritocracy out of the window", I thought. I reconciled myself by saying that this is probably the case with most colleges...chalta hain...little did I realize now how often I have to say that in my stay here. It was the same with the food, the way classes were conducted, the labs, the curriculum...hey wait a minute...I couldn't name one thing that this college offered that was better than the others...everything was either as bad or worse.

I hate to look back and say "If only…", but sometimes we have to and learn to admit our mistakes. So I think sometimes, was it a mistake to come here? Had my dreams been shattered mercilessly? I got the answer eventually. Education is not only the gain of knowledge and a tool to win a livelihood...no, it is much more than that...this place gave me amazing friends, I came in contact with great seniors and juniors, I learnt from them, I learnt from great men like Mr. B.B. Pant, this was what this college had given me. It has taught me how to live, amid chaos and confusion, how to carve a niche for myself; it showed me who I really was. These things people say, are achievable in other institutions too, but I don't know and I don't want to find out. All I know is that I wouldn't be the same had I been elsewhere. I am what I am today because of these years in college and I am grateful for that.

Saurabh Khadke

UBUNTU TO SAVE US ALL FROM BILL

"Ubuntu" is an African word that means 'Humanity for all'. And sure it is; we all need to be saved from the wrath of Gates and Windows.

How many times have you had to restart your computer? How many times have you had to upgrade your processor just to keep up with your spaghetti coded operating system? How many times have you opened out your arms to the heavens and cried out in pain on reading an error message?

I do not wish to resort to the cliched, but it seems so apt here- "Only the worthy find the grail". That might explain why so many still use Windows; they have not discovered Linux.

To revive a dinosaur of a desktop, which would seem to most people, only worthy of trashing, one but needs to get rid of the spaghetti-coded Windows that harries it. It probably has seen too many viruses to have much hope itself. Shutting down and restarting might have caused its quick extinction. For all these problems, there is Linux. Its robust kernel cannot be attacked by virus or hacker. I will not mince my words, it won't crash.

This is where Ubuntu comes in. It is the best version of Linux going around now. Red Hat is more or less neglected, and others have meandered too much, Ubuntu is alive and kicking. It is further enhanced by the fact that Google endorses it and they use their own version of it, Goobuntu. This should further urge the fence-sitters; all Goobuntu updates are available instantly for all on the internet.

Who needs Windows and Gates to enter through the hallowed doors of deliverence? Ubuntu comes couriered to your doorstep in a nifty compact disk. If you still do not have it, then prepare to be swamped over along with Virus Vista through the Gates of Crash, Restart, Control-Alt-Del, 'Where is the @#$%ing MCSE dude?"

Lakshmi

Memories Of The First Year

You hear a lot about college from your elder brothers and sisters. You imagine this place with no uniform, no parental guidance and very little studies, in short, a place where the party never ends. But this dream bubble gets brutally popped when you enter the gates of Birla Institute of Technology (they should add a :ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK board there).

For the first five minutes you see nothing but trees, trees and more trees with hostel buildings peeking from behind done up in gay(pun intended) yellow and spotted with undies. Finally you reach your own cellular jail. And then your warden says the two magic words “IN TIME”. Things get worse with the stuff they call food and hell holes called toilets.

First day of class, hope rises again. With buoyant steps you enter the building. A swarm descends upon you- SENIORS. From the next day on salwaar kameez, oily hair and bathroom chappals become your style statement. They make you sing, dance or act the fool anytime anyplace. At night you sob your stories to parents and hope you had never left home.

After the first week something happens….something they call orientation. You get used to it. You tell yourself, “It maybe bad but it is what I have to live with now”. And then the fun begins…..

You share your sorrows with your jail mates. You form a team and have fun at Techneek. You enjoy the sad show at Fugia. You experience the joys of free SMSing. You slip off to Subarnrekha right under the guard’s nose. You learn how to study the night before the exam and still get good marks. You learn to play the guitar. You come across funny words like PMC and BABA. Seniors don’t seem so bad when they hand over notes and treat at CCD.

College campus is a place where rumors spread fast. For one whole week you gossiped about a girl from your hostel getting married even when she lived as a happy spinster in the next room. You hear one day that your room was raided and enough stuff was found to earn a narcotics officer a lifetime achievement award. In reality not even a room heater was found!!!

Suddenly you realize that this jungle is always abuzz. Drishtant, Genesis, Dope Seminar. During BITotsav you wish you had Hermione’s time turner because you have to participate in 4 events at the same time.

And now as you finish this blog entry from home you can’t wait to go back. The place has somehow grown on you. The administration may be cold and apathetic or plain non-existent (except on registration day) but the students take care of the rest. The best soldiers are the ones that take the hardest obstacle course. So cadet tie up your boots for another action packed semester !!!!!

--Lioness

Why THiNK………….

First think about your web-life. Has it not changed rapidly? You no longer mail friends…..you drop by scraps. Your photos are up for display to the world. You have suddenly started preferring random videos on YOUtube to chat shows with famous personalities. Where do you go looking for information, not Britannica but wikipedia. Firefox and Linux spreading like wildfire. And the biggest one of ‘em all……THE BLOG.

WHY?

Because, as Time magazine suggests, the spotlight has shifted to YOU. We don’t want to listen to the general on a news channel briefing us about the situation on the warfront when we have a soldier pouring his heart out on a blog.

We don’t want one professionally made movies anymore……some moron with a camera filming an average day in his dorm seems much more interesting.

We don’t want telephone calls or even e-mails when social networking rocks.

GLORIFYING MEDIOCRACY???

Are bloggers just a bunch of wannabe writers doling out crap about non-consequential things? Should a regular Joe be allowed to tamper with the baap of all information- the encyclopedia? What is so good about the amateurish video clips the world is going crazy about?

I SAY,NO

Because blogs, wikipedia, YOUtube and the gazillion social networks are not trampling upon the already existing ways of information interchange. They are carving a new space for themselves, an alternative. And like it or not everybody riding this wave( now officially called WEB 2.0….though nothing official about it!) is lovin’ it. We have lived linearly too long relying on a bunch of specialists to tell us what we know or do. Its time for a different perspective.

CHANGE

Maybe it’s time when the junta jumps up from the ‘ people’s poll’ corner of the newspaper and spreads to the pages.

BUT, WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

Because bitrip and now THiNK are both a part of this phenomenon. I might now recognize many of my fellow BITians on the road but I get a peek into what they think and do from their blogs. Calvin and Hobbes may tickle me a lot but it is an altogether different experience to read a comic strip about the life around me done by someone living in the adjacent hostel. A book on famous one-liners may be good but it cannot beat the nonsensicality of H4ism. News channels with hundreds of investigating teams blew up the death of a student here but Rhea’s simple observation and remembrance was closer to the truth.

So….START THiNKing but don’t forget to open the lid of your head when you do so that the world can peek in.

COME and be a part of the first THiNK forum/meeting/briefing/celebration on 24^th January……

BECAUSE it’s time ME AND YOU took over.

Questions Anyone?

Did the egg come first or the chicken? Did the tree come first or the seed? What is ‘God’? Why can’t we have the cake and eat it too? How did the universe originate? These questions which seem to bring all physical explanation to an end are the fundamental problems in metaphysics. It is a branch of philosophy that takes us into a world beyond our own world in a quest to understand the ultimate truth that governs the universe.

‘Meta’ in Greek means ‘Over’ and is understood in some contexts as beyond or after. Physics is, again, a Greek word meaning nature. Hence metaphysics is a study of something that’s beyond nature. The ball was set in this direction by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. In organizing his works, he placed the section on philosophy immediately after physics. Although he called it ‘First philosophy’, the early Aristotelian philosophers called it “ta meta ta physica biblia” which literally means “that which comes after the books on physics”. Co-incidentally, the name fits the subject very aptly since metaphysics attempts to answer questions that transcend the physical world.

Let us look at some basic problems of the subject. We see so many ‘things’ around us. Pens, books, chains, mirrors and so on. What is a thing made of? We could say everything is composed of atoms and molecules having certain properties. But the question remains as to what atoms or molecules are made of. Are they just a bundle of their properties? If a certain thing exists, how did it come there? Did the egg come first or the hen? These are questions of origin. Similar questions could be raised when a thing ceases to exist. After I have eaten a cake, the cake doesn’t exist any more. Where did it go? What happened to the properties it possessed? What happened to the sweet taste? When a person dies, he is no longer the person he used to be. His body is now a corpse, a thing. But when he was ‘alive’, he had a mind, a ‘consciousness’. Where does the mind go after death? What is consciousness? If the mind and the body are two different entities, how is it that the mind controls the body? Where do thoughts come into the mind from? …………..Another barrage of questions follows. Understanding the nature of the mind is perhaps the single most challenging problem faced by philosophers and scientists.

And then there is the question of space and time. What is space? Would space exist if all the objects were taken out of it? Did space exist before the origin of the universe? Or did it take birth with it? What is time? Why can’t we stop time? Why can’t we travel back and forth in time? Did time exist before the universe?

One question leads to another and question after question can be asked endlessly. What makes things difficult is that the theories in metaphysics are generally not testable or provable. Most conclusions drawn are based on one’s perception and experience. Nobody can force one to think like himself for there is no evidence to justify his beliefs. The more data one tries to find to corroborate his theories, the more theories he finds which falsify them. Yet another reason for obscurity is that all our thoughts are controlled by our mind. Firstly, we do not understand the working of the mind. Moreover our minds can only reason what we perceive within this world. We try to model what we do not know on the basis of what we do. We are like fish in an aquarium wondering what the world outside might be like while the truth is that we can’t even find the walls.

Metaphysics is a bottomless well of assorted questions. The deeper you sink, the more questions you unearth, and somewhere at the bottom of those questions is an answer. An answer to all the questions that one could ask. An answer that could be the solution to all problems. That is the answer that metaphysicians seek….

How deep is the well? How long and how deep should we dig before we find out? Nobody knows and the quest continues…….

Amal

THiNKing

Well, close to three months have elapsed since the first conception of THiNK.
a quarter of an year and people in the college know of it atleast. Given the just up and (barely) running LAN that works sometime in the day when im not using it, the junta has definitely changed. or seems to be headed that way. nevermind that. more on that later on bitrip. more importantly, a discussion forum seems to be on the cards. the discussion shall focus loosely on books (a reader's club) and a generic topic, which will be "Engineering Syllabus:Time for Change" most probably.
now, as someone pointed out earlier today, there isnt much to be achieved by sitting and discussing this. the point in case is similar to the reservation issue that rocked the awareness of every other youth in this country. im not saying that we do something of that sort, merely that we spaek among ourselves and have a voice, a point of view. that we THiNK together and give vent to our thoughts. peacefully. over coffee.

the tentative date for the meeting and the venue is too tentative for announcement yet, but it should be in the week starting 22nd January.

As they say Vox Populi, Vox Dei - the voice of people is the voice of god.
Well, let's get together and find our voice. maybe its just the cold getting to me. maybe its the rdb track playing in my earphones. maybe it's just me.

Oh Well, What the Hell.
See you around the campus next week.
till then,

THiNK

The Shape of Things to come

If you’d ask me what’s the single greatest challenge that we as individuals face in our lives today, I’d say: change. I believe that we are all susceptible to the uncertainty that permeates the world around us today. As a species, we have reached a stage where the pace of change is simply phenomenal. The only thing certain about the future is that it will be different. Don’t expect a status quo because you won’t find it. What is the norm today will be archaic tomorrow and what today are matters of science fiction will be part of our daily lives. Well, that’s what has been happening over the last century. We somehow seem to catch up with our imagination and create for ourselves a new and different world every day.

So if things are changing, it’s probably a given that you must change too. Now that’s difficult. It doesn’t take much to proclaim to the world that you are open to change, that you are flexible as an individual and are prepared for whatever the future has in store. In fact, there are countless such examples of individuals and organizations that do just that. The truth, however, is that we are always less prepared for change than we may have ourselves believe.

We all resist change. We hate uncertainty. That’s built into our systems. Some individuals fight this inner urge to resist change and succeed. Others wonder what hit them and why they weren’t prepared. Which category you fall into is entirely a matter of choice.

In the times to come, I believe we will witness change like no other generation before us has. We are at a historical inflection point of sorts; generations to follow may well see us as the people who stood in the eye of the storm. The world around us is rapidly changing in every realm: we may be at the cusp of an energy crisis that may trigger another war. We may have already strained our planet too much; our resources may just not be able to support the burgeoning billions of us. I’m not predicting doomsday. This may never happen. Again, if we prevent this from happening it will only mean that we would have effectively dealt with change.

We live in uncertain, albeit interesting times.

The Promise

Look at the moon shining, smiling saying HI,

Watching his stars giggling, playing in the garden of sky,

Feeling the pain of those one who left him alone,

Blackening his face,

Reminding him The Promise to mourn,

The promise which he inherits from his father,

Spreading lights in days or scolding the nature rather,

Looking at the horizon to meet his end,

Counting his days, humming prayers to touch the Almighty's hand,

Looking his children again,

Giggling, twinkling throwing the lights aloud,

But fretting about something when facing the cloud,

The promise, The promise suddenly flashes in his mind,

"Come here my dear, my love" asks the giant,

"The promise I say to you,

The promise you say to me,

You must hold the gleam,

You must make the passage clean,

For the sons of my sister,

For those who seek the ecstasy and fight the sinister,

Throw them your light of wisdom,

Make them as you are,

Show them the way to truth and give the breath of freedom,

Why you look so hazy?

Why you look so shy?

Stand with the glory,

Climb this nature, climb this sky,

Make the clouds to shame and to pass by,

Tell them that they are just the bunches of dusts,

Rubbing them will not even take us to sigh,

You are the one, you are my son,

Show everyone that

You'll carry The Promise,

You'll define the life what it is,

Say me The Promise,

Say me The Promise."

The father looks at the horizon,

It is The Promise reading his son.

- Manas Chhabra