Dedicated to the memory of Professor Suresh Ramaswamy

BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus

Contents

58 | Photographs

56 | Artwork

Director’s message6

Literary8

62Poems

96 | Beyond BITS

44 | Interviews

67Word Games

Club Histories82

BITS is known for its innovation and creativity . Sizzling Sands, the annual student-magazine of BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus stands as one of the best indicators of these attributes of BITSians. I’m glad that our students have come out with yet another edition of Sizzling Sands this year and I’m quite sure that this issue will have its own unique features to attract the readers.I congratulate the editorial team, appreciate their efforts and wish them success.

K E RamanDirector

Director’s Message

Editorial

Faced with the near-impossible task of chronicling what transpired in a campus where there is so much going on all year round, the Annual Magazine Team has tried to put together a glimpse of how we’ve grown over the course of an academic year. Abound with stories of success, BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus seems to have matured into the hallowed institute it was intended to be in a very short span of time. The swelling ranks of BITSGians in the Ivy Leagues, the highest number of selections from any Indian institute for Google’s Summer of Code Programme, the spurt in research by students and faculty, the number of entrepreneurs- all bear testimony to this.

But life at BITS goes far beyond the conventional yardsticks of success. That is what truly makes us Avant-Garde. True to Mr. K K Birla’s vision of “ensuring harmoniously blended development of the students’ physical, intellectual, aesthetic, social and spiritual powers”, BITSGians have made a mark in diverse fields. The vibrant campus culture that adulates dedication in what you do coupled with the freedom that we’re given which imbibes us with a sense of responsibility have produced men and women who are willing to go beyond their prerogative.

With a blend of literary articles, stories and instances that try to convey what makes us BITSians, this publication just about manages to scratch the surface. Putting it together has been a wonderful experience. At the end of it, the overwhelming emotion is one of anticipation of the things to come (and a sense of relief at having completed the magazine).

So, we delve into the story of a campus that is incessantly trying to raise the bar- a campus that is Avant-Garde.

Francis JamesChief EditorSizzling Sands 2012

7

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat. —Lily Tomlin

Literary

Photo Credits: Malavika Gopinath

Literary

Literary | A Price on Thought10

A Price on Thought

From where I sit this morning, I can see only flowers in all kinds of colours and innumerable trees in every shade of green. I can hear several different bird calls and the occasional buzz of an insect; possibly a bee. I can smell clean air that’s laced ever so slightly by the fragrance of the flowers.This is a remote hillside in Coorg, a favourite spot with my family that we are now visiting for the third time. We like the silence, the feeling of being cut off from the world and its IPL-related brouhahas, the freshness of the air.But this morning, my mind’s in an unexpected, incongruous whirl. This is because I’ve been looking at a few “projects” that a young girl we know has done for her boarding school teachers. You know what I mean: like one on “Famous Astronomers” for her physics class, or another on a Shakespeare play for her English class, or a

third on Girish Karnad for her Kannada class. She has a whole stack of these — easily two dozen — that she has done through her 8th Standard year. All beautifully printed, labelled, garnished with pictures, and of course complete with several pages of text in her careful, precise handwriting. And she has five more to complete before school resumes after the May break, in two weeks.

A few things strike me even before actually looking inside her

projects. One, there are so many of them, on such a variety of subjects. Wow, the school must truly expose the kids to a whole spectrum of themes and people. Two, she has got an “A+” on every single project. Wow, she must be one outstanding child. Three, five more projects? In two weeks?“That’s nothing”, says her mother. “They had a four day break in September, and she had to do

Dilip D’Souza

Being Avant Garde about Some Things

Dilip D’Souza did a BE in Electri-cal and Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani (1976–81) and an MS in Computer Science from Brown Univer-sity (1984). He is dedicated to alumni activities and is the author of ‘Road-runner’ published by Harper-Collins. He is currently on the editorial board of the BITS Alumni magazine Sand-paper. A column by him about two young engineers from Kerala who built a dam in rural Maharashtra and supplied electricity where there was none, provided the inspiration for a key segment of the 2004 movie Swades directed by Ashutosh Gowariker.

Literary | A Price on Thought11

nine projects then!” Wow, indeed.

That’s when, of course, my mind starts on its whirl. I pick two of the projects at random to read through at leisure. What I read is — how do I put this gently? — shocking.One of these two efforts is about Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. It starts with two handwritten pages about Shakespeare himself. These are in nearly impeccable English, except that some of the dates seem a little confused, and Shakespeare’s father apparently was “a glovemaker and a grammar school”.

Hmm.. Where did that come from?

It continues with a summary of the play, also two handwritten pages.

Apart from a few grammatical mistakes, this is an energetic account that nicely captures the intrigue and twists in the play.There’s a reason I’ve mentioned “impeccable English” and the “few grammatical mistakes”, and I assure you it’s not because I am supercilious about this young girl’s language skills. It’s because what comes next in this booklet is so startlingly different from these two sections.

What comes next is a half-page “Thematic Analysis”, followed by a quarter-page “Conclusion”. Reading these, you’re suddenly stumblingover spelling and grammatical mistakes. Here’s just one example: in wanting to say somebody showed “humility”, she instead has him showing “humidity”. The contrast with the near-perfection of the first four pages of the report is so extreme and unexpected that I couldn’t help going back in wonder to those early pages.

What happened?

What happened is that what’s in those early pages — a brief bio of Shakespeare and a brief summary of the play — is clearly copied from Wikipedia or other pages on the Web. This explains the largely correct language. It also explains the “grammar school” mystery: in copying, she must have overlooked a line, as often happens when you copy several lines of text.

In contrast, the last two sections of the project — analysis and conclusion — are the only bits that have come out of the girl’s own thinking. Reading them, you come away with the unmistakable impression that this is the work of a kid in school, definitely in or about the 8th standard. Given that, you look beyond the errors and try to get a sense of how well she has understood the play, what kind of lessons she is able to take from it. There again, what’s on display here is clearly the work of a young teen: not hugely insightful, but not superficial and shallow either.

Not “C-” level work, definitely, but by no means “A+” either. And that’s when you wonder: what are our schools encouraging our kids to do? When you expect nine completed projects like these in four days, what else will a student do but immediately turn to Google and Wikipedia? What after that, but copy wholesale from those search results, but find and print appropriate images off the Web?And when she is done doing this, what happens? Her teacher awards her an “A+”. The message is clear: Keep copying stuff off the web. Don’t worry about original thinking, because that’s not a concern while you’re being graded. Nobody really cares whether you think.

And all this in what several tell me is one of Coorg’s most acclaimed schools.

Something is profoundly troubling about the stack of A+ projects. Something about the pressure to produce. The pressure, and incentive, to copy wholesale. The side-lining of original thought. The way all this is handsomely rewarded, thus ensuring it becomes the norm.

Most troubling of all is that teachers, and their schools, seem to see nothing wrong in all this. They actually seem to expect it. That they place so low a price on thought.There are times, and today is one, when I wonder if the most avant garde thing our schools can do is this: find ways to return to thinking.Find ways to make “A+” mean something. (And “C-”, for that matter). Find ways to educate our children. All over again.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. —Ellen Parr

Literary | Better Than Nothing12

Better Than Nothing

Rana drew a long breath and tried to keep calm. That latter was easy enough, as he wasn’t particularly nervous, though he imagined anybody else about to do what he had in mind, would be. Then again, for a man in Rana’s position, fear of any task can be overcome quite effectively if he reminds himself that he has absolutely nothing to lose.The former, on the other hand, wasn’t. He hadn’t eaten properly in so long, long breaths made him conscious of his empty stomach.Rana’s clothes reeked of sweat and dirt; grime from the last few weeks he’d spent sleeping at an abandoned construction site. He hadn’t been too particular about hygiene even before his father’s shop was burned down, but as Rana looked down at the rags he had on him, he hoped this would be the last time he’d ever have to do so. He hated his life. He hated being poor. He would fix everything today.“I’m not going to steal.”

Before Rana stood the bungalow of the man responsible for the conditions in this ilaka. The range and extent of crimes committed by the Boss and his men was subject to conjecture, but people said that he would never be convicted, and the people always know best. The Boss would never go to jail. The police would never touch the Boss. The police were the Boss’s men.Shopkeepers in Haravi lived in perpetual terror, most of them barely scraping by every month after the Boss’s men had collected their dues. Crimes in the area were never reported, even though gunshots were commonplace. When the Boss was driven out every afternoon in one of

his many Gypsys, the men in khaki lined up to salute him, fearing for their payrolls as they did so. The Boss never saluted back. He’d grin his yellow grin, always dressed in the same white kurta, and adjust his Aviators as he passed by. This was where crime thrived. The Boss’s land was where society’s most heinous acts of violence and brutality occurred, and he let it happen, but it didn’t matter. The Boss was above all that. He wasn’t answerable to his victims. How could he be, when his victims had no voices?

Rana was a victim.

“No bhai, I’m no thief.”

Rana gathered up his courage, got a firm grip on the rod he’d picked up this morning at the construction site, and began a slow but meaningful walk towards the thug at the gate of the Boss’s house.***

Rana carefully surveyed the gash across his right arm, his face showing nothing but genuine curiosity at how he had fared. His ear was bleeding from a blow to the head, his left thigh was swelling quickly, and the wound on his arm stung, but he had expected as much, and more. Things had gone down quite favorably. He smiled and threw the knife he had been holding and it slid across the carpeted floor of the Boss’s study. He placed the pistol he had taken from one of the thugs on a small wooden table, well within his reach and then settled into a red armchair, the one reserved for the Boss’s visitors.Rana sighed. He was more comfortable here

Harman Singh

Literary | Better Than Nothing13

than he could ever remember being, but he was glad it was over. He hadn’t enjoyed it.

After a few minutes, he reached over again and picked up the telephone from the table next to him. Knowing he didn’t have much time, he quickly dialed the only phone number he knew. “Hello?”

“I’m in his office.”

“What?”

“I’m sitting in his chair right now. I got inside.”

“You changed your mind! Why are you calling me, you idiot? Look around. Do you see anything valuable? Anything we can get a price for?”“I wouldn’t know,” Rana said softly,” I haven’t seen anything truly valuable in a while. Not since back when we had a life.”“Rana you need to hurry up. Somebody may have heard you. Do you know when he’ll be back home?”“Who, him? Not for a long time.” Rana said. He paused, and then with a sudden change of tone asked, “Don’t you get tired? Of all this dishonesty?”“What? What’re you talking about?”

“Living the way you do. You’re a common thief, bhai. You steal for a living, from people who work hard to get by. We haven’t worked a day since...that day. How can you live like that?”“Rana I do what I have to. And you can too. Now please, hurry up and get out of that monster’s house.”Rana sighed. “I can’t leave. And I’m not stealing anything. There’s nothing for me outside.”

“Get the hell out of there Rana, somebody could walk in any minute!”

“Not him though. He isn’t going to walk in anywhere.” mumbled Rana, looking up to see the Boss’s lifeless eyes staring at him from across the room, from the same chair he had been sitting in when Rana shot him.“You didn’t-? What? You killed him? Are you crazy? Get out of there Rana, get out now.”

“What would be the point of that? I need to stay here till the police come, or they’ll never find me.” he said, as he stretched himself comfortably on

the lush red armchair. “I think I can hear their sirens now. Or I may just be dreaming, who knows?”“Rana,” his brother whispered, “What’re you doing?”

“I’m making my life Bhai.” said Rana, his tired smile finding its way into his voice as he spoke, “I’m going to eat well, and I’m going to sleep well, and I’m going to live comfortably, till the day I die.”“We’ll get through this together, Rana. Please, just get outside, and I promise we’ll find a way. We won’t have to live this way.”“For a month perhaps, come your next hit, but after that, we’ll be back where we started. No, this is better. I’ll be safer this way.”Rana waited patiently for his brother to understand where he was going, playing with the telephone cord as he did so.“Don’t do this bhai. They could shoot you where you stand.”

“But they won’t. The Boss is a big man. They’ll take me to jail, and then they’ll take me to court. They’ll sentence me to death, and then they’ll feed me, and warm me, and give me company. They’ll even give me a bath! I may live longer than you Bhai, while they decide what to do with me. Do away with your dishonest life. Ma would never like that. Do some good in the world. Won’t you consider joining me?”“Rana listen to me -”

Rana placed the receiver on the table, the line still open, so his brother could hear him surrender. The noise in the corridor had been getting louder all this time, until finally the door burst open and three handguns aimed at his face ordered him to hand over his weapon. Rana happily aimed at the table, and used his good leg to knock it over, causing the telephone and his pistol to fall onto the floor, just a little closer to their owner. Once again the tired smile lit up his face, and he raised his arms up in the air, as the the Boss’s khaki servants drew in with handcuffs.

“Take me home.” he whispered.

Eighty percent of success is showing up. —Woody Allen

Literary | Apropos Conconuts and Paranoia14

Apropos Coconuts and Paranoia

On the way to a regular Doctor’s appointment, with my father in the driver’s seat, we were having a conversation. Before I describe that particular conversation, a little history on our verbal spars. Rare are the conversations with my father that do not involve him screaming at me for anything ranging from not turning off the ceiling fan before leaving a room (because I’m very arrogant and disrespectful), to being involved in a very serious road accident (because I’m very arrogant and disrespectful). My father is a force to reckon with in these conversations. If one curious bystander, unaware that he will never be the same again, decides to mute what is being said, he will observe the following: bulging eyes bloodshot from white rage, my father’s now sparse hair flapping around due to the ceiling fan my arrogance left running, his mouth forming words that pierce more than an African model’s blue contact lenses (“I was born that way!,” she helplessly insists); while his arms gesticulate in precisely calculated motions of finger-pointing, exactly how I’m a moral wreck.Not that I blame him, I’m not an easy child to raise.

With this in mind, you will understand how blue the skies were, how sweet a crow’s caw did sound, and how homeless men across the city seemed to find lost pennies on the road, when I

say, that particular conversation with my father was alarmingly lighthearted and eye-opening.

I was looking out of the window of the passenger seat of our lovely maroon Honda City, when he suddenly broke the gentle, comforting whirr of the air-conditioner and said, “Sanju, did I tell you what happened that day? I didn’t, did I?”I said, “Maybe you did.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

There followed a brief pause where we decided to restore nature to its order and let the air-conditioner whirr on. “So what happened that day...,” he started, looking sideways at me, to check if he had my attention. Upon confirming that he indeed had my attention, he continued, “...I almost died, Sanju!”“What?! What happened?”

“See? I didn’t tell you. As usual, you assumed you know everything. This is what happens if you’re arrogant and dis-”“How did you almost die?!,” I cut him short.

Sanjana Ramachandran

Literary | Apropos Conconuts and Paranoia15

Its not that I didn’t want to be berated for my arrogance. The suspense really was unbearable.

He sighed as if my question caused him great personal trouble. He gravely answered, “Well, a coconut fell on my head. Actually, it fell just two feet in front of my head.”“What?! Where was this?”

He took his eyes off the road for a moment and looked me squarely in the eye, as if to assess if I was ready for this information. “Under a coconut tree.”I must have looked quite traumatized, and he yearned to put me at ease, “Okay! Not two feet, relax!”At this point, I must have shown visible signs of relaxation - maybe a release of tension in my shoulders, or a twitch of my upper lip that with a few days’ hard work would be a half-smile - whatever it was, he noticed. He immediately restored my fears, “But definitely not more than three feet,” he paused.

He took a deep breath, preparing me for the worst, and said, “Actually, it wasn’t more than two and a half feet.”“Wow, Appa. You really could have died.”

“I know,” he said, proudly.

We paused to let the gravity of what happened that day sink in. It led to a reflection of how short life can be, and where life is really headed.After that, I said to him, “But really, you would have died because a coconut fell on your head. Can you imagine, Appa? In a small corner of the front page, an article would be headed: ‘Man hit by a coconut, dies.’ Then it would say, ‘continued on page 7.’ What a way to die, Appa.”

I didn’t voice the thought in my head though, ‘And not just any column on page 7. The “Bizzare!” column that I read everyday, to be amused by other people’s bad luck.’He said, “I know. What a way to die. Your father’s getting old, Sanju.”

A few minutes later, it dawned on me that my old man really was confused and distraught about his enemy, the coconut tree. I decided to console him, “Well, look at the bright side. At least you

didn’t die,” I offered with a smile.

“Yes, but to think, I’m alive by three feet.”

I nodded somberly.

“Not even three feet, Sanju! Two and a half! My God!”

I nodded somberly.

I felt compelled to point out, “Yes, you’re very lucky. But you know, there’s nothing you could’ve done about it. You can’t stop coconuts from falling on you, really.”He considered my statement, “But you know, I read in the newspaper the other day that a man walking in some park died on the spot because a tree fell on him. This is the rainy season. I tell you, Sanjana, anything can happen. Be careful.”All I could glean was that my father thought gravity works harder during the Monsoons. Or maybe there was something that I just didn’t get.So I ventured, “Are you saying the lesson is we shouldn’t stand under trees?”

My father seemed happy that his child was such a quick learner. “Exactly! Don’t, even if your friends ask you to. To a strong mind, there is no such thing as peer pressure.”And that marked the end of that fateful conversation. It really made me think. Not about the perilous trees that haunt every sidewalk, threatening to patiently thwart mankind, one walker in a park after another, until they can finally rule the world. I’m too afraid to face that truth.

But I did think about newspapers. It made me look back on other conversations with my parents, which lead to the realization that almost every disciplining sentence of theirs usually begins with “You know, Sanju, I read in the paper today...” as they trailed off into prolifically describing the real reasons why bad things happen to good people. Who knew, after all, the answer to that ageless mystery was in yesterday’s edition of the Times of India.Now, mathematics is all about spotting patterns. You see a question, you compare it to a previous problem, you recall the method used in obtaining its solution. Then you translate that method into the current question in a way that it fits, so that, together with the earlier question, you see

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. — Groucho Marx

Literary | A Propos Conconuts and Paranoia16

a pattern forming. This pattern is going to help you with solving future problems of the same nature. Who is to say life is any different? You see something blocking your way, and you try to find a solution by using a pattern others have used, or you yourself may have, in the past. And that’s where the newspaper comes in.

What is it about the world’s print media that makes them write articles about the most grisly, bloodcurdling events of a particular day? You’d think it a morose task, but yet you see such news being churned out all the time. More so, what is it about the readers of newspapers that makes them pay the closest attention to these articles?

Consider two headlines, that describe two events possible on any day: “Toddler chokes on own fingers, dies” and “Ten year old wins spelling bee.” Of these two headlines, it is almost a given that most human eyes will first turn to the former headline, and then the latter.

You may think you know why you read the paper: you like to be informed, you consider yourself well-read, or maybe you’re bored. But the heart of the issue is: we are a paranoid species, we just love to stay safe. Unless I am grossly narrow minded, there is nothing life-saving we can learn from an article about a ten year old winning a local spelling bee. But the article about the child swallowing his own fingers? We’d frame that article, cut off our child’s fingers, and celebrate it on our terraces with pomp: if it meant an increase in his life span. We spotted a possible pattern in that article, however improbable. We moved toward preventing that persistent little pest, Death. At the cost of losing fingers for a lifetime.

Consider this too farfetched? Tell that to my father. Hell, a girl can’t even stand under trees in the Monsoons anymore.

Literary | Novelty Incognito17

Novelty Incognito

People have been discussing politics over tea for ages but today the winds have changed, we have begun to act. Let that be even be ‘slacktivism’ through Facebook updates or Twitter tweets. Now, just a random question- who triggered these changes all of a sudden? Who can we credit for these frequent protests that people are for, for almost everything which is wrong?Lately, we have given most of the credit to protesters and movements (like the Lokpal movement), with the leftover credits going to the media. People need a strong reason to protest. This leads to another question. Who gives the people the reason to protest? For the people who are worst affected, their despair gives them the reason; but for the people on the sidelines, organizations like the CAG and people within the organization give them a stimulus.

The CAG reports coupled with appreciable work by media have recently set off Anti-Corruption protests across the nation. The brawny organization that is forcing politicians to think twice before signing an official document or utter a word for their own gain, the CAG stands tall and apart out of all civil services. After exposing the 2-G scam, the CWG scams,

Mining scam and the obsoleteness of the army weaponry among others, the CAG has, of late, become very active and finally started enforcing rules with gusto. The CAG has had the right to make its reports public for a long time, but the CAG’s activities were usually politically hindered. A Madras high court ruling of 2005 upheld the rule strengthening the people of the CAG organization (including the CAG chief himself) and their association with the media to bring out any wrongdoings.Many other scams like the 2-G scam have come to light due to petitions by individuals against unlawful activities. All that was required was a petition by any individual who yearned for righteousness. These methods didn’t invite rallies or mass protests and were executed silently, but in the end they trumped mass protests and rallies.So, a Butterfly effect can be triggered by one person. If he gathers his wits to come up with something remarkable, it may cause a seemingly insignificant change in the beginning, but a colossal change in the end.

Prasoon Mehta

I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either. —Jack Benny

Literary | A Day In The Life18

A Day In The Life

My day begins in room A-602. No, wait, that’s not quite right, is it? Just because I wake up somewhere does not mean that’s where my day begins. No, my morning began much earlier, when, mid-way through one of my deep-sleep turnovers, I happened to look up, glance at the alarm clock the sound of which had long since ceased to have anything close to the desired effect upon me, gulped, and fallen out of bed, possibly onto someone sleeping on the floor next to me. I assume after that I spent a few hurried minutes dropping things and borrowing stuff, and I feel sure I must have squeezed in time to brush and wash my face too. But you see, between the attending of a class and the first rising, all the interim is like a phantasma or a hideous dream, and there isn’t much I can tell you about it and still be considered a reliable narrator.I look around, and realise I’m in a Thermodynamics class. I mean I must be, because the entire row of students in front of me, of which I would otherwise have picked one familiar face to interrogate, is either asleep or as close to being so as I am. The seat next to me is empty, and I get the feeling that I ought to infer something important from that, but I can’t quite put my finger on what. I look up, and notice the teacher looking straight at me. He smiles, and continues with his lecture.

I wake up again, this time hunched over a table outside Ice N’ Spice, the campus eatery right outside my hostel. It is now four in the afternoon, and I am told my lectures are over for the day. There is a bowl of cheese Maggi before me, without any cheese of course, and an empty mug next to it, with a straw in it. Clearly, I can’t have been asleep the whole time, since I’ve been ordering. So even though I remember nothing at all of a morning full of classes, I have concluded that I sleepwalk, and talk, and quite well at that. Feeling cheerful suddenly, having realised that the day so far hadn’t been a complete waste, I head on home for the evening’s entertainment.Changing my mind just before I open the door to my own room, I unlock and knock on a friend’s instead. Fat takes 5 full minutes to open the door, and when he does, he announces that he’s only just woken up.“Really? I toh woke up around 9 today.”

“Kya be? Mujhe bhi utha deta, main bhi classes attend karke kuchh seekh leta. You attended all the classes na?”“Of course.”

“Top marega tu iss sem.”

“Hmm.”

Harman Singh

Literary | A Day In The Life19

Fat’s evening breakfast and a game of table-tennis take up the next two hours. The latest episode of Game Of Thrones, an episode of House and dinner take us through the next few. When we return to the hostel, the common room is quickly filling up with students, some seniors, but mostly irritated juniors. One senior steps into the centre of the throng and starts speaking.“Just wait here two minutes, Champak, our candidate for the post for Vice-President would like to speak to you. Just two minutes and Champak will be here…”Fat and exchange a quick glance and rush for his room. Fat gets inside, tosses me his lock, then closes the door again. I lock him in with his own lock, with an understanding to let him out as soon as the seniors have left and any form of harassment is unlikely. Not wanting to listen to any preaching myself, I head for another friend’s room, a Bengali. Da opens his door, and cries:“Arre Surd! What happened, not listening to the agendas?”

“Shut up. Nutella nikaal.”

Da quickly lets me in, latches his door and brings out the jar of Nutella. The next hour passes in satisfied silence, sitting on Da’s ridiculously comfortable bed.We begin to discuss matters of the heart.

“So. Who’re you voting for anyway?”

“Her.”

“Her? Why her?”

“Cos she’s a her.”

“Hmm.”

Another hour in silence. Silence apart from the sound of spoons being licked. I am slowly becoming aware of that ever-prevalent danger of falling asleep on Da’s bed, but I ignore it.“So. No quiz today?”

“No. No dance practice today?”

“No. No debate or something today?”

“No. No random entrepreneurial something-something today?”

“No.”

“Hmm.”

My conversations with Da have always been deep. In any case, he helps pass the time.

“So.”

“Hmm?”

“Night mess?”

“Dude, it’s 3 a.m. Everything’s closed.”

I look surprised. Da laughs at me and informs me he’s going to a neighbour’s room to play a game of FIFA and will be back in a minute. I say to him I’ll wait for him, and lie down.I wake up in C-308. A look around informs me I’m in a Probability and Statistics class. An empty seat next to me reminds me Fat’s still locked in his room, but probably asleep. A sinking feeling tells me this is exactly what happened yesterday.

This has got to stop happening.

If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect. —Ted Turner

Literary | Bombay. My Bombay.20

Bombay. My Bombay.

I’m writing this, in part, because it is my right and privilege as a Bombay-ite to have the ubiquitous train-bashing post on my blog, one where we bemoan the existence of a regular but inhuman means of transport. I’m not going to cite examples of people falling out of them, because I run a happy (and mostly dead) blog. I’d rather recant a story:I was travelling to South Mumbai with a friend. In our capacity as not-completely-clueless idiots, we planned the trip so as to avoid traffic hours and decided to leave in the afternoon. We were at the railway station well in advance and after waiting in a considerably long queue, we got our tickets. We had about ten minutes or so until the next train was due to arrive. In those ten minutes, I saw more people at once than I have in packed auditoriums, the street, my neighbourhood or indeed, my entire schooling. Combined.

On my way across the overhead bridge that connects different platforms, I nearly collided into several people who didn’t stop, or, for that matter, break their stride, even to acknowledge an apology. They weren’t fazed even after a collision. It didn’t really register as they moved – to most people, bumping into someone, losing their footing was nothing out of the ordinary. On the contrary, they probably expected the customary amount of jostling before they could

attempt to board a train at all.

We made it just in time to see a train leave. Since we didn’t have an appointment to keep, we weren’t unduly concerned at the prospect of having to wait a few minutes longer. My friend even remarked that there’d probably be fewer people in the next one because so many boarded the one we missed. How monumentally wrong we were.The wait was an enlightening one. There were flyers pasted all over the columns and stalls, advertising college tuition classes, English-speaking trainers and performance enhancement medication. I’m sure they all had their takers. There were people spitting everywhere. Now I can’t speak for the rest of the country but in Bombay, spitting is an activity as intriguing as it is disgusting. It is not uncommon to see the same person spitting several times in a matter of minutes, with the copious amount of spittle ejected each time suggesting formidable salivary capacity in my people as a whole. I could go into descriptions of colour, but despite my nonchalance, I do like my (pitiful) readership.

As our train approached, I could feel the anticipation in the air, a tingling sensation shared by everyone on the platform. I could feel the shift in momentum as the unending mass

Raunaq Vohra

Literary | Bombay. My Bombay.21

of humanity around me readied themselves for battle. As the train arrived, people hardly waited for it to slow before gracefully jumping off. I like to think of them as little popcorn kernels when they’re done. Most of the people were out as the train slowed. Which was our cue, as I found out later. People moved forward with a grim desperation and although I am by no means tiny, or even just average sized, I still felt lost in the overwhelming throng and the resulting chaos that ensued.

My friend made it in. I wasn’t quite so lucky. As I was trying to get a foothold, a man roughly pushed me aside to get in himself. I don’t like being pushed, so I pushed him back. Hard. The train chose this opportune moment to go on its merry way, which left me and the offending pusher stranded on the platform. I glared at him. He spit authoritatively in retaliation.As I had to wait another ten minutes or so for the next one, I thought I might as well take a look around. I was then treated to one of the strangest sights of my life as an elderly man standing on the platform suddenly took off his shirt and proceeded to lay himself down on the rail track. He seemed sloshed. I think. What was strange about this, however, was not the man waiting for a train to come run him over, but rather how no one even reacted to the situation. I yelled out to the man but he completely ignored me. A fellow passenger swore at him and then laughed, which irked the idiot, for some reason. Finally, a police officer threatened to lock him up, which must have been more frightening than a certain painful death because he left, singing lustily. The second train arrived to absolutely no fanfare and celebration. This time, I was prepped and ready. I powered through the puny mortals and reached the fore as the train jerked, ready to move. Right then, I saw a man, stooped and aged, trying hard to get in. I couldn’t stand in the way of that. Reluctantly, I stepped aside, a second time, and watched the old but sprightly gent take my place.

I must confess I lost the plot a little after that. One look at the third train and all thoughts of meeting my friend vanished. I turned tail and left, deciding survival was more important than accompanying my friend. After all, the chances

of me meeting him again would be considerably higher if I stayed alive for the next few hours.

This is just me though. I live and study in a different place nine months a year. The time I spend in Bombay, I can just as easily take the bus wherever I have to go. If all else fails, I can call a cab and get to wherever it is I have to be. I don’t have to get to work, or go to college everyday with over five million people. I don’t have a livelihood depending on whether or not I can travel in pathetic conditions every single day. I have the time to be apologetic, the liberty to be appalled. The others don’t. We don’t live in a cruel world, just an unforgiving one. People don’t want to hurt each other, but they’d much rather not hurt themselves. So they shut their eyes when they don’t need them to stay open. They cover their ears when they don’t need to hear what they absolutely must. And they close their minds to everything that doesn’t directly concern them.This is Bombay, the city that never sleeps. Where the traffic never clears. Where the people are nonplussed. Where the grass is non-existent and the girls are all in Bandra or South Mumbai. I’m home.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. —Albert Einstein

Literary | Everyone Loves To Pretend22

Everyone Loves To Pretend

‘Dude, it is not a course, it’s torture.’

They had forewarned me.

‘You got him as the teacher? Him?’

They tried to feign horror after asking about my instructor. But I couldn’t be immodest. So what if the subject isn’t as dynamic as the Sciences are? So what if the course is going to do nothing more than intelligently paraphrase things that are so painfully obvious in everyday monotony? So what if it’s a Humanities subject. I wasn’t going to do the subject or its teacher a favour by attending its lectures. Or was I? I had to give it a fair shot. The only pain in the neck was its time slot: 4pm-5pm, the best time for a well-deserved siesta.

3.45pm.

‘Oh come on, it can’t be that bad’, I say to myself.

3.46pm.

I look towards my pillow. ‘Who am I fooling?’ and go straight to where my heart wants to be.

3.50 pm.

A knock on the door. ‘Don’t you have a class to attend?’ My over-enthusiastic friend comes around to give me a reality check.

3.55pm.

My friend dragged me out of my dream and pulled me all the way to class. Not to forget mentioning the ‘encouraging’ turn-out of students on the first day of the course. Nobody quite seemed to be in the mood. ‘Why do they have 8 am and 4 pm lectures?’ a thought darted forth. ‘Why do they teach this course at all?’, another one. My sleep-deprived mind kept asking questions to keep itself busy, when he entered. Short, but well built and lean. What was striking about him was his face. He looked oddly indifferent. His eyes scanned us. “Wow”, he exclaimed in a monotone, “This is motivating.” Strike one. He gave us a dry smile, perched himself atop the teachers bench, and started talking. “So, here to learn, aren’t we?” I looked into his eyes. Was he…drunk? “So what do you expect from this course?” Silence. “I mean I’m sure you must be having an opinion. What did your seniors tell you about it?” Silence. This time it was intentional, not because people didn’t have answers but because they were afraid of how he would take it. “Come on, it’s okay. You can speak your mind” Promising he would take any bull-crap in a sporting way. One voice led the way, “That it is a boring subject”. One has to applaud for his guts. He managed to bring

Srihari Menon

Literary | Everyone Loves To Pretend23

back the sarcastic smile on the teachers face. “Frank. I know most of you have the same opinion. I know I’m not the first choice when it comes to this course; I know your P.R. numbers. But then, they are all the same aren’t they? ES, Maths; what do you do in the exams? Simply rote-learn everything and puke on the paper”, said the man from a commerce background.He turned his crosshairs towards another student and asked him his expectations. He bumbled something, but it was enough to amuse the teacher. Next he turned to me. I was determined to set a fine impression. “Well sir, I don’t know much about it, but I’m more than eager to learn and am sure I’ll be a better human after this humanities course.” Crap. That was a bad joke. He looked up at me and rolled his eyes, as though exclaiming, ‘Oh God here comes another one’. “Clearly, people have high expectations from this course”. After asking a few more clueless faces, he spoke up, “Your course does have a broad spectrum and applications. I’m not sure whether your expectations will be fulfilled. Frankly I don’t even bother about that anyhow.” Ahem. “You know, if your seniors told you this was a bad course, they’re absolutely right. It is worthless, stupid, and not worth it.” A pause, of words on the teacher’s side, and of thoughts on the students’ side. What was he saying? “Now, it is good to see the sunshine on your faces, the question is how long it will last. I see you today, but will I see so many faces in the next class?” He shook his head in predictable despair. He let out a pseudo-laugh and said “My students have the best attendance record when it comes to absenteeism. As a matter of fact, I have had cases where, four months into the semester, people have mistaken me for a chemistry teacher.” And another round of forced laughter. Everyone thought it best to fake a laugh. I kept a poker face. Of course he did come back to his senses and started teaching us. Somewhere in the middle however, he bit bitter again. “You know this is the crap they expect me to teach here. I mean in places like MIT or Cornell, this course is taught in a much more advanced, specific and a better way. They have better study materials there. And here, I mean look at the contents of this book. The proof-reading seems to have been done by

a sixth-pass. By the way have you bought this book?” and held it up like a lady holding out a cheap washing powder in one of those TV ads. Everyone frankly denied. “GOOD. It’s not worth it” Okay, interesting. I was trying hard but not was able to conclude what his problem was. A sadist, one would adjudge but I wasn’t going to say so. A crossword just turned into a Sudoku puzzle. Somewhere to the end of the class there was something about office etiquettes or something. Incomplete without his sermon, that is. “If you take the instance of our college, most of them are animals and very few actually follow this code. But of course, you needn’t, do you? It must be fun to be a student here. I mean you know all this, don’t you? Many may know better than the teacher himself. You needn’t even attend classes. They should award you a certificate as soon as you enter campus. Why bother, who cares? I mean even if the director walks past you wouldn’t bother wishing him, let alone a teacher. You can always say, ‘What the hell? I’ve paid you.’” He smiled. Everyone frowned. This was the limit. “But still we are here attending classes, looking at each-other’s faces and pretending we are doing it. That’s the word. Everybody loves to pretend.”

The other day, I saw him standing near a balcony of the college. I decided. I made a firm expression, walked up to him head-straight, bowed low and said “Good morning sir”. He looked around and stared, as if trying to place who I was. “Good morning sir”. Come on, wish me back you etiquettes teacher. He gazed away and put on a faint smile. I wasn’t leaving. I wasn’t done. “You have my course?” “I am in your section sir. I have attended all your classes, including an 8am tutorial.” There. “Have a good day sir.” I walked away. I walked a distance, stopped and looked back. He was staring at me. This time there was no smile. He nodded back at me and moved his lips in ‘Good morning’. This time there was no pretension.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. —Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

Literary | Everyone’s A Writer24

Everyone’s A Writer

Everyone is a writer somewhere deep inside, even the most unlearned can form coherent words and string those words together to bead necklaces of literature. Writing is but a carefully formulated technique of deciphering expressions. It’s like relishing a gola on a hot May afternoon; it is so conflicting with the environs, one tongued on, or treading into the literary equivalence, penned on. Writing is the quintessential conch that reverberates with the melody of the chaos of the universe. If anyone can contemplate, he can write, the subject is immaterial. Every memory, every recollection, is a part of the bigger book. It doesn’t have to be tangible, it doesn’t have to be visible; it’s just the senses and sensibilities translated on paper.

In every time I pursue a memory from that closet at the bottom of the large heap of memories in my head or shell out some precious moments to ponder over; simply uttering emotions without words, forming hypothetical images in my head. Anyone can write, even those who the world rendered crippled in the elite writers’ society, worthy of nothing but an empty parchment, reflecting the void in their minds. I don’t call myself a writer, no, that would just be defining boundaries to my creativity. That would be conveniently placing me in that group

that society doesn’t comprehend, or thinks too dissimilar to even bother trying. That would be a confused turtle trying to ‘fit in’ in a pack of jackals simply because he likes the feeling of belonging. I’m not a writer; I carve out hollows that cater to my frame in the shielded spaces between the lines. The two most precious assets bestowed upon those who write, and I say ‘those who write’ as opposed to ‘writers’ with great resolve; are the world around them, and the world in them. As hazy as that might seem, it makes perfect sense when you think about it. Every piece of writing is inspired by something in the outer world: an observation, an experience or maybe an object. But everything is out there, waiting to be cunningly crafted into a marvellous piece of joy, and the first one to realise its true potential and blur the lines that separate the outer world from his mind, wins the trophy. Hence, if one dare write, he dare not fall into the hackneyed ‘writers’ realm’, he dare not risk being the outsider in his own story.

Write we all do, more often purposelessly, sometimes in or heads, sometimes on paper, but it’s a part of all our lives. So does that mean that we are all strangers in this strange world? I am not a writer, that’s just taking on responsibility. I write, yes, and I like to think I

Sanjukta Krishnagopal

Literary | Everyone’s A Writer25

do a pretty decent job of it. Does that mean I fall into the very stereotype that I dread? But then again, don’t we all belong there by the true definition of writing. I am a stranger in a room full of strange shadows, or maybe a world full of them. Then wouldn’t we all find harmony in that discord too?! If only we lived in a parallel universe where people wore their imaginations on their faces, would we be happily ever after? I bet we are all just a few insignificant pages in someone’s book, the bigger book; because, at the end of the day we are all ‘writers’.

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. —Niels Bohr

Literary | Extraordinarily Mediocre26

Extraordinarily Mediocre

I have a horror of not rising above mediocrity

-Robert Baldwin

The only sin is mediocrity.

-Martha Graham

An oft-maligned word is mediocre. Like many words in the English language, its meaning has been contorted into what is now a considerable deviation from the original. Simply put, the word ‘mediocre’ is supposed to mean ‘of moderate quality.’ It comes from the Latin medius (middle) and ocris (jagged mountain) and thus, quite literally, implies middling, However, as is his wont, man has somehow managed to attach a substantial amount of deep-seated fear to this word. It is every industrious man’s nightmare to be considered merely mediocre – a failure on his part. It is the favourite jeer a teacher taunts his less-than-excellent students with, scaring them into fervent action. It is what every parent takes upon himself to help raise his ward above.

And why not? We live in a competitive age where anything short of excellence is dismissed as the insignificant contribution of an insignificant mind. Today, brilliance is par

for the course rather than a pleasant surprise. There is no dearth of talented individuals queuing up to showcase exceptional talent. There is certainly no lack of those skilled many who received deserved praise from the world and his wife. Everyone aspires to reach the pinnacle of their respective fields, to become the best at whatever they choose to do. It’s a healthy attitude, one that has worked wonders for our race. Mankind in general cannot abide standing still. This isn’t the problem. It is imperative for genius to be complemented. This has led – quite unfortunately – to the bar for anything noteworthy being raised rather high in most people’s minds. We have become more apathetic, less sensitive to those not quite as gifted, or indeed, fortuitous as true prodigies. The gap between the ordinary and the extra-ordinary, which once was eminently jump-able, is now a chasm. And precious few hold out a hand for those who can’t quite make the cut.

It is admirable to strive for excellence, but it should under no circumstances be considered humiliating to fall a little short. But it is. Too often we see perfectly good work in various feels castigated, shunned, relegated to the obscurity that mediocrity has now come to foster. Too often is unexceptional confused with inadequate. Being the best you can be is now several levels below being the best there is. The

Raunaq Vohra

Literary | Extraordinarily Mediocre27

world is now less forgiving than ever before and it is becoming increasingly harder to be comfortably mediocre. This may certainly drive more people to achieve their full potential, but at the expense of running over the many whose potential isn’t full enough. For a people who aim for tolerance in matters of race, religion, culture, we show a marked lack of it as regards talent. I stand in the corner of the mediocre. It is not something you aim to achieve, but it is most certainly not something you should be ashamed of. There is a quiet dignity in living life to the best of your ability, one that will not be tarnished when juxtaposed with even the most masterful of the masterly. There is beauty in perseverance regardless of the results. There is some form of resplendence in mediocrity, you just have to look for it. And once you find it, it will manifest itself in everything you see.

Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice.

-Rutherford B. Hayes

A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking. — Martin H. Fischer

Literary | Lemon Tart28

Lemon Tart

It was thoroughly depressing. Believe me. We had been working hard for the past two months. Selflessly and tirelessly we had bunked classes and missed lectures to work for the common good. Yes, I’m not kidding you. We were working for ‘The Fest’. Unfortunately, preparing for it was very boring and tiresome. Lists, spreadsheets, phone calls, appointments and set-backs: we had a lifetime’s share of these during those two months. In fact, I often questioned myself why I couldn’t just call it quits and walk away from the stupid committee. And the answer was fairly simple: Girls. Growing up in an all boys’ missionary school, girls were to us, the proverbial “Ark of the Covenant” or the gateway to the Garden of Eden.

The best chance to meet girls, apart from tuitions, was at fests. And being in the core committee, having a great, big, important looking, useless badge pinned to your official looking blazer, while you moved about acting busy and peeved, was like being an Alpha Male - having a free pass to the hearts of the prettiest of the opposite sex who graced the occasion. Or so we believed. The belief was strong enough to last even in the face of impending doom or hopelessly failed attempts. We were The Alpha! Failure meant nothing to us. At least not till all the cute ones were taken, anyway. After that, we always had the excuse of being ‘too busy’

organising the whole thing. We could act like martyrs, head held high, honour and pride falsely coating our broken hearts.

Two weeks before the fest, it was the time for ‘The Rep. Meeting’- as it was called. The meeting was to get acquainted with the two representatives that each school had chosen for the fest. Needless to say, we were pretty excited. This was the first opportunity to ‘check out’ the girls’ schools’ representatives. With some luck, some of them might turn out to be really cute! As it turned out, we were unlucky. The girls’ schools’ representatives were disappointing. However, the very next day, we got a mail from one of the schools which hadn’t turned up for the meeting. They apologised for not being able to attend it, but said that they would be honoured to attend the fest. They sent us the details of their representatives, including pictures. As it turned out, one of them was pretty. I took one look at the picture and took down her number. I gave her a call that evening.

‘Hello, is this Shalini speaking?” I asked nervously, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Yes. May I know who this is?” she replied.

“Uh. Yeah. I’m Shivalik Sen calling on behalf of Don Bosco School. I’m a member of the Core Committee”, I made sure she got my point, “and

Shivalik Sen

Literary | Lemon Tart29

I’ve been put in charge of your school for our fest.”

“Oh! How nice, Shivalik!” she laughed, “are you sure, you are the in-charge”, she asked.

“Of course I am!” I said, indignantly, “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, just like that! Maybe it’s because you’re the fifth one to say so this evening!”

I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life! I was sure that even she could feel the red flush creeping up into my face. There are some situations which make you wish you were dead. This was worse. Those bastards! I couldn’t believe their treachery! But, then, I couldn’t blame them completely. I was doing the same thing. “I hope I haven’t embarrassed you!” the witch said, knowing full well that embarrassment was an understatement for what I was feeling.“No, no! Absolutely not”, I somehow salvaged for some pride, “I guess there has been a misunderstanding.”“Yeah sure, I understand, Shivalik”, she giggled, “so, can we get down to business?”

Her giggle was so sweet. It made my heart beat faster and my palms sweaty. If only I had been the first one to call her! Nevertheless, I agreed and started giving her the preliminary briefing. But soon I realised what a fool I was. “Wait! You’ve probably heard this from all the others who called, haven’t you?” I said, embarrassed.“Yeah, I have. But, please continue. I like your voice” she giggled again.

I couldn’t believe my ears. Maybe this was my lucky day after all! I gathered up some much needed confidence and continued.After I was finished, she said, “Okay, so, I’ll need to pick up the brochures, passes and all, right?”“Yeah, you do. Can you come over to our school, tomorrow?” I couldn’t wait to meet this goddess, in person! “No, I’m sorry. Your school’s too far away. Listen, I live in Salt Lake. If you have anyone who lives here, can’t you give it through them?”

I froze for what seemed like an eternity.

It was, at least, a whole minute.

“Hello? You still there, Shivalik?”

“Umm.. Yeah. Sure! I’m here! So, Salt Lake, huh?” I licked my lips nervously.

“Yeah. Salt Lake. Why? Is that a problem?” she asked, concerned.

“Problem? No, no! Not at all!” I could barely conceal the excitement in my voice, “So, which part of Salt Lake do you live in?”“Double E block” she continued “Do you know anyone living nearby?”

“Yeah! I do!” I burst out, “In fact, I live in CG block, myself! Isn’t that an amazing coincidence?!”

“Haha! Ohmygawd! It is! How wonderful!” she seemed as eager as me, to my pleasant surprise. “Okay, Shivalik, I’m free tomorrow afternoon, around 4. Can you meet me, then?” Was she asking me out?! I couldn’t believe this!“Oh, yeah! Oh no, wait.. I’ve got to..umm..meet someone else, at 3” I faltered, “Are you free in the evening?” I asked, casually. I had nearly made the biggest mistake while impressing a girl, according to the dating site. Never let the girl know how desperate you are. Make sure she gets the impression that you’re busy, preferably with some private work which you cannot disclose, and that you’re doing her a favour by meeting her.. She seemed taken aback. “Yeah, how about 8?”

We agreed to meet at 8, near her tuition class.

The next day I barely managed to sit tight and concentrate on my work. Everybody else seemed pretty pleased with themselves, in our co-co room. Those fools! They had no idea how coolly I had played it last evening, and secured the date. I had snatched the ‘big prize’ away from under their dumb noses and there was nothing they could do about it! I took a bus to Sector 1 that evening, where Shalini’s tuition was. I made sure I was at least five minutes late. I didn’t want to come across as too eager. I called her, once I was there, and she directed me to a nearby Café Coffee Day,

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers. —Mohandas Gandhi

Literary | Lemon Tart30

where she was waiting. I walked in and spotted her. Shalini was seated on a chintz cushion, facing the door. She was even prettier in real life. Silky black tresses framed a cute, angelic face, and there was a hint of kohl around her smoky eyes, making them look irresistible. She smiled at me. I gawked back, like a fool. Finally, I tore my eyes away from hers and took a look at the people seated opposite her and I literally passed out.

Seated opposite her were my fellow core committee members. All of them.

“Well now that we’re all here, we can start. Right?” Shalini giggled.

I looked around at everyone else. We were all wearing expressions of anger, loathing and embarrassment. The waiter arrived with a pastry for Shalini.

“So, who wants to share this lemon tart, with me?” she asked, teasing us, fluttering her divine eyelashes.Chairs scraped the linoleum floor. The door opened and closed. And six teenage boys went their own ways, not daring to look each other in the eye, nursing wounded prides and bleeding hearts.

Literary | The Performer31

The Performer

A performer by profession, she moves to the sweet philosophical ramifications of the unperturbed melody that makes its way from her tender lips. It’s all she has ever known, her sole chaperon in the ways of the world. She intricately weaves chaos into her symphonywith such incredibly submissive passion. She lives to love, and love she does; with all her heart, for it is all that is truly hers, and hers it will remain till the sun makes sweet love to the horizon and never comes back to inaugurate a new day. She is a passionate lover, a spectacle when on display. Her man is none but her art. She hides behind bars that society has confined her in, her free spirit yearns for a breath of fresh air, but there she lies, nursing her wounded soul, fondling her unrelenting mind in her bosom.Perform she must, come sun or rain. Her skill dare not fail her, lest her heart give way too. She finds solace in the raindrops that dance on her windowpane, like her tears that dance with her footsteps as she sways with the elegance of a dove. Every single day she goes out there and makes herself vulnerable yet again to the atrocities pelted on her by society. Money is far from a concern. Love, now that’s the cause for perplexity. The world wastes no time in objectifying her. They put her on a preposterous diet, make decisions for her, say it’s all a part of the glamour world- the rumours, the scandals, the unending displays of made-in-China courtesies. Some are infatuated by her grace, some appreciative of her refined demeanour, some others are condescending, some like her for her splendour, some are critical, some despise her notoriety, some yearn for her fame and money, others lust for her slender well-endowed frame. But love, that’s a word she’s far from familiar with.

Loneliness grips her very existence with ice-cold claws of steel. Her aspirations crumble as they free-fall into the lonely abyss beneath. Here she will remain,stuck in this brutal schedule, till her ambitions turn to ash, and her body fails to attract the attention it once could. Till her movement becomes hindered and her voice shallow. And then she will croon about the good old days, when the world kissed her feet, and the sun shone at her beck and call. She will flitter harmlessly to the symphony while the world looks upon a promising new star, a naïve bud commencing its journey in this eternal vicious cycle. But she’s been there, done that, and she knows. So she will continue to sing and dance her way through destiny ceasing not even when she is, for all practical purposes, relieved of her melancholy. Even death won’t succeed in taking away what rightfully belonged to her all along. A performer she will remain, in life and in death. The performer who stole the show.

Sanjukta Krishnagopal

31

The sole equality on earth is death. —Philip James Bailey

Literary | Life in a Metro32

Life in a Metro

All around me are familiar faces

Worn out places, worn out faces

Bright and early for the daily races

Going nowhere, going nowhere

These lines from the song ‘Mad World’ by Gary Jules succinctly show the pointless humdrum that life in today’s metros has become. Even if we leave aside the drudgery of slums (and slum dwellers are an overwhelming reality of all our metros), just the normal everyday life of an average resident is quite pathetic in itself. I have lived in some great cities like Mumbai, Dubai and Hyderabad. I have seen these places grow, evolve and become increasingly baffling with every passing day. The cacophony of a million different sounds, restless crowds rushing across the city to make a living day after day is not what life should be. I have been pretty negative so far. City life can do that to you. But let’s stop the whining for a moment and give cities the credit that they deserve. The city has always been a power centre and more importantly, an engine of intellectual life. From the 18th-century coffee shops of London, where citizens gathered to discuss science and politics, to the bars of modern Paris, where Pablo Picasso held forth on modern art, metros have been a melting pot

of ideas for a very long time all over the world. Without these big cities, we might not have had the great art of Shakespeare or Tagore. Even Einstein was inspired by commuter trains. Big cities are the strength of any nation – no doubt about it. Our metros are the political, commercial and cultural hubs of our nation and our progress would probably have been a lot slower if we didn’t have metros. While metros may be really vital to our economic, scientific and social development, research shows that cities have a very negative impact on our mental abilities. You see, our brain, in spite of being a marvellous creation, is still a limited resource. And city life with all its incessant flow of random, pointless information coming in from every direction can overload your brain. Another issue is the lack of sufficient greenery. The mind needs nature, and even a little bit can be a big help.

People really do seem to be getting dumber. If you ask me for instance, I can go on and on about how difficult writing this has been for me. It’s just that, people don’t write any more. They text, chat, facebook… but they don’t really write much. And the language that they use – the grammar and punctuation have been hit for a six and with all the hideous abbreviations, it probably resembles what the cave men must have written back in the day. It’s sad. Really

Gaurav Jha

Literary | Life in a Metro33

sad. A lot has been said about the impersonal relationships in cities, about people not knowing their next door neighbours but you know that the limit has been crossed when I tell you that though I have pinged my neighbour several times on Gtalk to clear doubts (I’m a college student living in a hostel) I haven’t really met him in person to have a worthwhile conversation for several weeks. There have been major changes in the way we communicate and a lot of it can be put down to city life and the kind of demand that it makes on our time.

You might argue that city dwellers have access to material comforts, modern entertainment avenues, and better health facilities and so on. There is a definite pride about the way people say, “I live in Calcutta” or “I am a Delhiite”, but at what costs? Look closely and you’ll see what living in a city takes away from you. The pollution, the stress, the pressure… this shortens your life bit by bit every day. Cost of living too is higher and hence though there may be better opportunities for making money, there is hardly any significant financial gain for a vast majority of the city population. Consequently, the condition of the urban poor is far worse than that of the rural poor. There have been many efforts to improve the infrastructure since a great deal depends on the well-being and smooth functioning of our cities. For instance, the local trains are the spinal cord of Mumbai and the authorities have been trying their best to implement regular improvements every now and then. But more important than infrastructure is the kind of lifestyle, attitude and norms that are prevalent in city life. The change needs to come in the mind set, the change needs to come in the way we live our daily lives in cities. Only then can the city dwellers really be happy in the true sense of the word. Till then, life in a metro will remain turbulent and taxing. Till then, in hope for a better tomorrow, people put their head down and carry on.

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad

I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take

When people run in circles, it’s a very, very

Mad world…

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live. — Pope John Paul II

Literary | Linchpin34

Linchpin

The Butterfly Effect is an extremely curious scientific theory that informs us that the tornado that whipped away Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz could have been caused by a butterfly flapping its minuscule wings in some corner of the world. However, this theory is the one that gives credence to the concept of a linchpin, the single most important event that, if executed, could alter all of history. Some instances reflecting the same:• The assassination of Archduke Franz

Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 leading to the beginning of World War I

• The fact that Ken Lay was a Christian was the cause of the Enron collapse

• The setting up of the extremely generous pension plan in Greece (done in the hopes of keeping the populace happy-a very valid reason) was the source of the economic collapse that we now see headlining international news.

As we see, practically no one could have predicted the catastrophic events that succeeded such small events (of course, the assassination wasn’t small, but relative to a World War with millions of casualties it definitely was) but thanks to them we realise that the smallest of alterations can lead to a huge blip on the

time scale that is our lives. Now, how does that matter?

Well, consider this: Over 2 billion people live in poverty all over the world, and it might be possible, if we split them into separate demographics in an appropriate manner, to find the linchpin to completely change their fortunes, under the context of each demographic. Farfetched, but why not? The situation is the same, except that the consequences of initiating the butterfly/linchpin effect are only positive. And considering that IBM can now beat everyone at both Jeopardy AND at Chess, I’m sure they can cook up something for this.

Then we consider global warming, could it be that destroying one specific company could lead to the avalanche reduction of global emissions? Who knows? How do we predict it? THAT is the crucial problem in this theory; we cannot satisfactorily show that there is this ONE specific event is the one that sets the ball rolling. Statistical/Probabilistic models can only hold so much weight at the end of the day, mainly because being only human, we’re sure to miss some crucial factor.

I am clearly reminded of the concept of psycho-history that Isaac Asimov designed in his books - the idea that predicting the future could be based on group decisions that occur now. It

Anirudh Wodeyar

35Literary | Linchpin

fits into the very pattern we are speaking of! So maybe, as we develop the models in tandem with the development of computers (AI is our future hopefully), we will eventually have the ability to compile all the factors and provide a legitimate way to predict the future. Anything is possible. Or is it really?

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light — Helen Keller

Literary | Why Blame the Minister?36

Why Blame the Minister?

Last year Indian Railways got hit by two ugly derailments in quick succession: dozens of people died and the minister of state for railways faced the heat. The media, as usual, sensationalized the news to enhance their TRPs. They flashed headlines with meaningless, uncomfortable questions which have no answer but are sure to keep the audience glued to the TV screens. The opposition had demanded a resignation and also chastised the Prime Minister for… well, just for the heck of it. Some mud-slinging at every possible opportunity would only enhance their chances in the next general election.Blaming the minister is the easiest thing to do. Sack him, issue statements criticizing him on national television, then appoint a new guy and hope for the best. This is the usual course of action. Some ministers themselves take the responsibility and resign on account of their morals and ethics. But will it solve the problem? Has anybody bothered to look at the root of the calamity? How can we stop these accidents from happening?Train derailments happen, as far as I can see, for 4 reasons –

1. Naxals decide that want to kill a few people. So they go and loosen some screws in the railway line.

2. Extremists and terrorists, for reasons best

known to them, blow up stuff.

3. Incompetence or carelessness of railways employees – head on collision due to mishandling of the signal, derailment due to careless drivers etc.

4. Old, worn out railway tracks which are in dire need of replacement.

About the Naxals, there’s nothing much that can be done. It’s not possible to man the railway tracks with guards to watch out for unscrupulous people. Terrorism is a global menace which we must all fight together. There is no simple, short term solution. To enhance the quality and professionalism of the railway officials, there needs to be an improvement in the recruitment policy, the compensation package, the training programs and we need better supervision. The worn out sections of the railroad need to be identified and adequate provisions made in the budget to replace them as required.All these are long term measures and their implementation will take time. While the process is going on, the media won’t discuss it because the news isn’t sensational enough, also the ruling party wouldn’t gain any political mileage out of it because the work isn’t glamorous enough. As a result, these necessary steps might never be taken. In a political set up, where one is judged

Gaurav Jha

Literary | Why Blame the Minister?37

on a daily basis, the minister is bound to focus on developments which would grab eyeballs. Hence, most railway ministers only talk about introducing new trains, cutting fares etc. – things which would have an immediate impact.

I pass no judgment on the ability or dedication of the Minister of State of railways in this case. But perhaps, for once, if we stop blaming the minister for everything that goes wrong and give him a free hand to bring about long term improvements, our country might see some real progress.

There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met. — William Butler Yeats

Literary | The Alternate Battle38

The Alternate Battle

It had been raining continuously for a week. Food supplies were at an all-time low and a hundred billion mosquitoes were buzzing about. They sat quietly beneath a tattered grey roof, cold shoulders rubbing against cold shoulders for warmth; the famous 44th regiment of Dantewada. The Naxals had warned them before they left, “We will be back. And when we come back, we shall send your heads to Chidambaram in cardboard boxes. Keep the boxes ready.”

The media didn’t know of this, and why, they weren’t bothered. The brave regiment of Dantewada – ‘15 brave men drive away nearly hundred deadly Naxalites!’ These were the headlines. A week ago, the same journalists had reported stories of an entirely different nature. “Our Jawans don’t have drinking water!” and “More Jawans die of malaria than in battle!” – Stories that were conveniently forgotten. Their guns were the only items that remained relatively dry. The smell of grease emanated from a pile of guns that lay beneath coconut husk. The Jawans prized their weapons – double barrelled and creaking like a wickerwork chair. They had not been replaced in twenty years. It took at least half a minute to reload the gun, another half a minute to position it and still, you could never be sure that the gun would fire.

Through the bleary sky, traces of sun shone through. The trees took their share of sunlight and left a little through. The mist took its share and left a little of that through for petty men to warm their cold palms. It was 11 a.m. and time to go on their rounds. They never asked questions, the brave Jawans. Everyone knew the Naxals operated at night. Everyone knew they followed guerrilla tactics and lived further north in inaccessible tribal hamlets. Everyone knew that the Jharkhand government in the north offered them protection and yet, everyone remained silent. They assembled their men – some would trek through bogs and leech-infested undergrowth while others would stay at camp and take care of their dying brothers.

They were simple folk, men who never gave orders to anyone expect their wives. Some were not married and others not old enough to marry. Monkeys gave them company for the first few kilometres of their journey. Curious and bored, they swung from tree to tree creating such a ruckus that village folk living 2 kilometres away knew of their arrival. So did the Naxals perhaps, but the men didn’t worry too much. A few of them hummed popular Hindi tunes from movies a decade old; others quietly chewed tobacco and coughed afterwards. Food was a perpetual problem – the village folk didn’t cooperate and tribes deep within the

Akshay Surendra

Literary | The Alternate Battle39

forest sealed themselves in their empty huts, away from food and Jawans. Of course they had rations, but mostly-like their enemies- the Jawans subsisted on bush meat - deer, rabbits and pigs. Tigers and Leopards were feared and venerated, left alone to feed on exceedingly rare deer.

“You think you’ll ever get married?” one of the men asked his comrade, hand on his shoulder and a dead rabbit in the other.“Why not”, the man in question said. “My mother has promised a plump bride from Amravati for me. She’s lovely it seems.”They spoke very little afterwards.

By afternoon, the rain had resumed and the going was slow and treacherous. Eventually, they reached a clearing. A young girl stood there, watching her buffaloes nonchalantly munching on grass. 10 men stared at her and sat down. The girl was unfazed and she slowly guided her cattle away, higher up into Naxal territory. The men watched her go away. It was late at night when the men returned and they immediately knew something was wrong. A dirty smell issued from their makeshift houses; the stench of death was not new to them. Their comrades lay strewn on the grass, their blood washed away by the rain. Their heads were missing.

Inside, one of the malaria-infected men was alive. Beside him, his dead friend lay stiff.

“They killed Balram, Jagan and Balchander. And then they took our belongings, took away our medicines and laughed at us”, the man whispered in fear and defeat. The life of a soldier is deified by facts and myths, advertisements and movies, and governments and uncles. These are in fact the little strings of hope that bind a soldier to duty and sanity. Without these crutches, he is an empty man following irrational orders in an alien land. Isn’t it wrong to not let a man think for himself? Isn’t bizarre courage akin to bravado, and cowardice the best form of courage? These are questions India’s guardians are not allowed to answer; not to others and not to themselves.

The men silently puffed beedis with their heads

against damp trees. They smoked until their minds were numb enough to fall asleep.

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. — Abraham Lincoln

Literary | Mathi Curry40

Mathi Curry

It had rained all day and the crickets, finding it a particularly joyous occasion, were hell bent on sending their thanks to the heavens. The rain had cleared the Malabar air, the dust that was used to floating about in the wind had gloomily settled down for a while.

Inside, Jacob was trying to read a 1994 issue of Reader’s Digest he had salvaged from the ancient bookshelf upstairs, while three cousins half his size and age tried to crawl over him. Giving up the futile effort, he set aside the magazine to the delight of the kids, who obviously thought themselves more important than anything DeWitt Wallace could ever publish.Nearby, Jacob’s mother and her brother, who hadn’t seen each other since the brother moved to Virginia half a decade ago, were exchanging news with gusto. “Unni, you have grown up very fast,” he said looking at Jacob. “Oh Unni! If you have any math problems, ask Jose-uncle,” said Jacob’s mother, looking at him as well. “Definitely. Just ask Unni-kutta,” he said still looking at him.Jacob looked up. Christians in Kerala have as many as three names- one on their baptism certificate, another for school records and yet another for all relatives to call you by. Now, back in his grandmother’s place, everyone called him

Unni. It’s not like he had anything to complain about. His uncle’s nomenclature (the one with the prodigious mathematical abilities) was a constant source of amusement to him. Being the youngest of five children, he had the misfortune of being born when his father’s creativity had run its course after assigning twelve names to the four kids before him. Perhaps in a fit of inspiration, he was named Joseph Joseph. Relatives called him Jose-kuttan. “Sure, Jose-uncle,” Unni said as he resumed tickling the puny humans emitting peals of laughter punctuated by silent gasps for breath as they rolled around on the floor trying to get away from Unni, but not quite wanting to.Preethi, yet another cousin walked in with her grandmother close behind. They looked remarkably alike. ”Ammachi, you must teach me how you make mathi curry,” she said addressing her grandmother over her shoulder as she adroitly drifted towards the couch. Ammachi, who was the first woman to be a school principal in the district had broken all conventions and had barely stepped into the kitchen till she had retired. Where she found the knowledge to churn out delectable delights when she finally did was anybody’s guess.

They all moved into the dining room where they were joined by other aunts and uncles and aunts of aunts and neighbours and people

Francis James

Literary | Mathi Curry41

whose names Unni could never remember. Ammachi sat at the head of the table with one of her colleagues from four scores and seven years in the past. Unni recalled she was named after some European city, but failing to recollect, christened her ‘San Diego’. “I have a hip ball replacement surgery again next week,” said San Diego. “After I fractured mine, I got an imported one from the US implanted. I never have to go for replacement surgery again. It’s American metal,” said Ammachi. She was clearly proud of the feat and well aware of San Diego’s tinge of jealousy. After living beyond a certain age, you gain the right to have no mercy.Preethi, the eldest daughter of Ammachi’s eldest son had an opinion on everything. Experts in a field generally have an opinion on several things. At sixteen, she considered herself an expert on everything. She started talking about Titanium- the magic metal that was the solution to all geriatric woes. Then abruptly, turning to Unni, she said “Did you know that there’s a bird that the locals call Upunni? It’s because it keeps saying ‘Oop Oop’ all the time.” “Fascinating!” remarked Unni at the Tapioca, having heard it for the twenty fifth time. “You should listen to her, Unni,” said Ammachi. “She’s a walking encyclopaedia.” Delighted, Preethi continued to enrich the world with her knowledge. Ammachi is too old to have any mercy.

“They grow up so fast.” Unni’s mother was telling Jose-uncle. “It seems like just yesterday when Unni and Preethi were three and you were tickling them on the drawing room floor. And now, Unni’s tickling your kids just like you did!” Nodding vigorously, Jose-uncle proceeded to enquire about Jyotsna’s daughter’s second cousin’s son. Despite being a mathematical prodigy, he kept track of what all the relatives were doing. Few prodigies do that. Unni and Preethi belonged to the generation that just couldn’t remember relatives and just smiled politely and nodded whenever the exceedingly understanding ones asked if they remembered them. “Why didn’t you just go to one of those Gulf countries, Jose-uncle? There’s lots of money there,” pointed out Preethi expertly. “There’s much more to life than money and fame, Preethi-kutty,” Jose-uncle said. Unni liked his

uncle. “Oh yes” Preethi averred quickly and started listing all the important things in life. Expertly.“So how’s your new school, Unni?” enquired Ammachi. “What do you have in English literature?” She loved literature. “Pygmalion, Bernard Shaw.”

“Bernard Shaw!” She nearly squirmed in disgust. “Why couldn’t your teacher choose something by Shakespeare? Your board offers a choice between the two, doesn’t it? Shaw is a speck of dust compared to Shakespeare.” San Diego lent her support and admonished the English teacher guilty of such heinous crimes. If there was one person who could make Shaw turn in his grave, it would be Ammachi.“I’m doing Macbeth in MY school,” said Preethi with an air of superiority, handing Unni the mathi curry. She’s just too young to have any mercy.

Men are what their mothers made them. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Literary | Oh Life!42

Oh Life!

Pristine in its envelope, encased in sleek shadows and whirling its moods in mud labyrinths, The Forbidden Forest breathed its mysteries in silence, the air accompanying the melody with thin wisps of fragrance. Pinecones lay on the ground, bruised and battered from the free falls of delectable fruits from the trees reaching the northern skies; petals wish washed with lavender, lime, vermillion, sapphire stitched on the ground for miles and the nearby creek stealthily flowed past the forest with gurgling waters creating a luminous symphony. The Valleys guarding this fortress of Nature; travelled in arrays and zigzag queues to the Himalayas relenting infinitesimal changes in weather from dusty mellow to brittle cold. The regions compressed peripherally to greens and gorges and stretched midway to infinity.The miniscule habitation existed around the steepest corners where the moors lay open to the sunshine and snow. Hamlets consisting of brick mishaps, mud cottages and rare concrete boxes painted a cruel picture on the sacrosanct environment hinting at poor civilizations and faineance. The regular upheavals of the brimming trekkers and sightseers unhinged the residents from their dormancy and days and nights equipped themselves with gatherings, sightseeing and celebrations. Food was a scarce jewelry; the fields were miles away and the

supplies diminishing. Freezing temperatures and bitter winds called for warmth and piping hot meals- needs that were seldom met for the residents . A fermented, gluttony drink made from cashew nuts was gulped in misery and surprised liking and apples bitten with fervor. Chutneys, juices, steamed rice, curries and sweets served the meals and merrymaking pursued more of stomach satisfaction.There were legends and mysteries capturing the areas. One was of the hidden temple where nights and winters witnessed a romance of the heavenliness through winds and bell chimes. It was believed the terracotta idols in the temple celebrated love and gaiety and made their presence felt through singsong shadows and peeking starlight whispers. Another one was the scared whispers about a group of women, always seen travelling through the hilly passageways to nowhere; singing and chanting in soft murmurs, exquisitely dressed in colorful, silky satin and metal jewelry with face painted in mild hues, their wagons bearing signs of tired nomads always on the move. Peek-a-boos with the living wildlife was a welcoming affair. Grizzly bears, thin gazelles, snow leopards, porcupines lived amidst the skylines travelling as minstrels in search of food and hibernation.Recently, the picturesque landscape was tempered by avalanches that took homes and

Mohana Bhattacharya

Literary | Oh Life!43

people in it’s engulf. The avalanches were peculiar in their arrival; presenting themselves in the coldest of nights when humans prayed their earnest for safety. It was a mere luck to be saved by nearby military troops who seemed godfathers to the puppets of the snow land. Physical pain was not witnessed as bruises and cuts frosted and blood wore a darker brown on the skin. Life was a standstill and a wild call for help; every single second.

It kept them wary and undecided- how such a nature’s regime of magnificence and aura and enchantment creates such a dolorous place for survival. It brings a question on the front- is nature too grieved by our presence that their most beautiful destinations remain enclosed to simple human settlements? Maybe the rains, winds and seasons no longer want us- be devoid of our innate ‘originality’.

Money won’t create success. The freedom to make it will. —Nelson Mandela

The Interview | Kiran Bedi44

The InterviewKiran Bedi

Kiran Bedi is a social activist and a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer. Bedi joined the police service in 1972 and became the first woman officer in the IPS. She helped set up the Navjyoti India Foundation (NIF) in 1987. NIF started with a de-addiction and rehabilitation initiative for the drug addicts and now the organization has expanded to other social issue like illiteracy and women empowerment. Sizzling Sands caught up with her at TEDxBITSGoa.

Sizzling Sands: Why do we want a strong and imposing Lokpal Bill?

Bedi: We need somebody to monitor the unaccountable bureaucracy. That’s why we need a strong Lokpal bill. The lokpal will not only be tracking the bureaucracy but also politicians, which are in-turn elected by the people to govern them. That’s why we need you to support the movement.

SS: Will Lokpal be the solutions to all our problems?

Bedi: One of the many solutions. At the moment you have none.

SS: Do you see more women getting into IAS and the IPS?

Bedi: They are presently there in the services and to all those who wish to join I’d like to say that you have to be honest, courageous and correct at the same time. You have o be honest to be courageous and correct to be honest and speaking-up. The combination fails if you’re dishonest either to yourself or to your country.

SS: The trend in education has shifted more to Medicine and Engineering. How do you think can the civil services attract a larger number of quality minds?

Bedi: India is made-up of a billion people, with more than 400 million minds eligible to take up the UPSC examination. A few lakh of them sit for the exam but only a hundred or so get in. So, I don’t think we lack either in the number or the quality of minds entering the services.

SS: How has been your experience at TEDxBITSGoa?

Bedi: I value TEDx a lot because you get to travel a lot and listen to amazing stories of fellow speakers. The 18 to 20

The Interview | Kiran Bedi45

Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award. —Billy Wilder

minutes we get to speak have a high multiplying effect on the crowds about thoughts and ideas. Since I began in Washington for TEDx two years ago, it has been an amazing journey and I wish to reach out to more people.

SS: The media has grown fastidious and even public memory is short lived, what you think could be done to sustain public memory in events like the Lokpal Bill demonstrations?

Bedi: The media should become more reason based. On our part, we could time based; absolutely positive as to what time it would be most relevant to begin. We began in February last time, before the elections to draw maximum and self-sustaining attention. Also the size of our country matters, we must begin our awareness campaigns early so as to reach to the masses in all corners of the country. We have used all social networking websites; and touched almost all communication channels.

The Interview | Jeff Lieberman46

The InterviewJeff Lieberman

Jeff Lieberman is the host of the show Time Warp on Discovery Channel. He holds multiple degrees from MIT- two B.S. degrees, in Mathematics and Physics, and two M.S. degrees, in Mechanical Engineering and Media Arts & Sciences with a focus in Robotics. A man who plays many roles, he is known for making kinetic sculptures and is also known for playing instruments and singing.

Sizzling Sands: You are a roboticist, a photographer, a musician and a technological sculpture designer. What sparked your interest in such wide ranging fields?

Jeff: One thing seemed to lead to another. I don’t pretend to have any overarching plan, just a desire to follow my curiosity and see where it leads. It started with math and physics, while i explored the arts such as painting and music. My work with the sciences and the desire to start making tangible things led to robotics, which evolved into sculpting with technology... it continues; lately I research perception and consciousness and who knows where it will go next :)

SS: Where is Robotics headed in the near future? Are we moving towards the dystopian “I,Robot”/ “Terminator” world or a utopian one?

Jeff: This all depends on how we utilize technology, or if it starts to use us instead. Technology is neither good nor bad; only its use is good or bad.

SS; Does it increase or decrease human suffering? This is the main question for me about technology. I was looking at pictures of your Absolut Quartet machine and it seems really interesting. Could you expand on it and tell us what lead you to designing something so unique?

Jeff: My friend Dan and I both had backgrounds in robotics and music, and wanted to create an experience where people felt fundamentally part of a music making process, with no background. This led to quartet, where you input a short theme on a keyboard and we do all the hard work — turning that theme into a full piece of music, and playing it out on a robot that does things no human being can do... we hope it engages people on both fronts and gets them excited about the experience.

We: Music seems to be an extremely important part of your life. Please tell us more about Gloobic and what kind of

The Interview | Jeff Lieberman47

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence. —Robert Fripp

music compels you.

Jeff: It all starts with silence, and improvisation. Feeling the freedom to express what is coming through you at the present moment, unencumbered by thinking. This may sound easy but is incredibly challenging — to truly be yourself in a situation so raw and exposed usually takes years of practice. Of course, we all have this as babies, until we learn to be afraid.

SS: What, according to you, is the intersection point of science and spirituality?

Jeff: Not an easy question to answer shortly! But, they’re all after truth. Truth comes in different messages, but we’re all looking for the roots of our own existence. I think science tries to understand these truths conceptually, and spirituality tries to live these truths first-hand, in every moment.

SS: Is academia for anyone and everyone, or would you feel that you need a certain mindset? What would it take to inculcate that?

Jeff: Academia is not for everyone. But in this cultural climate, it’s hard to trust yourself if academia is not for you. Pressure from parents and society primarily work by fear, wanting to make sure you have enough money etc... but often times people know what they are passionate about and don’t want to go to school. I think that’s fine but it’s a choice for an economically more challenging life. I still think it’s worth it, if you know what is your passion. You don’t get many chances to try this life over.

SS: Carnegie Hall puts you among the

great of the greats. How does that feel?

Jeff: It is a mistake to think that anything external, that can be put on a resume, makes someone great. When they are in the presence of other people, do they help those people? Do they relieve suffering in the world, in themselves, in others? Many of the greatest aids to the world are unknown by us, and we constantly cherish celebrity in people who are not actually helping others. So, none of my past performances or works really makes me feel any specific way — each is an opportunity to engage with others, to share in the moment, to live. Just like this moment, writing an email.

SS: How can science help us solve the problems of the world-the heavyweights of poverty, education and food?

Jeff: Science can deepen our understanding of problems and lead to technologies that help those problems. But honestly, we have much of the technology that we need to solve many of the problems that exist in this world. It is the mindset of people that is the primary problem. As long as the mind wants peace but still acts divisively, we will have war, poverty, education and food issues. When the people in power begin to truly serve others over themselves, we will see many of these problems disappear.

The Interview | Tamer Nakisci48

The InterviewTamer Nakisci

Tamer Nakisci is a Turkish industrial designer. The young designer has represented Istanbul at the Creativity Forum held in Brussels in the scope of 2009 European Innovation and Creativity Year by ranking among the European Union’s “Europe’s 100 Young Creative Talents”. His ideas and dreams are defined as “innovative, emotional and futuristic” and are brought to life in the striking forms of his designs. Tamer Nakisci started his design career at Fiat Advanced Design Concept Lab – Milan, in 2004. He drew the world’s attention by winning the international award at the Nokia Benelux Design Awards with ‘Nokia888’, a revolutionary form-changing mobile device.

Sizzling Sands: The form changing Nokia 888 is quite a marvel in itself even though it is just a concept. What was your main inspiration behind creating it?

Tamer: Nokia 888’s creation was initiated by a small flickering thought. When i was working under various cell phone giants, I figured out that there was a conspicuous gap in the market for innovative cell-phone models. All existing models were rigid and inflexible. Thus,this idea just popped up in my

head-why not have a model which is flexible and can be stretched, contracted, twisted or worn like a wristwatch. I started working on this particular idea and soon i found out that it was very much feasible. The phone could have the entire structure of a usual cell-phone along with its hardware skeleton being modifiable. Applying all latest technologies to abridge and lengthen a hardware component, Nokia 888 was born.

SS: Each one of us learns something from what they do. What was the most important thing that you understood after designing Nokia 888?

Tamer: When you are developing or designing something, you tend to go deep into analysing its formation, processing and drafting. Several questions come up in your mind regarding its feasibility, strength as an innovation and creativity index. But most importantly, what you must ask yourself is “Do I believe in my creation?” If your belief electrifies your senses for few moments and you realize few things about yourself that you didn’t know before, you have a wonderful product. I always used to think how

The Interview | Tamer Nakisci49

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable. —Samuel Johnson

everything in the world was transient and relenting. This belief somehow has come to the surface as the Nokia 888 .The flexibility in the model speaks of a realistic elasticity even in a hardware device. I learnt that modification and transformation is possible in every little thing in the world. Nothing can be termed as “rigid”. There are always ways to explore to bring in adjustment and faster utility.

SS: You have worked on a wide range of design products. A mobile phone ,table ware, rug design and a playground. What interests you most? Is it the field or innovation you can do with it?

Tamer: I like the way some products are easier to produce. I like working with people. I have designed tableware, curvy tea glasses, accessories, dining tables, rugs, wallpapers, wall hangings and lamp shades. I personally believe that innovation can be applied in any field even if you are technologically not well versed with the field ethics. There should just be a desire to make your idea come to life. I love making something ordinary into something extraordinary. I was never the best sketcher in my school days but i was an avid thinker and i absolutely cherished the time when i played with designs, ideas. The very activity of starting with something raw, giving your idea a backbone, synchronizing it, building it and finally presenting it to the world as something different is an enriching one.

SS: At a young age, you have already made it to Europe’s 100 Young Creative Talent, what’s next?

Tamer: My two upcoming projects

“HOPE” and “INTERSECTION” are almost complete and will be out in the market very soon. I plan to work on my website and develop it so that it can appropriately cater to customer requirements. My photography projects for this year are still in their initial stages. I don’t stress much on deadlines. For me, the most important thing is to get down with thought processing. To get started, I sit somewhere and put some stuff to eat beside me. I have always preferred silence when i am working. For me, the ambience during my work hours must have a meditative touch. It brings me closer to myself. Coming back to your question, i also plan to design a “Fluid Disco Ball”, in which the light variations will appear due to a system that will activate light intensities according to fluid pressure and viscosity variations.

SS: How do you cope up with negative feedback of the customers?

Tamer: Negative feedback is always appreciated.The most valuable thing to me is honesty, in my work and in my ideas.This is the very reason why i don’t worry much about plagiarism.Its the idea that is the fuel and its the demand of a customer that is the engine.A true artist or a designer learns and works with the very intention to build and create something that the customer wants and which simultaneously supports the essence of the “idea”.

The Interview | Belinda Wright50

The InterviewBelinda Wright

Sizzling Sands: How do you manage family life viz.-a-viz. professional career?

Belinda: Well, I don’t manage it! More seriously, I’m very obsessive and focussed about what I do. My work comes first and my work is my life.

SS: If you could magically change one thing in our current wildlife scenario, what would it be?

Belinda: One thing? What we desperately need is for state governments to demonstrate the political will to save and protect our wildlife. We live in a world where greed is above everything else. But people must understand that unless we secure a healthy environment, we will not survive and that this is not negotiable. Wild places should be treated like open-air temples and shown the highest regard.

SS: As engineering students, we have a big role to play in shaping tomorrow’s world. Can you suggest to us some concrete measures to save our natural heritage?

Belinda: There are plenty of things you can do. In this field, it doesn’t matter whether you are a lawyer or an engineer - all sorts of skills can be used

to save our natural heritage. Someday soon you will have to provide for your own families, but there are still many ways you can help. Aim for a good job, but keep a clear conscience and speak out whenever you see injustice done - environmentally, politically or morally. You should try to spend 5% of your time doing some voluntary work - perhaps on a weekend - for tiger conservation, for homeless kids, etc. We all need to give a bit more. I’m not saying don’t go out there and be ambitious. Our objective should be to help save our planet, but at the moment we are just trashing it.

SS: What inspires you to face each day head on and motivate yourself?

Belinda: As I said throughout my presentation, it is the tiger that inspires me. The tiger has motivated me throughout my life.

SS: After so many decades in the wild, what has been your best tiger experience so far?

That’s a hard question - I have had many wonderful experiences with wild tigers. But perhaps the most memorable

The Interview | Belinda Wright51

Peace begins with a smile. —Mother Teresa

one was my friendship with a wild tiger that we called Saja. I got to know him really well and eventually he would hear our vehicle and come out of the forest to literally hang out ! Saja would lie in the shade of the vehicle, while I read a book. We spent many hours together. He is long gone now, but the memories are still strong.

SS: What about your funniest tiger experience so far?

Belinda: Well there was this tigress in another reserve and she had just killed a peahen. I was in a jeep and she was sitting nearby. She plucked a few feathers - they remove the feathers before eating - and then stood up. As she did so the wing sprang out, covering her face - she was blinded! The tigress was shocked and confused and she obviously had no idea why she suddenly couldn’t see. We watched her bump into tree and stumble about for quite some time. Eventually she dropped the peahen looking terribly embarrassed. I laughed about that for days.

The Interview | Dr. Pillai52

The InterviewDr. A R K Pillai

Dr. A R K Pillai is a social scientist with long years of social and humanitarian services. He left his highly lucrative job to help those afflicted with leprosy. Dr. Pillai is the President of Indian Development Foundation (IDF) a leading National Registered NGO based in Mumbai and is spread over several states in India. Started as Indian Leprosy Foundation in 1983-84, it had almost achieved its objectives and therefore, got diversified and rechristened as Indian Development Foundation in April 2005. IDF focuses on Health, Education and Development and the aim is to assist in the process of India’s development.

SS: You have acquired so many academic degrees while managing a job. Did you look at it as a challenge or an opportunity?

Pillai: Whatever you do in life, you are bound to be faced with problems. Problems are a way of life. Yes, I was swamped with many problems, simultaneously, but i overcame these by dint of hard work, and determination.

SS: Are there especially any particular people who have helped guide you and mould you in the right direction?

Pillai: Every interction with every person

has its own value. I have learnt from every single interaction.

SS: How important is your social position if you wish to motivate others to do something? How can a common man go about doing something like you did?

Pillai: If you’re idea is very good and you’re able to manage some supporters, very good. But if an average man says something, no one really listens. look at history. it’s all about big people, it’s not about common men dying.

SS: How did you avoid corruption in your organisation?

Pillai: First of all, none of the trustees are allowed to take any money. Not even a single rupee, for any purpose. At every point there are nodal chartered accoutants. The money received today will have to be deposited before banking hours and it will be checked with refernce to time and amount. 28-29 years we have managed without a SINGLE instance of financial corruption. Any payment due to anyone has to be paid to that person by the 30th of this month. it cannot be carried forward to

The Interview | Dr. Pillai53

Peace is its own reward. — Mohandas Gandhi

the next month. if you don’t have the money now, don’t do it. and this kind of discipline is very very important.

SS: What do you think of TEDx?

Pillai: I think very highly of it. I really like the concept of speakers, and i specially like the crowd present: the boys and girls. Thanks to TedX, people all around the world are getting exposed to such new and radical ideas and thoughts. It is truly a wonderful global phenomena. Just now, after my speech, i got a call from a relative in chicago, regarding my speech! he saw it on the internet.

SS: Where do you find the inspiration and determination for all your work?

Pillai: First of all, Mahatma Gandhi’s biography. that gives me the material for strength, courageous thinking and courageous action. you can remain like a potato after reading it. But then, you will not be doing justice to yourself and to your ideals.

SS: How do we deal with the problems in modern Indian society like discrimination and various prejudices, etc?

Pillai: A national awakening has to be there. A civil society is needed. You have 300-500 million people living under sub human conditions. They dont get a morsel of food every day. is it enough if only a few go to good schools and get good food? This is not how social justice is done. The country needs a cleaning process. If something is wrong, it needs to be corrected. Regardless of what or who it deals with.

The Interview | Lord Meghnad Desai54

The InterviewLord Meghnad DesaiMeghnad Jagdishchandra Desai, Baron Desai is an Indian-born British economist and Labour politician. He unsuccessfully stood for the Speaker in the British House of Lords in 2011, the first ever non-UK born candidate to do so. He has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, in 2008. Honest and down to earth, he answered questions with unabashed honesty when he visited our campus and here’s an excerpt of the interview:

BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus witnessed an interactive session with the world renowned economist, author and British Labour Life Peer- Lord Meghnad Desai on 3rd April 2012. He addressed the staff and students at the campus auditorium, followed by an interactive Q/A session, sharing his perspective on everything from the Global economy to Indian politics to the Education System. Lord Meghnad Desai also granted DoJMA an interview, an excerpt of which follows.

Sizzling Sands: What was your inspiration and prime motive behind joining the Labour Party?

Lord Desai: Well, I was always for the left wing view and the socialist view of ‘changing the world for the better’. I wanted to improve the living conditions of ordinary people and try and provide for employment, low poverty, better welfare state and such social and democratic ideals. Even though I am much more pro-capitalist now, I still think those are good things to go for. But, it has to be done differently.

SS: BITS-Pilani has a unique dual degree system, wherein students pursue a Pure Science degree along with an engineering degree. From the point of view of an economics scholar, how valued is the one year where the Economics dualities students study pure economics subjects?

Lord Desai: It’s very difficult to answer that question. It depends on what the individual wants to do.

Probably, one year in a joint degree system is enough to earn an Economics degree. But to know how academics judge it, we need to know what the individual plans to do. One year spent in Economics would not allow you to do

The Interview | Lord Meghnad Desai55

We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time. —Vince Lombardi

a graduate course in economics. Two years might be required. But, then again it depends on what you learn and how much you learn.

SS: We have a club called CEL, which stands for ‘Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership’, which promotes Entrepreneurship. As of now, the world seems to be pro-social Entrepreneurship. Would you say it is a fad?

Lord Desai: It will just come and go. Eventually, entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship and it means finding a gap in the market and filling it. Facebook is an entrepreneurial activity. Nobody knew there was a gap. But, it provided that gap. Entrepreneurship is about ideas. It is a mental activity with risk-taking. Paradoxically, although there is a lot more capitalism, people are shy to speak positively about it. They don’t to want to say profit-making is a good thing. So they talk about social entrepreneurship.

SS: How do you feel that the research and academia scene in India has changed from your time?

Lord Desai: There is much more research into academia now. But I feel far too much research is government-sponsored. There aren’t enough private-research foundations or funding, that are enough to sustain really good critical work. I feel most of the research centres are concentrated in Delhi, due to this reason.

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Credits: Harshal Anil Chaudhari

Credits: Edarapalli V R Nikhil

Credits: Arvind Ranganathan

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Credits: Edarapalli V R Nikhil Credits: Rohit Deokar

Credits: Rohit Deokar

Credits: Ashish BeheraCredits: Arvind Ranganathan

Photography

Arvind Ranganathan (1) | Mudit Raaj Gupta (2,3) | Subasish Sahoo (4)

Collection of some of the best photographs taken by students

on the campus.

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Contributors

Mudit Raj Gupta(1,3,4,6)

Sarath Menon(7,9)

Arvind Ranganathan

(2,5,8,10)

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PoetryPo e t r y

64Poetry

Lost City Sanjukta Krishnagopal

Silver embellishments glaze with carefree abandonmentYet again, the darkness recedesIgneous skylines tapering towards nonchalanceSeeking to serve the voracious appetiteA city forgottenA set-back well playedGlory seeks to embitter theeRidiculous provocations fuel the furyA maze in a mazeCatacombs of the unspoken A parade of lost soulsBroken voices, broken in time The nimble touch of that soothing crimeThe drums roll on, unperturbedSpin yarns of tarnished memories The deceitful requiem To pacify those who quake in unisonVoices never heard, and yetFamiliarity is but perceptionAnd foes in the wake, more often than notStrike comaradarie, or strike outThe vault has revealed the mercenariesA mere hunchA million demands drown in oneReverberating with that honey coated sullen opinionPerhaps the hollows shall leave you to swallowThe dearth of tormented memoirsBut there does lie a crypt Where the insipid souls combat Bombarded with the lies and the promisesThey plead and they recede‘til times forgotten Reflect their dilemmas and shed some lightThe deplorable plightThe unnerving mightCatharsis seeks to interveneThe rusty halo The anguish takes the very spleen And all that remains is the lost cityWhere the dead voices echoOblivious to space and timeTill they echo no moreAnd desolation engulfs their broken spiritsLeaving behind an objectionable voidWhere the battle was once foughtBeneath the calm harmony smokescreen A city of lost souls, a city of lost hopesLost.

SolitudeAnubhav Chaturvedi

In the slumbering town,Before the sun wakes upRise two fragile souls -Together yet all alone. Their daily routine is already decidedThe possibilities of new flavour are few,They get ready and have teaDiscussing things in solitude.The topics are the same with changes few,They talk aloud and the house echoes. Their life is the same with changes few. The lunch is prepared, how long does it take?It’s only to keep two humans alive.There’s no problem of thinking what to cookFor there’s no one to like. When the city is working after noonThey retreat to their cocoon;They have a nap and talk a while,Some about their kidsAnd mostly of other guys.Their children are settled yet they themselves are not,Now they slowly go into the slumber of thought. The evening has passed and she wakes up -Maybe she was dreaming what her mother taught.She gets down the stairs, stopping several timesAnd the seconds hand passes the same place thrice. Their life is the same with changes few. They eat together what was left after lunchAnd talk a while to their kids.The kids have now grown and did not enjoyThe talks which mostly were of food. They sat cross-legged with stiff upper lips,Each thing seemed grey and there was no noise,The night was dark as it always has beenMaybe the sun will never rise for them to see.

65Poetry

The Sound of Silence Tara Ramanan

The buildings tall, the bugles callThe army men are marching,The oceans wide, and o’er the tideThe ship and crew are sailing.Behind those restless wars we foughtOf bitterness and lies,The music that the silence broughtBrings tears into my eyes.

Behind those masks and all those tasksWe’re forced to fast deliverWe hide behind and try to blindOurselves with gold and silver.Behind the car and house we sought,Their colour, shape and size,The music that the silence broughtBrings tears into my eyes.

For branded wear and looks we care,We pay their rising prices.Thus self-induced, we have reducedOurselves to all these vices.For having killed our mind and thoughtOur conscience slowly dies,But still the music that it broughtBrings tears into my eyes.

We look upon what’s dead and gone,Ourselves we are deceiving;For black and white we yearn and fight‘Cause colour’s lost its meaning.But somehow we were never taughtTo look beyond the riseAnd so the silence that it broughtBrings tears into my eyes.

On Living...Tara Ramanan

The buildings tall, the bugles callThe army men are marching,The oceans wide, and o’er the tideThe ship and crew are sailing.Behind those restless wars we foughtOf bitterness and lies,The music that the silence broughtBrings tears into my eyes.

Behind those masks and all those tasksWe’re forced to fast deliverWe hide behind and try to blindOurselves with gold and silver.Behind the car and house we sought,Their colour, shape and size,The music that the silence broughtBrings tears into my eyes.

For branded wear and looks we care,We pay their rising prices.Thus self-induced, we have reducedOurselves to all these vices.For having killed our mind and thoughtOur conscience slowly dies,But still the music that it broughtBrings tears into my eyes.

We look upon what’s dead and gone,Ourselves we are deceiving;For black and white we yearn and fight‘Cause colour’s lost its meaning.But somehow we were never taughtTo look beyond the riseAnd so the silence that it broughtBrings tears into my eyes.

The breakfast of champions is not cereal, it’s the opposition. — Nick Seitz

66Poetry

The Odyssey Sanjukta Krishnagopal

She taught me about fairies and their tales,Of rainbows as roads to promising lands.Of angels and demons, the good against badThe greys extinct so long ago, and her face so sad.The hero slayed the dragon and saved the princessThe princess turned witch and flew away.Of dwarves and elves, their alliances old,Of wars they fought, some were won, others were lost.Oh! She could paint on the canvas of my mindSing simultaneously and dance with her eyes.I was a happy man, till she floated in,Her laughter a stream and those heavenly eyes.Yet no golden cage could contain her spirit,My free will forced to open those locked doors.Now she flies in and out with new tales,Making me forget I don’t live one

I want to be born againVignesh T.

This life of mine, it puts me throughThe choice I have to make for you.For if I choose from soul and mindMy living wouldn’t be so kind.They’d never look at me and sayThat I was meant to be somedayThe envy of the wisest menWho walked the earth, but they walked then.

For if I lived how I believe,No cups and medals I’d receive;I’d live the stories from my heart,My life would be of dance and art.I’d dance until my feet turn soreAnd still be thirsting for some more,For though my feet go sore with painMy heart would never ache again.

But if I lived the way they seeI’d lose myself inside of me.That heart that longed for love and joyWould now for them, become a toy.And they would play upon my stringsThe tune that slowly clips my wings.My dying soul in death would findItself unable to rewind.

For lust and money they would care,My judgement they would soon impair.My judgement that would always chooseTo live without the strife and blues.And so I’ll never choose to beThe person that they think is me.I’ll dance unto the tunes I playAnd thank my fate for this new day.

-Avinash Kothuri and Harman Singh

Time for Some FUN!

Word

Games

68Word Games

WordwiseNot even close towhat it sounds like...

WORD GAMES

Q. Person...ality.A. Split Personality

For example :-

1. 4.

2. 5.

Answer : ___________

Answer : ___________

Answer : ___________

Answer : ___________

3. 6.Answer : ___________

Answer : ___________

Angkooler

PaidI’m

Worked

69Word Games

Answers on Page 77.

• Central letter must be used.• 7 marks for 7 letter words.• 5 marks for 6 letter words.• 4 marks for 5 letter words.• 3 marks for 4 letter words.

Spellathonwhere Pheidippides won his first Bee.

Scribble/doodle/drool here:

70Word Games

Spoonerisms that thing you didn’t know had a name

WORD GAMES

A spoonerism is what William Spooner first gave name to when he said the Lord was a shoving leopard. It is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched. Basically, in most cases, a spoonerism is a phrase with two syllables swapped.

Q: A person participating in a game of bowling + a set of two equal things. (Animal) A: Bowler + Pair; which are then spoonerised to get, Polar Bear.

1. Vibrate a tall building. (Hygiene)2. Prostitute of passing gas. (One in 52)3. Race location of all green stones. (Da Vinci, for example)4. Can’t mongrel dog the egg-and-milk pudding like food. (Not good enough)5. When pear-shaped fruits wield diligently. (Gimme a break)

Answers :

1. ____________________________________2. ____________________________________3. ____________________________________4. ____________________________________5. ____________________________________

71Word Games

Answers on Page 77.

Scrabble Anagrams as opposed to un-scrambled anagrams.

Replace the phrases with two words each and discover that by freak coincidence, the two words happen to be anagrams of each other. If you get the words right, that is.

Q. The King of rock exists. (5,5)A. Elvis lives.

1. Punishes transaction stations severely. (8)2. Alienate military officer. (7)3. Most optimistic tales. (7)4. Notice the wordiness. (7)5. Thankless stone. (7)6. Asian connection (7)

Answers

1.__________________________________

2.__________________________________

3.__________________________________

4. __________________________________

5. __________________________________

6.__________________________________

72Word Games

Palindromes not to be confused with Sarah’s long speeches

WORD GAMES

Replace each sentence with another that means the same thing, but possesses the remarka-ble property of looking exactly the same even when viewed through a mirror. Or something like that.

1. First on moon, an extraterrestrial. (4,2,5)2. Fellows, My name is Marshall mathers (3,2,6)3. Blyton and Famous volcano eat together (4,3,4,4)4. Tennis player Potro noticed a snow vehicle. ( 3,3,1,4)5. Brother of abel, a lunatic. ( 4,1,6)

Answers :

1. ____________________________________2. ____________________________________3. ____________________________________4. ____________________________________5. ____________________________________

73Word Games

Answers on Page 77.

Kangaroo-Joey Getting to know your word just a little better.

If every kangaroo has a joey inside it, then logically, for every kangaroo I hand you, you ought to be able to hand me a joey back, under the working assumption that both kan-garoos and joeys are handy creatures. You just need to know where to look.It works like this. we give you a word, that’s rather big. You scan it, search it, strip it, study its naked body closely, and using the letters of the word, create another, smaller word that means the same thing that the first one did. More often than not, the letters of the joey, as we shall call it, are even arranged in order in the kangaroo. For example, For example, if we give you a catacomb, you ought to be able to tell us that there’s a tomb already in there. Or if we tell you any falsities, you ought to look at us questioningly and ask us why we couldn’t just tell lies.Here we go.

1. equitable (5)2. impair (3)3. conjunction (5)4. incommunicative (4)5. prematurely (5)6. misdoings (4)7. destruction (4)8. appropriate (3)9. exists (2)10. pallidness (4)

Answers

1._____________2._____________3._____________4._____________5._____________

6._____________7._____________8._____________9._____________10._____________

74Word Games

Bank Balance when words are few, make ‘em breed.

WORD GAMES

We give you a word, that you then treat as your precious bank balance. You may use the letters in said word, with repetitions, which you’ll surely need, to create new words; words that mean what we ask you to make ‘em mean.

C A R E S R E T A I L

L I N E S T A P E R

Dead body (7) ________School break (6) ________Folds (7) ________Roman ruler (6) ________Pets (8) ________

Repeat sound (10) _________Hit back (9) _________Ad for a film (7) _________Cowboy lasso (6) _________Intellectuals (8) _________

Reduce (6) ________Old and forgetful (6 ________Folly (13) ________Ailment (7) ________Karate Teacher (6) ________

Show up (6) _________Get ready (7) _________Commit a crime (10) _________Witty retort (8) _________Go back (7) _________

75Word Games

Answers on Page 77.

Homophones Unusually happy words

Simple enough to understand, if not as easy to work out. Fill in the blanks, with pairs of words that sound exactly the same, have different meaning, and may or may not be spelt the same way. Eg. Bunches of partly eaten apples are corps of cores.

1.A type of large house is a ______ (6) of ______ (5).2. Private money stash belonging to a person with a respiratory ailment is a ______ (6) of a _______ (7).3. The reason why visitors to a clinic are prepared to stand in long lines is the ________(8) of the ________ (8).4. That ringing sound you hear when you tap wood? That’s the ______(6) of the ______ (6).5. Schematic representations of percussion instruments are ________(7) of _______(7).6. The lament of the second last letter is the ____(4) of ___(3).7. The method of greeting a middle-eastern prince is the _____(5) of the ______(6).8. Dessert earmarked for an elk is the ______(6) of a _____(5).9. The mannerism of the billionaire’s only son is the ___ (3) of the ____ (4).10.When the temperature drops in South America, it’s ______ (6) in _____ (5).

76Word Games

Puns cos we had to get here eventually

No explanation required. Fill in the blanks, but be clever while you do it.

1. I was bleeding all over the place when I got to the hospital, but the doctor kept asking me questions about Shakespeare and the World Wars and the Solar System. I realised later that he was only giving me an ______________(11), so that was alright.

2. There’s a Linkin Park song called “Cure for the Itch,” which is instrumen-tal and performed solely by Joe Hahn, who plays turntables. So you see, he’s __________ (10). Haha.

3. When we were naughty at school, we used to be sent to this man with no arms and no legs and no body. He was the Head. And if he wasn’t in, we used to be sent to this other man with no arms and no legs and no body and a cowboy hat. He was the ______ ____ (6,4).

4. Press: Why are you speaking different from your singing voice? George Harrison: Because I don’t have a _______ __________ (7,10).

5. Do you think you can ____ ___ (4,3) skinny jeans?

6. We were cracking jokes about heavy elements, and all I could think about was _______. 7. I steamrolled you cake, so that was good. I steamrolled your cake before you baked it, so that was ______ ______ (4,6).

77Word Games

8. Peter: Something I’ve always wondered, John... how the boy ended up living with Marjorie after the divorce. John: The court ruled that I was violent and unstable, an unfit father. Peter: Well, that’s a damn joke, John! If they could have seen how you’ve parented this company! John: Yeah, well, Marjorie told them a story about how one night I’d been working late, I came home, and I... I sensed in Marjorie’s eyes and voice a sneering, a mocking. I don’t know, I suppose I must have flipped... I emptied a bowl of trifle all over her. Peter: So, she got ___________(7/8)? John: Very.

AnswersWordwise1. Striptease2. Backup Plan3. Meningitis4. Thunderstorm5. Look back in anger6. I’m overworked and under-paid

SpellathonHome hero mesh hose shoe them oth shot host shore horse throe other ethos those short thermos smother

Spoonerisms1. Take a shower2. Four of hearts3. Jack of all trades4. Can’t cut the mustard5. When pigs fly

Scrabble Anagrams1. Trounces counters2. Estrange sergeant3. Observe verbose4. Rosiest stories5. Ingrate granite6. Oriental relation

Palindromes1. Neil, an alien.2. Men, I’m Eminem.3. Enid and Edna dine.4. Del saw a sled.5. Cain, a maniac.

Kangaroo-Joey1. Equal2. Mar3. Union4. Mute5. Early6. Sins7. Ruin8. Apt9. Is10. Pale

Bank Balance1. CarcassRecessCreasesCaesarCaresses

2. AlliterateRetalliateTrailerLariatLiterati

3. LessenSenileSenselessnessIllnessSensei

4. AppearPreparePerpetrateReparteeRetreat

Homophones1. manner, manor2. coffer, cougher3. patience, patients4. timbre, timber5. symbols, cymbals6. sigh, psi7. shake, sheikh8. mousse, moose9. air, heir10. chilly, Chile

Puns1. examination2. scratching3. deputy head4. musical background5. pull off6. U7. even batter8. custody/custardy?

Timeline20

11Ap

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2012

Feb

Mar

A Dedication to Prof. Suresh Ramaswamy

Sura, as he was affectionately called, was a gem of BITS Pilani. He was one of the best individuals I knew - able administrator, diplomat, brilliant professor and a decent person to the core. He always had an ear for everyone, be it a student, parent or hostel assistant. Even after changing posts from Chief Warden to Dean, Administration, his was the office to go to, if you wanted your case to be heard. He understood students, was generous with praise and recognised their faults too. I always loved listening to him speak on the dais because he spoke briefly with simple words, yet managed to inspire.

I’m still trying to believe that one of the pillars of my college life is no more. I knew him first when I was a college kid in first semester, fresh and eager. His was a presence that was always there for me, even if we didn’t talk for months. I saw him last on 5th August, 2012 sitting in his home. We talked for almost an hour with his young daughter playing on the carpet.

Many of us remember him with a bicycle tyre in LT, demonstrating how the gyroscope works. That is the role in which I saw him first, a Physics professor. He painstakingly explained waves concepts to me in his office a couple of days before Physics I compre. I was, and still am, a

complete novice at Physics, but he gave me the confidence to attempt to solve those problems.

I next knew him as BITSAA coordinator and he became Sura for me, a relic of his Pilani days. He was genuinely interested and involved in all activities. I see him sitting with Vishrut bhaiya and others discussing the Director’s Tea Party menu with Sharath Babu. In second year, I got involved in too many things and no longer had time for BITSAA. When I was given my walking papers, albeit nicely, I remember his canny comment while passing by in the corridor “They booted you out? “

Devika (Batch of 2007)

In March 2009, he succeeded Prof. A. V. Kulkarni as Chief Warden. I worked with both of them as part of Election Commission. Sura always made time for the team. We even had meetings sitting on the stairs outside B Dome so that we could get work done after his office hours. This was the first time when the whole responsibility of the elections rested on the Chief Election Commissioner. He did not impose his decisions and let the team do its work. Because of his genuine understanding and assured support, I knew that if my decision was right, I could’ve told a candidate to do their worst. He came to each audi debate, never intervened, but for me, he was like the wall who would be there if things went awry.

In March 2010, a group of friends and I were in a bus accident. I lost my sight for a few minutes but was conscious. My vision was wavering between dark and light on the way to the hospital but I managed to dial his number. I thought of him first because I knew he would care about the 8 students in the bus and also, because he had the authority to ensure we were taken care of. He came promptly with the hostel superintendents to the Chicalim Cottage Hospital and stayed with us for the whole day in GMC. He talked to each of our parents on the phone, reassuring them that their wards were being cared for.

I thought my last interaction with him would be in the Director’s Tea Party in 2011. I was speaking as a going-out student on the dais where I had compèred three years before. But I ended up attending another Tea Party in 2012. To my surprise, he remembered what I had spoken about a year ago. He wasn’t one of the professors who just nodded and smiled.

Despite all that he had achieved at BITS, Sura

was the epitome of humility. I asked him for a recommendation to HBS and GSB in July 2011. He frankly told me that he’d never written a business school reco and to tell him what’s the format. When he saw me at the convocation in August 2011, the first words out of his mouth were “Sorry, I didn’t get the time to write your recommendation letter”. I was astonished. The reco wasn’t due till October, it wasn’t even on my mind, but he remembered! Out of the three professors I asked, he was the only one who did not ask for a write-up. He was the first one to upload the recommendation letters, despite being pressed for time as the Dean, Administration.

As I am writing this, there are many more memories which come tumbling in. I always admired him. Looking back, I realise that he was the only professor I came close to adoring. He was vital to BITS Pilani K. K. Birla Goa Campus. My mind is still refusing reality. I keep thinking what will Sura think when he reads this.

There never was a good war or a bad peace. —Benjamin Franklin

ClubHistories

Journies of a select few clubs on campus.

Dance Club

HISTORY

Art is definitely the only way to run away without leaving home. And us being BITSians, pride ourselves in being multi-faceted, being well versed not just with our academics, but also inclined towards pursuing our interests in extra-curricular activities. The current scenario of the cultural clubs here is pretty impressive and the passion with which the students participate in these events is remarkable. And no club is a better example of showcasing their abilities with such passion, than the

dance club. The dance club has staked claim as a group of extremely hard working people, who love what they do and love putting on a show. And with a huge list of brilliant performances to their credit, the club is definitely one of the most successful and popular clubs on campus. But Rome was not built in a day, and the club was not always as prominent as it is today. Way back, the first year of the newly started campus was hardly a charmer, with there being no solid structures

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defined to clubs as yet. So it was just a bunch of people passionate about dancing who would get together and perform. The first ever performance as a club was during the Lohri celebrations of 2005-2006, where 30 members from this open group danced together. And there was no looking back since then. Soon, the club was formed formally in the year 2006-07 with Y. Vijay Kumar and Swagath as the Coordinators, and one of the first activities of the club was to participate in Oasis, the cultural fest of the Pilani campus. The journey however was a disappointment, and the club was no match for the level of performance that their peers from the Pilani campus had put up. This loss, however only proved to be a stepping stone, as it provided the club with the motivation to become better. The path to redemption had begun for them, and that very year when they got their first ever Standing ovation for their performance in Waves ‘07.Then came the real transformation phase of the club in the year 2007-08 under M.Uday Kiran Reddy- the club started taking responsibility for organising the dance events in Waves – a duty the club still performs. The main dance event in Waves was christened Natyanjali and under him, the first ever dance night was organised to a tremendous reception. They won four state level dance competitions and reached the finals of Oasis 07, but did not win it. But the target was in sight, and it only seemed a matter of time before they conquered their demons, and it was in 2008-09 under Sahithya Anumolu that they finally struck gold. The club won the first prize in the main dance event of Oasis - Razzmatazz, and

also bagged first and second place in the solo dance competitions that year. The club had finally proved its worth. This was also a breakthrough year, as the BITS audience bore witness to the first ever UV light performance on the BITS stage with the Quark inauguration performance.From then on, under the steady leadership of the likes of Vaibhav Sharma (09-10), Anand Satheendran (10-11) and Anuraag Ramesh(11-12), the club continued to perform in events like Waves, Quark and Dance Night, apart from the odd performances given by members during festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi and Lohri. Thus, the club and their performances have became a staple in the average BITSian’s entertainment diet. The club went on to win many regional level competitions held in Goa, along with dance competitions held in Manipal, NIT Calicut and BITS Hyderabad among others. The audience at Hyderabad loved the performance so much that the club was asked to give a special performance for one of their dance events.

And with every challenge you conquer, there comes the opportunity of treading on higher grounds - some barriers to break, and new levels to reach - but with a club of 40 odd sincere members, and an extremely dedicated core currently being headed by the able Anushree Rathod, you know no goal is out of bounds. So what can the audience expect from the club in the future? Only time will tell us, but one thing is for sure – you won’t be disappointed.

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That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. —Friedrich Nietzche

LDC

The only second-yearite club on campus has a surprisingly dull reason for being the same – it was started by a student in his second year. It was 2006, and the most senior students on campus were still only in their third year, when the Literary and Debating Club was conceived by the first coordinator Puneet Gupta, not as a real club, but as a simple body of enthusiasts who took it upon themselves to organise literary events and activities for the campus. The body had no induction procedure, and therefore no real members, just a core of a few students who decided to have a random book discussion every now and then.

The club structure came about in late 2007 under the then coordinator Rahul Sharma. The club was modelled after the Dance Club, and inductions were held in the second semester of the academic year. That year the club responded to low turnouts for its debates and creative writing events by organising regular ‘group discussions’, where people would come simply to listen to good speakers at work, many hoping to learn something useful for their CAT exams. That was immediately followed up with a whole bunch a new events for that year’s edition of Waves, including Scales of Justice, a simulation of a court of law, where speakers were assigned cases and made to argue for or against a legal issue. Another event that year was Wordgames, an entirely original

written test of the participants’ prowess with homophones, anagrams, palindromes and other punny stuff. Wordgames was a surprise success, and has been become regular at Waves.Just-A-Minute and other extempore speaking events (collectively called Funspeak) were a mainstay at the club from early on, and are popular today. What wasn’t always a popular event was, oddly, debate. Official, organised debate competitions were few and far in between, and this didn’t change until late 2008, the year Siddarth Raman became coordinator. That year, the BITS Debating League, a month-long series of debates between teams of two members each, was held for the first time, in an attempt to find the best debater on campus. Since then, the BDL has been held annually, over varying durations, and is regarded one of the year’s most significant events.

Another thing that was started that year was

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LDC Origins, the term the then members, in a fit of randomness, used to refer to their annual week-long orientation session and induction procedure. College freshmen were quickly introduced to all of the activities that the members considered LDC favourites, and were then interviewed for inductions. The name has stuck, and tradition carries on, much to the amusement of the people responsible for starting it.Following 2009, when the LDC was under Ajachi Chakrabarti, the club developed a close relationship with the Quiz Club that somehow still persists. While the connection between literature and quizzing isn’t the most obvious one, there has always existed a very significant overlap between the members of both clubs. The relation is most noticeable when you try and find out the last time an LDC event clashed with one held by the Quiz Club.

The academic year 2010-11 was a significant one for the LDC. That year, the first issue of Lorem Ipsum – The LDC magazine was published. A publication by the college’s literary body was naturally bound to get a lot of attention, and it has been an annual feature since. Also, early on in that year, the coordinator Arka Bhattacharya decided to make his presentation at the clubs orientation held by the CSA for the juniors a little off-beat, by injecting wit and humour into it, thus giving birth to a whole new image the club would have in the future.

Under Akshay Surendra in the academic year 2011-12, the tone of the club’s announcements and posters changed altogether, with humour becoming a big part of the club, and the members developing a taste for randomness. The logic was this: the duty of every club is to showcase their skills wherever possible. If the performing clubs did that by singing and dancing for entertainment, this

was how the literary club do it – with wit. The club had several innovative new events that year as well, including a two-day literary festival called The Ides of March, and a very popular Flash Fiction competition, for which drop boxes were placed at several locations around campus, along with a stack of Post-Its. Participants were required to write a short story in three sentences or less, and to make it suitably entertaining. Today the LDC is regarded as, if nothing else, one of the more ‘interesting’ clubs on campus. The club has evolved quickly, from a book discussion group to a true literary society, where lovers of the language can get together to a quick JAM or extempore session. The magazine, Lorem Ipsum, is read on all three BITS campuses. The LDC-organised events at Waves have grown in stature, with Contention – The Waves Debate, now consisting of several rounds of debating, using multiple formats. The Wordgames papers are still of great quality, and used as a show-off pieces whenever a club member decides to tell his friends at home about the sort of things the LDC gets up to. Admittedly, participation and footfall at events may vary, but the club holds on to its enviable reputation, and, failing all else, its announcements and posters are still looked forward to, just for the occasional good read.

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Money is better than poverty. If only for financial reasons. — Woody Allen

Quiz Club

There were no modest beginnings for the Quiz Club. Since its inception in 2004 by Ramkumar Shankaranarayanan and Kishore Sharma, the Quiz Club was considered one of the most prestigious clubs to be in. Every year, a new set of quizzing warriors join the army – each with a strong quizzing passion, a desire to be better than their seniors and, among other things, a penchant for remembering sportsmen’s middle names. This no-nonsense club believes in doing what it started out to do – to quiz. They have quizzes during campus festivals, regular and themed quizzes open to all including faculty members, small quizzes (called ‘discussions’) within the club and a very popular Quiz on The Beach. The Quiz club is known to be a winner wherever it goes – the popular joke around campus is that the club ‘earns’ more through

prize money than any other club on campus, and certainly overcompensates for their allocated budget. Club members have won national level quizzes like the TATA Crucible Quiz and MegaWhats, Goan quizzes across most colleges in the state and the quizzes that happen during campus festivals. Quite a few members are turning into pretty well known figures in the quizzing circuit in India, with Ajachi Chakraborti, Ajay Parasuraman and Varun Manjunatha taking the cake in recent years.

Witty remarks and incidents are commonplace at meetings and quizzes (Of course, there’s a fair share of bloopers too). For instance, there was a question which asked to identify a machine which was purported by its inventor as ‘something that would do its job in a twinkling and the victim will feel nothing but a refreshing coolness.’

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The inventor went on to say that they could not make too much haste, to allow the nation to enjoy this advantage. The answer was the Guillotine and while everyone wondered how it could be refreshingly cool, “Well, the air does go straight to the lungs”, quipped someone as the whole Lecture Theatre burst out in laughter. Each festival has at least 3 quizzes whose topics depend on the nature of the festival. A trademark quiz at Waves is the Vices Quiz started in 2009 by Lakshmy Subramanian, Snehal Pal and Harish Aditham. The Quiz Club also has strong ties with the Sunday Evening Quiz Club or SEQC (pronounced sexy), the prime quizzing body in Goa. SEQC members routinely conduct and participate at important campus quizzes, and the club members regularly attend quizzes by SEQC every month as well. Starting off as a birthday treat on the beach with quizzes on-the-side, the Quiz on The Beach (QoTB) has become a hallmark feature of the quiz club, and a quiz that every member eagerly looks forward to. Apart from this, the quiz club has also had editions of BoB or Brain of BITS, a quizzing legacy from the Pilani cousin. It isn’t surprising then that the Quiz Club attracts the crème-de-la-crème of each batch and consequently is a club whose membership is highly coveted. The selection criterion is as simple as it can get – win a quiz and you’re in. It prides itself on treating everyone equally, irrespective of seniority or positions held in the club for administrative purposes. In fact, that’s what makes it more fun because at the end of the day, everyone has a great time quizzing together. Don’t be surprised if you observe busy alumni leave everything they’re doing to conduct BoB quizzes on campus, or get regularly featured on National TV Quiz Shows because that’s what quizzers and the quiz club at BITS-Pilani Goa is about - passion.

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So, where’s the Cannes film festival being held this year? — Christina Aguilera

Mime Club

Since its inception in 2006, the Mime Club of BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa campus has been known for one thing- never disappointing the audience. Collegiate audiences may not, strictly speaking, be patrons of the arts; but they are its strictest critics, especially when it is their peers they happen to be judging.The Mime Club however, has always been able to elude anything but praise from the BITSian audience.

Perhaps it is their OOTB (Out of the Box) Philosophy, used every step of the production process- from conceptualization, to direction and execution, which renders each Mime performance more entertaining from the last. And clearly, OOTB has not left the Mime Club with the pioneers of the club. Over the years, OOTB has led to the impeccable execution of unconventional techniques such as Skyme, laser Mime and

shadow Mime.

The Mime Club formally came into existence through a chance decision by six students to put up a Mime Act during the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations of 2006. Through a hilarious 8 minute performance, Akhil, Navaneeth, Arun Augustine, Siddharth, Sivasankar and Pitchappan established the Mime Club as an up- and-coming performing club on young campus. Though the Mime Club continues to be known for its offbeat sound tracks, the early background scores and sound effects (from ‘walking steps’ to creaking doors) were original keyboard compositions played live by Pitchappan. ‘I wanted to have 50 musicians like Pitchappan doing all the music for our shows like an opera or a Broadway musical’, says founding member Arun Augustine.

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Besides excellent performances, the Mime Club is also known for the strong bond that the members share, a bond that has led to the Club being fondly known as ‘The Mime Family’ by the rest of the campus. Arun relates another anecdote from the early years of Mime, ‘We were invited to perform in the Navy auditorium by Commander Raut. Somebody asked us why we don’t have a credits slide at the end. We explained the underlying philosophy behind this particular tradition of the club: To the outside world, there is just one Mime club. Each performer works hard to put up a great show. Even those who portray a door or a toilet seat put in the same effort at innovation and quality and deserve the same adulation as a character mime. The show also depends on ‘invisible faces’; the lights, the sound props and the backstage mime. So the standing ovation after any show goes to each mime.

A sense of unity and belonging has always been an integral part of the Mime Club. As founding member Akhil Sreekumar tells us, ‘As the curtains used to fall and the applause broke the silence, we’d rush backstage and after a deafening cheering session, we made it a point to throw off our shirts and wearour Mime Club T shirts before we walked towards the curtains. As we moved those heavy curtains, it had always been a feeling of happiness and pride. Applause would fill the auditorium and I particularly made it a point to climb the steps of the auditorium very slowly, basking in the glory of being a Mime Club member and let the shirt do the talking.’ Another member famously remarked, “Give me a choice between a brand new Versace shirt or a faded mime club T shirt & I won’t think twice”To a present-day student, it is clear that the Mime Club continues to be the most consistent and most creative performing club on campus. The Mime Family from

2006 has flourished, and now boasts of a sixth generation upholding every tradition from the T-shirts, to the stark absence of individualism and the Looney Tunes inspired ticker at the end of every performance-‘That’s all, folks!’.

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A film is a petrified fountain of thought —Jean Cocteau

Drama Club

It was a hot and humid afternoon. Non-descript half-finished buildings were rising in the horizon. Four sweaty teenagers sat in a malformed circle in the dusty shadows of the C wing balcony. “Let’s put up a show” one of them said nervously. The Drama Club was thus founded by Shweta Kailash, Nivedita Ramakrishna, J.Hareesh, U.Sidharth Bhat and Bharath Rengarajan. The group of four grew to ten and then twenty in two years. This was old theatre. Theatre where acting was mechanical, the lines forced and jeers plentiful. A coup of sorts brought the first ever thunderous applause when a production of Gulzar’s Kharashein took to the ‘rangmanch’. The nuanced performance showed the first glimpses of what theatre could do. There was of course,

as a matter of regularity, performances like the original production of ‘A Chicken and Egg’- an act described as a rather disturbing and mind boggling monstrosity born out of desperation and caffeine addled brains, an adopted child of creative endeavour. Renaissance began rather unexpectedly and quite clumsily with a production of Peter Schaffer’s Black Comedy. A somewhat funny play, over reliant on situational and possibly crass humor helped in expanding the thought process that went behind creating a play, the nuances and intricacies were an overload at first but slowly began to help.Then came Mahanbharat, an original script dealing with censorship. A satire on the stringent censorship rules on the campus

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at the time, the students loved it. For Waves 2010 the club tried their hand at the Girish Karnad play ‘Bali-The Sacrifice’. It still stands as a cautionary tale for young thespians trying to put up a production without fully grasping the depth and meaning of the play they are doing. And then it all changed. A string of successes followed and being mentored by young thespians from the Bombay scene helped tremendously. 2010 ended with a successful Drama Night where the club put up two plays over two days. The first was a hindi play, Jis Lahore Nahi Dekhya, a powerful story dealing with post-partition issues that struck an emotional chord with the audience. We will always remember Madhav Khurana’s excellent portrayal of the chief antagonist of the story. The other play was the Pulitzer and Tony award winning ‘Proof’ which had exceptional performances from Siddharth Raman and Neha Nayak. The play, through Raman’s direction made the club take the art of direction seriously, something that had been lacking in the plays before it. This was the first time we experimented with the location, performing the plays inside the LT and outside on the lawns; both locations offering a more intimate and immersive experience for the audience.Under the leadership of able seniors, 2011 ended up being the club’s best year in its history. ‘Gaslight’ ended up winning the Waves stage play. This was also a big year for our Street Play which reached the national finals of the “Be on the Street” competition in Delhi, where it won the award for Best Script.

The Drama Club went on to perform the play at the UN office in Delhi. After a fairly successful comedy night titled Malignant Humor, it was time for Drama Night once again. The club put up an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s ‘Witness for the

Prosecution’. A courtroom drama, the play met with a very positive response from the audience. The other play, ‘The Trips’ was an eerie psychological thriller full of suspense and atmosphere.Abhishek’s brilliant performance as Lowell, a haunting score (by Kotwal, Shiva and Radiohead!), and a crackling script directed by Soham Bhaduri, The Trips (along with Proof) stands as one of the club’s best productions till date.

It is safe to say the club has come a long way from that hot afternoon several moons ago. Sure, there is long way to go yet but the Drama Club is on the right track.

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All things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams. —Elias Canetti

AeroD Club

“More than anything else, the sensation is one of perfect peace mingled with and excitement that strains every nerve to the utmost, if you can conceive of such a combination”, said Wilbur Wright, the builder of the first airplane.

A few to-be engineers amalgamated into a club, the Aerodynamics Club, BITS-Pilani Goa Campus, with a goal to defy gravity, to defy all bounds of speed and maneuverability, and to get plastic and metal in the air. It was founded in the year 2008 by Harsha Vardhan Sripathi of the 2006 batch, as merely a group of very enthusiastic people who had a dream of flying. That dream and passion has carried on and has been the main driving force in the club attaining the level it has today. After Harsha, Atul Telang, Siddharth Parmar, Kriti Faruga and Sagar Bose have all taken turns leading the club. Bose has been the best flyer, but Harsha had by far the best knowledge about aerodynamics and flight, and laid down the foundations for the club to soar to great heights. Current and past members wish to see participation in high level projects, collaborating with the big guns in aero such as Boeing and Lockheed.

Since its foundation, the club’s seniors have done their best to educate the juniors and transfer the knowledge they have obtained, and also tried their hands at more planes and bigger and more varied projects. While inductions are held every year to recruit new members into the club, the club maintains that it is not in search of anyone with technical knowledge, but instead wants passionate people who can work seriously and whole-heartedly.

The club does not have regular meetings per se, but rather meets and works together in Aero room, and keeps its members updated by discussing all current and future plans of action. There are always different teams heading multiple projects at the same time. These are tested, and after their success, a new project is initiated. For the newly inducted members, regular lecture sessions are held, and after they have learnt enough, they are assisted in making their first plane.

The club had collaborated with one of India’s best aero-modellers Ansari Wasi and held air-shows and three workshops, Balsa Glider, SPAD and Tricopter in the first three years of the club. The Balsa Glider that was

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built in the workshop was designed by Harsha and Wasi together in the year the club was founded. A balsa scale model of a P 51 Mustang was also built and flown among many other things. A coanda effect VTOL construction was also started. From this year on, the club started conducting an aero event in Quark. The club had the honor of presenting the Mustang and VTOL when APJ Abdul Kallam and K.M. Birla visited our campus.

The next year the SPAD workshop was held and many teams participated in the IIT Bombay Techfest with their SPADs and most of the teams went to the final round. The Coanda VTOL was finished and a flying truck was attempted. Some of the members also attempted a few types of hovercrafts. During this year a glider workshop was also conducted in-house by the club. The lecture series was conducted after inductions to teach the new inductees and the others who were interested; this has been continuing as a tradition since the club was first set up.

In 2010-11 the club bought its first IC Engine plane. It was a leap from building and flying the usual electric planes. A VTOL atmopod was built and tested completely by the new members. The tricopter workshop was held the same year. Flying the tricopter was a whole new ballgame. It is actually difficult to fly compared to planes and the orientation and behavior is also very different. Some of the projects including the tricopter and atmopod were showcased to Rahul Gandhi when he came to campus. The following year was the most productive one for the club in terms of the number of models built. The major achievement that year was the emergence of many good fliers. Mr. Moss Glider in-house workshop was held and the participants were taught flying using their gliders. Some of the

most noteworthy planes are Flyzyme, a 2.6m wingspan thermocol plane and a scale model of a Grumman Goose which is an amphi-flyer. Others include a biplane, yaks of different makes and sizes, lanels, a corosplast Mustang, spadets, a thermocol trainer, Autogyro, Invader, balsa wings etc. Most planes were built with original designs and many improvisations and modifications were made on the fly. Thanks to Shatruddha, the club also developed a lot in the field of electronics. A vector thrust spherical plane was attempted and tested, and a trainer cord was made. Work on the Aero website was also started. This year different kinds of materials were experimented with to make cheaper and more planes with easier available materials. The club made four aerial videos of the campus to incredible response, and has had the students craving for more ever since. During the quark open showcase, the club showcased nearly ten different projects and won in both the mechanical and electronics categories.

The club has become not just a group of random people from different batches, but a group of friends who are passionate about flying and are dedicated to their work. It isn’t not just about building planes and flying them, it is the entire process. With numerous projects to boast of, and a lot more on the landing approach, the clubs plans to stay true to our motto for a long time to come: “Get high legally!”

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The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it. —John Perry Barlow

BeyondBITS

Kopo Kopo, Kenya

Amrit Pal has been extremely passionate about mobile banking- something he believes will change society itself- for a long time now. He spent time developing the ground operations of EKo (which is a company working on mobile banking and is financed by the World Bank) in Lucknow for several months and in December of the same year, he worked with the World Bank itself. Both of these experiences helped him tremendously during his internship in Nairobi with Kopo-Kopo. Already, he’s been ranked among the ten most influential people on mobile banking on Twitter. Kenya is the Mecca of mobile banking, and so, he decided to make the pilgrimage.“I showed genuine passion and it worked for me”, says Amrit Pal on applying for an internship. On an annual basis Indian college students tend to spam a hundred professors for internships with a chance of a positive response of about 1%. In reality, this is the opposite of the attitude that’s worth following – try to stick to your passion, if you don’t know it , find it and use that to apply for different internships so that what you do is worthwhile. More importantly when you do good work, there’s a legacy you leave behind – something Amrit felt great about. After leaving Kopo-Kopo, he could see how the systems he had put in place continued to help them perform efficiently.

When he was thinking of doing an internship in mobile banking he contacted a friend at MIT who directed him to Kopo Kopo. Kopo Kopo is a company that works with M-Pesa, which is the mode of transfer for millions of transactions. They weren’t looking for an intern at the time but Amrit convinced them that there was an opportunity since he had a skillset that matched the expansion possibilities they should explore. After acceptance, his settling in in Nairobi was a piece of cake. Kopo Kopo had managed it very well and he even got to stay with the CEO!

The two other interns who Kopo Kopo took that summer had gone to Harvard and then worked at Google. Amrit says it was definitely a nice ego boost to work alongside such individuals. The three of them together formed the SWAT team of Kopo Kopo. Their main job was to look at long term growth and try to increase the growth rate exponentially.In the beginning, everyone there was made to do sales for a period of three days. Three days when they worked on getting merchants to sign up for mPesa. Everyone who joins Kopo Kopo has to go through this ritual. This is the essence of what Kopo Kopo does - sign up merchants for accepting mPesa.

In addition to developing a culture of data analysis he also tried to understand how it would feel to live cashless - to live using only mobile banking. He did this for sixty days! The main problem he faced was that of social awkwardness - there were situations when the SMS that transferred the money got delayed or cancelled to the ire of other customers. At the end of it he’d understood a lot about the possible issues a user might face. He set up a great dependence on data in order to see how transactions were occurring, which merchants were providing the greatest sales and factors affecting sales. “When it rained and we correlated the weather with sales, we could see it drop”, he says.This was an amazing experience for him - something that taught him much more than he ever could have by reading books.

Amrit Pal

CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad

A worthwhile internship at the end of your 3rd year is hard enough – an internship at IIM Ahmedabad where you do cutting edge work is almost a dream come true. It was just that for two students- Sohag Sen and Ashesh Kaushik who were selected through a strict screening process to intern at the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepeneurship (CIIE). After stumbling upon the opportunity on Internshala, they had to submit an essay of 500 words and were filtered through 2 telephonic interviews. In all, 20 interns were selected from over a thousand who applied.They worked on 2 projects through their two months tenure at IIM-A. The first was with Power of Ideas by Economic Times and the second was a Dairy consultancy project for Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). On the first project, the interns were supposed to select a particular sector (the BITSians were allotted the Agriculture and Diary sector) and do an industry analysis for each submitted idea keeping in mind a Venture-Capitalist’s funding and an incubation cell. By the second week, the interns moved onto the consultancy project which was to evaluate the efficacy of the SIDBI investment in a Dairy farm in Jhansi. The interns got an amazing opportunity to work under Rajat Gupta, the Vice-President of Infuse capital (with a ₹125 Crore fund for clean technology) and a Harvard and IIT-Delhi graduate. They were expected to analyse the investment plan, the corporate governance structure, market distribution, the HR distribution, and the risk evaluation among others. This was sent with recommendations to SIDBI and the company. This also involved a field visit to the Jhansi Dairy farm. The interns then returned to Power of Ideas to screen ideas at round 1 and round 2 before they reached the industry experts.The internship overall was an amazing experience, Sohag says. Ahmedabad was an amazing city, the

food was especially good and Diu, reminiscent of Goa itself is also worth a visit. While it wasn’t a paid internship, accommodation and food were taken care of by IIM-A.

The interns were awarded certificates at the end of the internship duration and also received recommendation letters from their respective mentors. All in all, it was an amazing experience for the interns and Sohag and Ashesh recommended it highly for those with a keen interest in economics and finance.

Sohag Sen and Ashesh Kaushik

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. —Arthur C. Clarke

University of Calgary, Canada

Having heard a lot of intern stories, and about the thin line that divides a golden opportunity and an irksome expedition, I set out to find what would best suit my interests. Through some of my friends, I came to know about the internships offered by Mitacs Globalink (Canada), an international internship programme. Out of the available list, I shortlisted 7 projects I was interested in and went on to apply as an intern. After some impatient lingering and being waitlisted in the first round, I was selected for an internship at the University of Calgary. I was greeted at the airport by my Globalink Student Advisor. He dropped me off Yamnuska Hall, the place I was to stay at for the next couple of months. He gave me a credit card, a calling card, a map of Calgary and a tourist information booklet- all as part of the Mitacs package. I got a good first impression of the locals when I explored the campus and started meeting new people. The accommodation was superb. Neighbouring Yamnuska Hall, there was the Olympic Oval (venue for the 1988 Winter Olympics), four full length football fields, two hockey courts and 8 basketball courts. The daylight as late as 10.30 pm was confusing, but I soon got used to it.Right on my first weekend, I was loitering around the fields looking for an opportunity to play and a group invited me to play with them. Afterwards I came to know they played regularly and they asked me to join them every day. Being interested in sports, I was delighted.

Now came the time for work, for which I had travelled 8000 miles- a haptic sailboat for disabled sailors. The project comprised of making a wireless interface with accelerometers and transceivers to send commands to the blackfin board. With state-of-the-art resources at my disposal, I had little to ask for and far more to accomplish. My senses repeatedly got absorbed into the essence of what intrigued me. The sunlight in place of the usual moonlight coupled with the unscheduled working hours was a bit unsettling

at first, but I soon got used to it and became accustomed to my working hours. Our free time was similar to something I saw in a documentary about Google- hanging around all day and making those fluorescent lights and coffee your buddy at night.I was surely never ignorant of change but my experience here has zoomed me over to a new mindset, ready to face all ruggedness that future brings in. When I wake up, I gear myself up to think about something out of my league, something new, something fresh, something that would work out a much better solution to the problem, a new algorithm, a new way of doing things. This is undoubtedly what this experience has taught me. My mind races as my journey moves forward.

Seby Jacob

CERN, Swiss-French Border

“If you had asked me what my plans for the summer were four months ago, I probably would have shrugged and mumbled something about applying for an internship somewhere”, Dhruva says. But he did apply for GSoC (Google Summer of Code) 2012 and that set the ball rolling.

Every year CERN invites around 200 students from around the world to work on an internship there over the summer. These include scientists and engineers from various fields. When he got an opportunity to work at their headquarters on the Swiss-French border, he didn’t think twice. “I expected to learn a lot about programming and code development over the summer. I did learn a lot about that, but I also took away much more. I got a chance to meet new people, experience new cultures, and see new cities and landscapes. I got to try out new and exciting things more than 4000 miles from home.”“When I first arrived at CERN, I went to the building of the IT Department. On the ground floor there is a small museum with many objects of historic significance behind a glass cupboard. The most interesting one by far was this old black CPU with a worn out paper stuck to it on which you can make out a slightly faded message. The machine was the first server used by Tim Berners Lee and on it is written ‘ This machine is a server. DO NOT TURN IT OFF.’ Imagine that!” Dhurva says excitedly.

“The first thing anyone asks me however is if I saw the LHC”, he says. “First of all, the LHC is not this huge tourist. The whole ring is underground and no one is allowed near it when it is running because of the amount of radiation it emits. The only places where you might get close to it is at the site of the detectors. The four major detectors that collect data in CERN are Atlas, CMS, LHCb and ALICE.”“On the night of the 3rd of July, right from around 11 p.m. or so, you might have observed a queue slowly forming outside the main auditorium.

It was the iPad release of the scientific world. When the announcement was made at 9 a.m. the entire auditorium was full and abuzz with excitement.” Unfortunately, he was in another building far away watching the live webcast while attending an Intel TBB workshop. “No one paid quite as much attention at the workshop as they should have”, he quipped.

On a typical week, Dhruva would work all day at CERN. On the weekends, there was always something to do - one could hike up ‘Le Reculet’ in the Jura mountain range, go canyoning in a valley not fat off or go paragliding if the weather allowed it. If the physical activities started to get tiring he would go down to Geneva for a music festival or just to stroll around the clear blue lake. The best part of being in Switzerland in the summer time is that in July one can go down to Montreaux to catch the annual ‘Montreux Jazz Festival’. The two days that he went the concerts were sold out - not surprising, as the artists performing were Bob Dylan and then Hugh Laurie!“For me, this was by far the most incredible summer ever!” he says. ”Now I can tell people that for two years they were searching for the Higgs, and a fortnight after I went there, we found it.Too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

Dhruva Tirumala

I am two with nature. —Woody Allen

Harsh Ghesani,Carnegie Melon University

Sizzling Sands: What made you decide to pursue a Masters in Computational Design from Carnegie Mellon?Harsh: I have always believed that along with having a good understanding of engineering , keeping up with the latest technology is a must. Experimental studies, by their very nature are expensive to conduct or to learn from. Hence I started focusing on Computational Analysis and using it as a tool to understand my subjects better ever since my undergraduate sophomore year. Eventually I went on to solve problems involving theoritecal concepts taught in class to understand them better as computational analysis always take a lot less time then experiments, This exercise made me realise its immense potential for application in the Engineering and Science fields which motivated me to choose Computational Design at CMU.

SS: You seemed to know pretty early on which field you were interested in. That must have been a huge advantage.Harsh: I didn’t really know from the beginning. Initially it took a significant amount of time to realise my area of interest After flipping through several books and scavenging papers in the domain of MechE it was Computational Engineering which seemed magnetic .It was the

one thing that I could conceptualise and apply for days together. I would design heat transfer and fluid dynamics problems on different software and try solving them by writing codes too. Also while preparing for a CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) competition at IIT Bombay, I got a lot to learn about theoretical aspect of CFD because of which my interest in Computational Engineering increased. I worked under the guidance of Professors in Mechanical, Mathematics and Physics departments in the course of my undergraduate years to get an holistic approach of the subject which increased my interest furtherSS: So how was your experience at CMU?

Harsh: It has been an enthralling experience; As far as technical skills are concerned I am very sure BITSians can excel their way out . I found my subjects very intriguing, they got me nostalgic of my undergraduate delving in them and ended up taking a course overload, working twelve to sixteen hours a day, and finishing more units then I was required to complete. The interaction with the Professors in the classes was amazing. The approach to problem solving at CMU is phenomenal.

SS: What does it take to get into an elite University like CMU?

Harsh: Grades do not matter much. My mentor told me that I was selected because of the research I did. Of course, it varies from university to university. However, if you’re applying on a specific field, your grades in the related subjects should be good.

SS: Any advice for students aspiring to pursue higher education?

Harsh: I’d say don’t study for grades Make it an aim to learn and apply what you learn with a flair. Remember, if the flair dies, so does your value in the field of the research you pursue and the only chance of leaving your mark there goes with it.

Shantanu Garg,Stanford University

Sizzling Sands: What were the factors which, according to you, helped you get accepted to Stanford?I think it was my SOP that helped me make the cut. My GPA and GRE scores were pretty average. However, it was my SOP through which I was able to clearly highlight all my experiences. I was able to convince the admissions committee that I knew exactly what I wanted out of the Masters program and had a unique skill set to be able to bring value to my class. My leadership and team building experiences at BITS, as well as my diverse internship experiences played a big role in helping me articulate that.

SS: You pursued Mgt Science and Engineering at Stanford. What drew you to the course?

I studied Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering at BITS. I hated electronics as much as I liked business. When I was considering different programs to apply to, the Management Science & Engineering program at Stanford was well positioned to give me three out of the four things that I was looking for:• A chance to study business officially (on

paper finally)

• A university with great reputation (Stanford was decently popular I had heard)

• A great place to spend my next two years (California, hell yeah!)

• Not eat into Dad’s life savings (But I guess, quality comes with a price tag)

This made it a no brainer for me.

SS: What sets Stanford apart from other graduate schools?

Opportunity. Stanford is definitely a place with innumerable opportunities. The university is so well networked with people and corporations around the world, that there endless possibilities of what

you could be doing while you are there and after you graduate. To give you an example, for one of my class projects, I got a chance to work with a team of four students from Switzerland and $25000, to develop a new product prototype for a major telecommunications company in nine months. I am not too sure if any other school could give me such an opportunity. SS: Do you feel the BITS system equips you to excel in an international academic platform?

Yes and No. Yes because I think our system does a great job with teaching you how to dream, aspire and then fight to achieve your dreams. I think the former two are really important to get you started. On the other hand, we do a bad job with awareness and exposure. What (rather how much) we learn as a part of our coursework is often not sufficient to excel. At Stanford, I found that a lot of my fellow Indian students (maybe I am referring to the IITians) knew a lot more than I did. So there was some catching up to do.

SS: What would be your advice to undergrads who want to pursue higher studies abroad?

One of the best pieces of advice that I received when I was applying to graduate school was – “Aim high, never underestimate your capability”. Often times, students underestimate their ability to make it to a

Just living isn’t enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. —Hans Christian Anderson

great / the best school, and end up not even applying. However, remember that the selection process is so subjective that you can only find out what you are truly capable of, once you hear your application decision. In most cases, you will be pleasantly surprised with the outcome of your application. As they rightly say, shoot for the moon…cause even if you miss, you will end up among the stars.SS: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

I spoke with several BITSIANs while I was applying for my Masters program. Everything they told me was really helpful. I would definitely like to continue that trend and would like to let you all know that you are most welcome to reach out to me for any help you might need (with anything). I owe this to you guys, so you have the right to demand it!

When your dreams turn to dust, vacuum. —Anonymous

Faculty CoordinatorDr. Basvadatta MitraAssistant Professor,Humanities & Manage-ment Group

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When your dreams turn to dust, vacuum. —Anonymous