Rain Drop

Twinkling as a star, on concrete.

Every drop, distinct, discrete.

As it falls, so it breaks

Into several droplet-mates.

Parting with its friends,

Ripples across, it sends.

That converge and diverge,

Humming a love song or a dirge.

Relieves the scorched ground;

Joins the river, ocean-bound.

The sweet aroma of wet soil;

The cool breeze, a pay for toil.

That little drop, in us inspires,

To spread joy, every soul requires,

To adapt, to be loved, to mingle,

To dance to the tune of life’s jingle.

- An original contribution by
Elika Garg
I year B.Tech
Biotechnology

Blast you morons!

I get up today morning at ten thirty, (don’t judge me…was up last night with some important work….anyways, this isn’t about me!) and I see the headlines plastered across the newspaper, “29 DIE AS 17 BLASTS RIP THROUGH AHMEDABAD”. Bloody 17 blasts!!!! That’s the most no. of blasts I have ever heard of in a terrorist attack on my country since I was born. Cumulatively!! I try to get up off the bed but there’s still only two words resounding in my head, “Seventeen Blasts!!!” .Walk toward the bathroom to brush my teeth, and they’re still there, “Seventeen Blasts!!!” .Walking back to the room, “Seventeen Blasts!!!”. I decide to go to my friend’s room to vent my frustration. He opens his door and I blurt out, “SEVENTEEN BLASTS!!!” His reply, “Fifteen blasts”. I give him a puzzling look that even the Joker from the earlier Batman movies would kill to have on his own face to go with his diabolical schemes. But that’s what he chose to refute with me about - the number of blasts reported by his newspaper vs. mine. Does nobody else see the sheer ludicrous insanity of the actions of these so called terrorist organizations? Okay!! So we’ll take the magic number as fifteen for future references in this rambling monologue of mine. But is fifteen any better? There shouldn’t even be one blast to read of in the newspapers. And here I am being greeted on consecutive days with news of how the security apparatus of our…no wait…my country is just a complete mockery of the meaning of the word “secure”. Do I feel secure? Hell no!! Not about my life, not about my family’s life which by the way lives in Ahmedabad. But that’s beside the point. I don’t feel terrorized by this news, may be for the sheer reason that if I do, I’m letting these sadist Tiffin bombers actually succeed in their intensions. But what I can’t believe or rather understand is that why do we keep letting this happen. Can I never walk in piece on the roads without the gushing urge to call the bomb squad every time I see a deserted cycle parked in a civilized street? Shouldn’t I not have to stop reading the newspapers daily just because they give me the most repetitive feeling of déjà vu? Shouldn’t there be an actual organization that tries and prevent these incidents from repeating over and over again? OH yeah!! There is such an organization, the POLICE. Right…Well we all know how great they are. A murderer kills two may be three people? A robber may kill somebody while making his escape. But freaking 29 people killed by an organization that used the email to claim responsibility. And there’s no way to figure out actually whodunit. Even if they come knocking to our doors once every month with the most stony calling card of death, we don’t consider them worth spending our time and effort on.

To think such incidents happened right after the government’s “victory” on the nuke deal is really laudable. And I’m not even being sarcastic. We can see how involved the country’s governors are in a deal with the country that perhaps is the most used example of global hegemony ever. Sure, our internal safety measures might be as obscure as the Indian Postal Service, but let’s keep up the image of being en route to being the next global power and turn a blind eye to our “little” problems within. They’re ‘internal’ right? We can solve them anytime. All right, guess the sarcasm kind of leaked out in spite of my best attempts. But before I wrap up this dialogue, I would really like to know what can we do individually to prevent this. Every time the tabloids finish by pleading everyone to be more vigil and keep their eyes and ears peeled to notice any inconsistency. It doesn’t work that way people. One person’s imagination may get him labeled as being paranoid and frowned upon. Think what would happen with everyone’s paranoia let loose on the streets. Utter chaos perhaps? But let’s not forget that it is each individual’s duty to keep a watch out but there’s a limit to our reach, and then helplessness prevails simply because of the sheer enormity of “the unknown”. AAMIR anyone?

Trip down the memory lane- Lantern 2007

Our beloved staff advisor, Dr. D. Kesava Rao

A lighter moment

The first year crowd @ Lantern 07

Frantic correction of the prelim papers

Winners of Lantern 2007

Runners up

Second runners up

The Executive members of second year- the event conductors of Lantern, with our staff advisor

Dr. D. Kesava Rao flanked by the Additional Secretaries of LnD, Anand Rajagopalan and Nitin Lakhotia (left to right) and Secretary, Tony Sebastian (extreme right)

Do men need to be chivalrous.??

Don't you think that the world can do without chivalry in the 21st century.? I mean its been decades that women have been talking about equality and doing great things in all walks of life. Last I heard, equality was a thing of the past and i think i overheard this, "women who aspire to be be equal to men just aren't ambitious enough." or something to that effect. So now that female equality has clearly been established, I'm made to wonder why they should expect chivalry. After all, isn't asking and hoping for chivalry from men tantamount to saying,"I could need some help here." You know even that's fine with me-some work just cant be done alone-but in that case why is help solicited only from men and not from women. If women can do everything men can,then why cant they be chivalrous ??

Lets go back in time and see why chivalry was required. Mankind lived in caves, man was the provider,women stayed back in the caves-cooking and taking care of the kids.If the cave-woman needed a large boulder to be broken or moved or a bear to be killed then she'd need the cave-man. That's it-that's where chivalry came from.Right.?? Now we can fast forward to the 19th century. Men were becoming doctors and discovering things and studying while most women stayed indoors n brought up the kids. Women wore dresses and obviously had mobility issues. So when they wanted to mount a horse or get onto the carriage or even walk a bumpy road,a little help could be used-enter the chivalrous 19th century man.

But why all this now.? The fairer sex don't need men by their side anymore-not for support at least. To get answers I asked a friend of mine who was sad that it was getting more and more difficult to find chivalrous men.Apparently, its nice if men are there to keep open the door when they want to enter (say a car) and to offer to hold their hand when they are walking on a bumpy road.! Whoa...!! I am reminded of Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. He's blind and is so accompanied by this young man.The fellow holds Pacino's hand when he's about to start walking.Pacino curtly yet strongly says,"Are you blind ?...Then why are you holding my hand ?" See the analogy girls.? So don't really hope for chivalry-detest it...unless of course you're afraid opening the car door will chip your nail polish.

The world doesn't really need a man who's nice to a woman because she's a woman-that's not chivalry-that's lame. We need people(both men and women) who are nice to other people(both men and women) because thats who they are, that's what they do.