L.A.S.

It’s tough to explain how the existence of an individual can affect you. You love them, hate them, like them, dislike them, or maybe the existence is just a part of your regular life, but it still fills a part in the life you live. The existence of all the people in one’s life defines an individual. We know that. We all know that. What we don’t know, or maybe just don’t care enough about, is that the absence of an individual can affect one’s life in a greater possible way, compared to any other thing in the world. We all love, we all live, and well, we all kill, but never do we think about our actions as right or wrong, or good or bad. We never think what impact we can have on someone, or what impact others can have on us. The impact is just a mere significance, or the instant attraction towards a person, not necessarily in a sexual manner, but the way in which one becomes a fan, a follower. And that’s probably the best thing to do in this life, to be that person, who becomes an idol, or maybe just a person to look up to.  To be someone who matters. To be someone who does the work. To be someone who will always be remembered, and kept in mind, even if keeping in sight is no more an option. We all will define our lives, but influencing someone else’s will be the better thing to do. To live is easy, but to live a life is tough. It’ll be a tough experience to laugh, to be sad, to be happy, or to be mad, the correct way, at the correct time, with all the right people, but it’ll be all that matters.

To err is human, and that is all that we must know. Knowing and expecting beyond our capacity is what does not happen. One never knows when the time will end, or when there will be a new start, as there is too little time to worry about such things, as life is what it is, and we all live through it. It’ll happen to you when you’re busy pouring yourself a glass of scotch, and thinking what it would be like, if it would have been different. It could have been better, or worse, or maybe just the same, and the significance might just have changed. And even if it would have been different, one day it would have come to an end, just like everything does and everything will. But one thing that will still stay when there’s no skin, will be the impact, and the significance. The fact that you loved, or you hated. The fact that you lived for all of it. And here I sit today with my drink, thinking, how different it would have been, if some would still have been there. How would it have affected me? And I wait, for all of it, for my share of it, for me to matter, and for me to exist.

-Vishwa Vijay Singh Dhandu

Everything is right

A dog can see all around him only in black and white, whereas, a bee can see thousands of colours.
It is an interesting observation that the world around us is the same, but everybody sees and experiences it differently. So, do you experience the world right, or do I see it right? What is the right way to live?
To a certain degree, people analyse day to day affairs with respect to a certain set of rules. These sets of rules might be defined by an individual himself, or they could be adapted from religion, plenty of stuff to choose from..
Now see, the problem is that on a planet full of 7 billion people, with every guy having a different set of rules/views on life, these views often tend to clash. Say for example, the Hindu-Muslim clash in our country and many more around the world on smaller and larger scales. This is because of the common understanding that in the case of two opposing arguments, only one is correct and the other is commended to oblivion.
THIS NEED NOT BE!!!

Allow me to recollect an ancient Jain story..

The Four Blind Men 

In a small village lived four blind men. They were told about an exotic animal that was going to be brought to the village; the elephant. None of them had ever seen or heard about an elephant before, so they decided to go find out what an elephant was really like.When taken to the elephant, visual inspection was obviously not possible. So they began touching and feeling the elephant to get a mental picture of the animal. The man who was standing near the legs of the elephant commented that the animal seemed like some sort of pillar. The person near the trunk inferred that it was some sort of snake. The man holding the tail imagined it to be somewhat similar to a dog or a donkey. The fourth man examined the belly of the elephant and declared it to be a blob of meat. Even months after the elephant went,the four blind men quarrelled about the shape and size of the elephant, and took this dispute to their graves.

The point to be realised here is that none of them were wrong, each one of them was correct in their own perspectives. But all of them missed the bigger picture, and also lost their friendship in the process. This is exactly what is happening in today's world. Everybody seems to have developed a certain understanding of the world, and will valiantly defend it in case of any arising contradictions, without realising that both of them might be correct, at the same time.
All I'm trying to say is that after listening to all this, if you still think that your viewpoint is correct, then you have every right to think so; but if you say that your views are right and mine are wrong, then no body in this world would be more wrong than you.And this is how everything and everyone is right; ' wrong-ness' is in declaring other people to be wrong.

-'Maharaja' SP
(2nd year, Mechanical)

Food Review: Viva Mexico! (Sector 10, right above “shots”)

So my friends told me that there is this really amazing and decently priced Mexican food joint just 5 minutes from college. Who dare stop me from going there now?
A narrow staircase in the market of sector 10 led to the extremely brightly colored ambiance. But that didn't matter because it completely gelled with the mood. And what mood is that you may ask? Loving life, carefree and listening to Mexican songs of which you understand nothing but still enjoy it kind of a mood.
As soon as you enter you encounter a very customer friendly food presentation which would remind you of subway but the only difference being it’s not just raw veggies! The chicken Quesadillas are definitely a must have. The cheese melts in your mouth without suppressing the flavor of chicken. I guess the veg Quesadillas are also good but being a hardcore non vegetarian, I never tried them. In case you thought that this was all the place had to offer, you’re wrong. If you’re nice enough and lucky they might just let you wear the sombreros to “enhance the Mexican experience” or so the manager said.
People who have average eating habits could easily get their stomach filled in Rs. 200. A major downer for me was the burrito, it tasted like rajmah chawal wrapped in a roti. Maybe I don’t know what burritos taste like, but if this is the answer, I am never having burritos in my life ever again. All in all if you can’t decide what to eat in the 1 hour break of college, try out this place. In most cases, it won’t disappoint you.

Summary:

By Dinaz Malik (2nd Year, CSE)

Swirling Black hole of Chaos

It all amuses us. The fact, that we are where we are, or the place where we could have been. It is all a second life we think about all the time. The love, the pain, the speech, all would have been different. It’s a very complicated feeling to explain. But is it right to think about all that could have been there? Should we, not rather think about how we are right now, the place where we live, and the place we would eventually. Why do we feel something which has already happened is more important, and needs to be given a thought, when we can very well sit down, and think about more important things in life?
We complicate things, we complicate relationships, we complicate feelings, only because of our complicated thoughts. Life plays with us, in so many different ways, that we can’t understand the difference between the hopeless reality, and friction less virtual world.  But do we live enough in whatever we do? We have our moments of happiness, and our moments of remorse. We might lose ourselves, and we might gain what one had never thought. Does every step to our future matter, and must affect us in a manner we can or cannot deal with? Does the ideal reality have to be achieved by each individual to have our human needs and desires satisfied?
 But there are external methods and ways to satisfy the needs. We have our precious little soldiers of death, multiplying our capacities, but killing our desires, and our existence. We need them sometime, only to realize later that it might not have been necessary, and we might just have been able to deal without it. We might have been able to make a better person out of ourselves. Life does not always rewind, at least not for what we have lived to see. We might think of ourselves as rebels, and make our own Hell’s Kitchen, but the truth does not lie there. We have our loveless desires to take care of, whether it is known or not. Whether we accept it or not. The future might be petrifying, but just thinking about how it might affect us in  a good or a bad manner, wants us to be, and makes us grow strong.  

                                

By Vishwa Vijay Singh (2nd Year, Civil Engineering)

DON'T KILL ME OR KILL ME MOM

Don’t kill me mom,
Before I open my eyes
With my going away,
A part of you too dies…

Don’t kill me mom,
What wrong have I done?
That I don’t get to watch the moving tides,
The beautiful moon, the colourful sun...

Don’t kill me mom,
I’ll make you proud
Explore the deep seas, reach
The sky, stand apart from the crowd.

Don’t kill me mom,
Shouldn’t I be the one to decide?
To live or not, I can but
Plead to you from deep inside.

Or kill me mom,
Rather than making me work
At an age when I ought to be playing
Instead of bearing a painful jerk...

Or kill me mom,
I don’t want to walk through streets
At nights, when alone, feared
To be raped by those merciless beast.

Or kill me mom,
For money, I don’t want to be beaten
By my own man, when we are two bod-ies,
But one soul, only in written.

Or kill me mom,
Isn’t it better to die?
Before being born, rather than
Bearing everyday a 100 deaths’ cry.

-Sajal Sehgal, 2nd year

Music review- Foo Fighters

FOO FIGHTERS – WASTING LIGHT (2011)

Not only is Dave Grohl, Foo Fighter's founder/frontman/guitarist, committed to never let rock die, his post-grunge band's seventh effort since 1994 is unapologetically a classic act in virtually every way. The Foo Fighters have avoided their fancy studio lodgings for this album, opting instead to record the entire album in Grohl's garage! The result is a no-nonsense collection of raw, roaring, straight-up rock tune paired with lyrics that are often as impenetrable as Grohl's snarling vocals and ferocious guitar riffs.

Burning Bridges: Hyper Energetic with the echo of Grohl’s intro chant of “These are my famous last words” and you know that you’re in for one hell of ride.

Rope: Starts with echo coated clattered guitars before crashing into mahogany-rich cymbals. In short, kickass vocals; kickass riff and kickass drums!

White Limo: Album’s heaviest track, where Dave Grohl’s screaming vocals bang through most of it. The lyrics are majorly distorted and this itself adds to the garage-recorded-thrash-metal feel to this song. However this seems overdone at times and the endless screaming and growling becomes tiresome and (one might even say) irritating by the end of it.

Arlandria and These Days are tough, unstable energy ballads in their own melancholic spirit.

Walk: This song is what will make your time spent on listening to this 47-minute album worthwhile. You can almost feel yourself ‘million miles away’ and this is clearly the best 4 minutes of music to come out this album.

After "Wasting Light", it’s safe to say that anyone who compares Foo Fighters with Nirvana has either never heard them or has been too busy immortalizing Nirvana to hear them. And yes! Dave Grohl is not just ‘the drummer from Nirvana’. He is the Dave Grohl - founder, lead vocalist and guitarist of Foo Fighters!

Other Songs of the Album: Dear Rosemary, Back & Forth, Miss the Misery, I Should’ve Known, Matter of Time

Best of Foo Fighters: Walk, Rope, The Pretender (Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace), Best of You (In Your Honor), All This Time (One by One).

-Harshil Bhardwaj

The Cliff

And as he leaped off the cliff, all sense of fear seemed to evade him. Instead, after the initial few seconds, a sense of calmness seemed to overcome him. Adjusting himself against the rush of the wind, he seemed to realize an almost universal truth. He realized that at the age of 56 having accomplished what he wanted and having given the most of what he could, he really had no regret in dying.  He realized that instead of being unable to contribute positively anymore to the world, is it not better to snuff one’s self out?  

The fall really was unlike anything he had ever expected. He had gone skydiving but this was so much more different; so much more raw. This fall, unlike his countless others seemed to have a sense of purpose and fulfillment. There wasn't going to be any parachute that would snap open and slow him down. This time he would fall, faster and faster until only a smear of him would be left on the unforgiving rocks below.

Still he remained calm. There was no flashing of his life in front of his eyes or anything of that sort. He felt nothing but a strange tranquility. He actually enjoyed this one final experience, the wind howling in his ears, the saliva whipped away from his mouth and with the wind hammering at his eyes too hard for him to open them, he barely saw the rocks approaching. And just as everything went dark,  he smiled.

-Varun Balaji, 1st year

Nowhere to go

The station is his palace, the platform his bed

His life is filled with unmatched freedom, wants it no other way instead

Armed with his polythene bag, he grinds for his daily bread

Scrounges for plastic bottles, in every shape and size he can get

Spends everything he has, says no reason to save

It will be stolen anyway, let me live my royal way

He hides from me under the platform stairs, whitener fluid in hand

Sniffing it all day, it feels being back in his mother's lap

He was six; his uncle brought him to this town he did not know

Six more years have passed; the life promised is still unknown

He has no future, just as he has had no past

Still he lives with fervor, with hopes that just forever last.

-Pranav Kapoor, 1st year

In the name of survival, we thrust

I live here, but here is not where I belong,
The path deserted and the journey long.
Behold life around me tight, and I wince in pain.
The smiles are marked, for tears merge with rain.
I sleep with my dreams; dread the moon a tonne,
Wake up to my mares, I fall in love with the Sun.
Pages that are blank, everything do they reveal,
When the thoughts burn, injuries come to heal.
I want a way out, part of me stays,
Two-faced I am, half of me slays.
My May begins in March, dies in August.
The other half – blood, love and lust.
Follow my instincts? Unlikely I am to please,
Toe the line? Too low to appease.
Considerations do adhere, evil does thrive,
I don’t belong here, that is why I must survive.
Gearing up my back, readying my fists,
Battling rains, and clearing mists.
I question my methods, the Sword I trust,
Come what may, turning them to dust.
In the name of survival, I thrust.
In the name of survival, I trust.

-Shirish Sharma, 1st year

Please kiss me goodbye

I’m tired of waiting,

It does me no good;

I’m all ready for hiring

I’m way above the hood.

I’ve come out after a long time,

Please let me leave;

Your wishes are no longer mine

Space between us has cleaved.

You can be unfaithful now

You can do anything you want;

Just because you still bow

I’m still not yours for grant.

It’s your choice to stay

But I’d rather you don’t;

I want you far, far away

Leave you a choice? No, I won’t.

Please kiss me goodbye

It’s the easiest thing;

No need for drama, no need to cry

Walk away, for I’m not waiting.

-Kanika, 3rd year