The Road Trip

I don’t know how many people attended the Flag Hoisting in C-Lawns on Aug 15^th at 9:30 AM but I am sure we can find more people stamping C-Lawns to hell at midnight on 23^rd Oct. Yes, the event is called Sonic Stampede and yes, Oasis can be safely termed the actual Independence Day or rather 96 hours of Independence for all the BITSians and apparently 800 other people from all over India. Free from acads, free from……………….I can only think of acads. : P

Anyway, the theme for this Oasis is The Road Trip and if you have visited the Oasis website designed by the ever impressive CCTV guys, under “About” they have a quite interesting description of a Road Trip. Interesting because a group of people in Stall No’s 2, 3 and 4 found some striking similarities to a rather long journey- 6 years and counting to be precise. Here is what they had to say:

Have you ever wandered on your own to some obscure destination?
“Well, when we started off, we were definitely on our own. No one had done this before, at least not at the college level and we were only 5 BITSians and none of us knew how to get there. We had a destination in mind but the path to get there was very obscure.”

Tried breaking off from the chains of monotony?
“Yeah, definitely. As we said, we were one of the first to embark upon this kind of journey.”

Taken a bus ride to nowhere?
“Well, not a bus ride. We had to go on cycles because buses couldn’t go where we went. We had to wade through muddy roads and those were not exactly made for two cycles at a time let alone a bus. Anyway, it was an altogether different feeling going out in the evening air with a couple of friends with nothing on the road for miles. :D”

Packed your bags for a road trip away from the mundane?
“Yeah, our bags were always filled with clothes and a lot of other stuff like pen stands, pouches etc.”

Live life on the brink? Go with the flow? Feel the exhilarating rush of adrenaline? Revel in the thrill of adventure lurking on every corner?
“Well, you could say ours was a different kind of thrill. Different as in ours was not brought about by a sense of adventure nor a rush of adrenaline, rather we revelled in the sense of happiness and contentment we brought to the places we went to.”

Oasis- 96 hours of absolute, unadulterated madness. The endpoint of your wanderings. Not all those who wander are lost.

Nirmaan- 6 years of absolute, unadulterated drive towards the rise of a great nation and yes, we are not done yet and we are pretty sure we aren’t lost mainly because we have a pretty good compass which always points towards a developed India.

So yes, we too are experiencing one hell of a Road Trip.

And yeah, do visit our stall. Stall No’s 2, 3 and 4 at C-Lawns and all the clothes, pen stands and a whole lot of other stuff is there awaiting your criticism.

Joy of Giving Week

Dinner of Joy

One of the most eagerly awaited events of this year’s Joy of Giving Week celebrations was the 'Dinner of Joy', organised by Nirmaan volunteers on the 7^th of October 2011. The dinner was served in one of the student messes, and all members of the mess staff and the chowkis were invited.

A sumptuous spread was laid out for them, including a variety of main course dishes and desserts. The volunteers exchanged roles to play host to our esteemed invitees. Even faculty members joined in the celebrations, and served alongside us which truly reflects the amount of unexpressed appreciation and gratefulness that everyone had towards the people who constitute a quiet background in our daily life. There were to be no compromises in any aspect of the event with music being played in the background, giving it a more ‘grub-like’ feel.

Serving them helped us to connect with them on a more personal level. It was evident that they enjoyed the food as many of them approached the volunteers and commended our efforts, which simply put- felt great.

‘Dinner of Joy’ is not so much as the workers experiencing the joy of having a sumptuous and delicious meal, but ‘Dinner of Joy’ in its most meaningful form is about them experiencing the ‘joy of knowing’ that all their efforts are not ignored and that it is that quiet background which makes our life infinitely better.

PS: Not that the meal isn’t great!!

Day of Joy

Another equally anticipated event of the on-going nation-wide celebrations of ‘Joy of Giving Week’, the ‘Day of Joy’ was organised on 5^th October for the Banjara community kids.

The day started off with the kids being presented with new clothes and then after having breakfast at the BITS market, they were taken to the Student Activities Centre (SAC) in the campus for a day of fun-filled activities.

The events for the day included a game session organised by the Department of Informalz; interaction with the kids while teaching them block painting and at the end a small competition to motivate them. After lunch, other clubs of BITS Pilani like the Music Club, Madhyansh, PCA and Marudhara gave wonderful performances which enthralled the kids and provided them with unlimited entertainment. After that, Nirmaan volunteers decided to put on their own show and played games with them. Drawing books and colour pencils were given to all the kids to complete the ‘joy’ful experience.

All in all, the day turned out to be an excellent one full of joyful memories for the children and the volunteers alike, the mere thought of which will give them immense satisfaction and peace. For many of the kids employed as child labour, it was a day when they could actually break free of their shackles and have fun just like other kids their age. And that was what the event was all about, to show the children what a carefree day of their lives can be like, even better- experience it for themselves!

All round condemnation of terror attacks kills one terrorist

Courtesy: Faking News

This one is too good, so couldn't just stop at posting the link. So, here it goes:

New Delhi. In the first ever instance of its kind, a terrorist died yesterday after hearing all round condemnation of terrorism by leaders in India and around the world. The terrorist, whose name has been requested to be withheld by his organization, couldn’t sustain the massive blows that were falling on him from all corners as one leader after another condemned the cowardly and dastardly act of killing defenseless people by planting bombs at civilian places.

“He was feeling very drained out and dejected since yesterday morning,” an aide of the dead terrorist said, “The moment Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram condemned the Delhi blast in the strongest terms through a written statement in the parliament, he started getting restless and complained of nausea.”

One of the threatening postures by P Chidambaram that struck terror into the heart of the terrorist, who was condemned severely for indulging in terrorist activities.

It should be noted that Chidambaram had appealed to the parliament and to the citizens of India not to get intimidated by the terror attacks, for “the objective of the terrorist groups was to strike fear and destabilize the government”.

“He was distraught after realizing that the Indian Home Minister knew everything about his objectives and had even taken preventive steps by not getting intimidated,” the dead terrorist’s friend revealed how the unsuspecting terrorist was given a deadly blow by the condemnation that had followed an hour after a bomb blast took place at Delhi High Court yesterday.

Soon every Indian leader condemned the blast and nonstop condemnations started falling in on the helpless terrorist from every corner, with even leaders from Pakistan, China, and USA condemning the terror attack.

“He complained of an acute pain in heart when he came to know about strong condemnation from the Indian President Pratibha Patil,” the dead terrorist’s colleague recalled with horror the hardships his friend had to go through yesterday.

“He succumbed to his injuries once he heard the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemning the terrorist attacks and declaring that they won’t succumb to the pressure of terrorism,” he said.

The terrorist organization, which is fearful of its market value going down if its name was revealed, accepted that it was an “intelligence failure” on their part not to have armed and trained the now deceased terrorist against such condemnation that are always expected after any terror attack.

“We are not ashamed to accept that we failed,” the leader of the concerned terrorist organization told Faking News, “We are not going to look for excuses like those who recklessly condemned and killed our friend.”

It is bad if people don't act, but it is outrageously sickening if you try to give the impression of doing something just by condemning these things.

Contemplation before Cynicism

Here we are, celebrating or rather passing through another Independence Day!! We have a population of over 3000 people in BITS and if even half that number attends the Flag Hoisting in C-Lawns, the National Anthem sung during the program should serve as an early morning wake-up call for the whole campus. But, never mind! When we do wake up and read the newspaper to go through the sports page lambasting the Indian Team for their consistent poor performances (It would have been quite symbolic if India crushed England sometime near Independence DayL), we might come across some articles or maybe an Independence Day special edition with cynical stuff written by cynical guys posing questions like “Is India really free?”, “Are we really free?”, “Is this what our freedom fighters fought for?” etc. They are obviously referring to the poverty and the whole cluster of problems persisting in India and to be fair, they do have a point.

Now, some of us might retrospect about this for some time and we would not have to think hard and long about the underlying cause to all these problems before almost inevitably landing at corrupt politicians, inefficient bureaucrats etc. After a train of thoughts, we finally decide it’s about time youth entered politics. It’s about time young people like us replaced the old ones and brought about radical changes in the system that would change the very face of this country. To be fair, we also definitely have a point or do we? But before we can continue our train of thought, its 12:30 and our sidie (sorry if that is spelt wrong) beckons us to mess for the grub (Independence Day, remember?).Now, we wouldn’t want to miss that, would we?

It’s highly unlikely that we will resume that thread again anytime in the near future. Anyway the point being, if a poll was conducted on “Is it time youth entered and dominated politics in India?” the result would be a prompt yes.   

Now, let’s put India aside for a moment. Take BITS, Pilani. At present, there is an election campaign going on in the campus. It may not be an exact scale model of Indian politics, but it will do for now.

We think we should run the country. But are we even eligible to do that, when we, with all our education and rationality, harbour feelings of regionalism at this very basic level of society? Forget the ignorant and illiterate people of the country, do we elect our representative unbiased and without expecting any personal benefits? If we don’t, then how can we expect a poor man not to vote for a person who hails from the same place, who gives him money, drink and a whole lot of other things just for a single vote? We divide ourselves into communities based on regions or whatever and make deals for support in exchange for benefits, influence and what not, but when some old people do it, we think we should replace them. Now, why is that? So we can do the same thing? And now the grand question. Are we sure we are running a clean administration at this basic level? Because, if we are not, then the question begs as to whether we are eligible to even call it our country, let alone run it.

So, it is better to contemplate on these issues before we actually get all cynical about our political system and think of taking over the reins. It is not just enough to have young boiling blood and youthful energy so much as reflecting on our own selves when we are put on the same pedestal.    

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS

Meet Deepak Saha, who could have been an IAS officer but shunned the life of comfort to transform 40 villages in his home state Bihar.

The semi-plateau terrain at the Bihar-Jharkhand border was a virgin experiment bowl for Deepak Saha, where not even a blade of grass grew. Today, this region has everything - right from well irrigated green lush fields, mango gardens, schools for kids, safe drinking water for all, vocational training centres for women-churning out a new breed of women entrepreneurs, successful models of women's self-help groups and health centres in every village.

Today, in this entire region, not a single soul lives below the poverty line and sex ratio has been completely reversed in favour of girl children.

It all started in 1990, when Deepak cracked the civil service exams. But instead of taking up a Government job, he chose to return back to Bhagalpur to join Jaiprabha, the NGO being run by his mother. After 18 years of long journey, today he looks back with contentment.

"The motto that our organisation has is towards self-reliance. So we don't want the population to be dependent on what we are doing for them, but they should become self-reliant so that they are able to fend for themselves, so that once we are redundant, once we phase out of this area, they should be able to look after all this. People's participation is important," he says.

Today, Deepak runs 13 pre-schools, where dance and songs are the medium of teaching. After teaching at the school, he joins the mothers of the children for the weekly Self Help Group meetings. It's this initiative, which has had maximum impact on the lives and earnings of families. For the first time, females of this area can walk out of their houses and start their own ventures from the petty loans they take from their Self Help Groups. In this way, they are able to contribute to family income. Today, they walk tall and proud.

"It was almost seen as an economic enterprise. We didn't just want it to be some women gathering together and starting some small manufacturing unit or a small business enterprise. We started social engineering through these groups, to empower them. They started dressing better, had their own money and they had their own investments. They could take loans. We linked them up," explains Deepak.

Irrigation had been another stress area for this nearly barren plateau region. The answers came in the form of deep bore wells, de-silting of natural water bodies using satellite imageries and building check dam and using lift irrigation for farming.

Eighteen years of experimentation and consistent efforts has yielded desired results in this region.

·       Over 131 deep bore wells and hand-pumps introduced by Jaiprabha provide safe drinking water to 100 per cent of the population of the region

·       There has been not a single maternity death in the past three years.

·       Education in these villages is almost 100 per cent.

Smiles on the faces of the children and the women cycling fearlessly in this Naxal-infested area are just few reflections of how one intervention has made a world of difference for people of this region.