Why do people blog?

For quite a while, I thought that blogs were a means of making people read your views and ideas or anything that you find interesting and suited for others to read. This would give you the reason why I included the tracker (at the end of the page) which would tell me how many people came to visit my site, the article which was most read etc. I wanted to make the blog famous and so tried to convince others to link to it and employed other ways which would satiate my motive.

Some posts later, I have realized that, more than anything, blogging acts as a means for the blogger to know what (s)he feels, what (s)he thinks and what are his/her opinions about various issues, or products or people, pretty much about anything. It brings his/her subconscious thoughts to the forefront and actually allows oneself to analyze them further and build opinions based on them. The topics on which one writes are something, about which one has thoughts in his/her mind and wants to pen them down. However, the incentive of the audience is always there, but what I want to stress is that, lack of a large audience would not spell doom.

This sort of thing is not new, for we had people writing their diaries (blogs are sometimes also referred to as online diaries) from ancient times. But the aspects which have changed are quite phenomenal. Previously, though the diary writing was not that of a secret affair, a conscious effort was made by the writers to restrict the contents to themselves. These days, one has become more open and wants – or atleast does not mind – others reading his mind in the form of the thoughts he wants to share.

Also, the convenience of doing all these things has attracted people towards it. Unlike before, when it was almost impossible to make available your daily accounts for others, blogs have overcome this aspect. You no longer need to bind together your ideas into a book to be published and made available, you can just post them at your convenience – in terms of size, time etc. - and others can ravish them.

What I increasingly find myself doing is that any situation I experience, in my mind I try to make it into a post for my blog, with the title and everything. Sometime I feel that by posting it, I would be able to refer to it in the future and may be learn, and thereby gain from it. But, I realize that the actual aim of writing is to make a permanent impression about it in the mind, so that you never have to refer to it, and it gets imbibed.

On the battlefield!!!

In the previous post Mr. AA told that five of us went on a 24 hr long hunger strike supporting the medical students who were already there for around 90 hrs.

Here are some snaps of our effort.








We know more than anyone else that this effort of ours was too small in comparison with what the medical students had been doing; but then it was far better than not giving a damn about it (what the majority of society has decided to about yet another important issue).

In front of us at least 5-6 people who were on strike from the beginning had fainted. We are too 'weak' to even get there! Anyway the media was present there throughout and got excited whenever a new group of supporters came in for the medical students. There were some celebrities that came in for encouraging the brave students. Good speeches, good thoughts, but finally all of them went back in their AC cars, satisfied with the free media attention they got!

I am not sure if a hunger strike is the right way of showing protest, but what else could one do if not this to show denial of what could be the stupidest decision of the cabinet. (Or is ot about to get more stupid?). One way could be to present an alternative plan for the cause that the government is superficially promising to fulfill, but even if some people capable of doing that actually get through it, I am not sure anyone would listen.

So what should we do? Wait for things to get so bad that only a Vendetta could sort them out using the only way which ascertains a solution!

Mine was too meagre

The college days are here to end and the realization is slowly, but surely growing on me. After a lot of searching and efforts, I have managed to create some DVDs with content which I would like to have after IIT and with which I would be prepared to face the world outside IIT without LAN. I just cannot imagine the state in which you wish to watch a movie, or listen to a song or watch the latest episode of an American daily and not have access to it.

However, it turned out that it was a long way to go before we can say good bye to the college. My friend gave me a link to a site listing different phobias. However, I could not find the name for the phobia of sitting on a hunger strike. Mine was not that of a phobia but more of hitch about doing something you have not done ever before. Yes, I went for a hunger strike. But only for 24 hours. If you think that is not big enough, try one for yourself. Of course you can drink plain water but nothing else. However, it was nothing when I and my 4 other friends looked around and found people who had not eaten for some 100 or so hours.

I would like to mention the names of my fellow strikers who took the brave initiative, which the entire engineering community had refrained from. They were Mr. NJ, Mr. KS (also a contributor to this blog), Mr. SP and Mr. AB. We were on a relay strike for 24 hours at AIIMS along with people from the medical community. When we started the count said that there were 87 people on strike and 43 had already collapsed. 24 hours later there were the numbers were 34 and 95.

Their effort was more than commendable. I just cannot imagine surviving 100 hours without food. And the enthusiasm was tremendous. The support came from everywhere. Students, welfare associations, faculty etc. everyone was there. The media was busy giving in depth and regular updates back to their studios. While I knew that by so and so time my strike would be over and so had something to look forward to, others did not and yet they continued.

But one thing I realized was that people like me who try to achieve things by protesting online through blogs, communities, petitions etc. are merely bluffing. Nothing much is achieved by forwarding mails, posting on online groups or communities, signing petitions. It is just a method to convince oneself that he has done something for the cause when in reality he has done nothing more than crap. Little is achieved even after taking to the streets and NOTHING is achieved by the former method, if you call it a method at all.

Lastly, after the strike, I happened to meet a lady doctor and when she came to know that I was from IIT, she enquired (I assume sarcastically) if the IIT was affected at all by reservations. I said yes and tried to defend how the engineering community especially the pan IITians are doing their bit, something for which even I was not completely convinced. However, at least I could tell her that IITians have joined and 5 IITians went on a hunger strike with the medicos. She looked somewhat satisfied but I am not.

A Peaceful Protest

It has been long since I wrote. The reason was mainly because my account (through which I could access the web) has been frozen. The reason being that some anti-social element got hold of my password, and thereby my account, and downloaded 5 GB of God knows what. As a result, I became instant villain of my department and was held responsible for all that was happening wrong in the department. From bandwidth usage to chair robbery, I was the one to be contacted.

After getting a lot of undeserved bashing and with some efforts, I was able to track the user ids as well as the network IPs of the culprits. But that was not enough as to find the computer with a particular IP in the entire institute campus would surely have taken a lot of time and sweat. So, after a few searches I gave up and updated our HOD about the status. He was kind enough to atleast give partial access to my account so that I could continue with my semester and none of my courses or projects are affected.

Now for some latest updates. I along with many of my fellow students took to the streets yesterday with a peaceful protest march from IIT Delhi to AIIMS. Since the march was peaceful, no slogans were allowed on the streets. We were given security or more so the police accompanied us so that nothing goes out of hand. Most of the students were enthusiastic. One of the reasons was the fact that it would be their chance to come into the limelight, for the media coverage was spell bounding.

The media was not allowed inside our campus and so they were waiting at the campus gates to have a chat with the protesters as well as catch them on camera. My colleagues were more than happy to contribute and say whatever they can. We had made posters so that the onlookers would atleast know the purpose of the protest. I do not have a picture of any poster to show you as of now, but I would definitely try to arrange for one by my next post. The posters read
1. Deserve, Not Reserve
2. Is this how you stop Brain Drain?
3. Disowned by my Own Country
But the best poster was one where we had used mathematical equations, true to our name as the top technological instituion of the country. Ofcourse nobody, including the media, could understand that but the creators of the poster where more than happy to explain the complex equation.

I have not told you yet what we were protesting against. Well you might hav guessd it by the slogans on the posters. If not, we have a long way to go before we take poster making as our profession. Ending the suspense, the protests were against the new set of Resevations which the Government of India is trying to introduce. And also to show our solidarity towards the medical community who have been protesting for about a month now. Some members of the medical community are on a hunger strike at AIIMS in retaliation of their members being manhandled by the police in Mumbai and Bangalore. Some guys from us are also planning to join the hunger strike but no commitments yet.

Lets have a treat

Lately I have been going to so many treats and lunches and dinners that I am beginning to wonder if life would remain this way forever. In my last post, I mentioned about how I had to attend (poor me) two farewells on the same day. Previous to that there had been a whole gamut of job treats that I went to (including mine). Of these, mine had been so far the best. People said that it was because of the food and everything but I know the real reason. What I can say is that how the treat is depends on who the treat is given by.

But this unbeaten record (which I also thought was unbeatable) was finally beaten last night. It was the treat of Mr. SK or 'panji' as we call him (I mentioned the nickname because it took a while before I could recall his real name). Half my institute was there and so it also had the distinction of the most number of people in a treat (of the ones of which I was a part). I knew that the host was a famous personality but so famous was some information.

The treat was also different in some other aspects. Not all the people have had the privilege of being seen by me before. The ones who I had some acquaintance with were meager. Also it was the first treat with people from both sexes present and I am not talking about ones not invited by the host. Not that it matters to me, but I thought you might consider it has a prerequisite for the best party, if not for all parties.

Initially, all the things I mentioned made me rather uncomfortable. On my way to the place of the party, I was thinking why was I even going to a party with a few strangers. When I reached the venue, this feeling became strong when I watched a bunch of humans from the other sex. The feeling reached its climax when people came flocking in packed cars.

But as the end of most of the movies, the climax was followed by a happy ending (or should I be philosophical, and say a happy beginning). As the music started and people started dancing, the magic wand had been waved. There was dancing and drinks, and dancing and drinks, and dancing and drinks. Though they were some starters (in the beginning) and food (at the end), I don't think many people cared. Atleast I did not, which was kind of a surprise.

People say that I kept dancing for 4 hours, which is ironical as I have never learned dancing and cannot even claim to know even a single dance step. But maybe everyone was on the same platform (atleast literally they were). Also, people kept teasing me that I was drunk and the culprit was none of the traditional ones but Coke.