Parade Attention

Location: Women’s Hostel, Varsity College
Time: 20:00 hours
Program: March Part
Event: Annual Meet

This is the schedule for every girl in the campus of the residential college. Rather, it has been the schedule for the past month. It is a big thing in the college and according to the ‘veterans’, it helps imbibe feelings of attachment, solidarity, togetherness among the boarders of a hostel. The practice simply demands all the 1st year students, some of whom have never marched in their life, to become the best in a matter of a few days.


Rigorous practice sessions, lots of instructons from seniors make up the practice sessions every evening. In this, add up the daily amount of people fainting, falling ill, limping etc. illness becomes the order of the day and the end result, less amount of concentration duringthe class hours. End result: well, your hostel becomes the best, at the expense of others health.


One may ask, what is the requirement of an even like a March Past. Unfortunately I don’t have the answer to this (I wish I had). What king of solidarity, togetherness does this event bring is another question answered to me. from my point of view, it brings bad breath, conspiracy among the hostels. One hostek’s “secret” should not be leaked to the others –an underlined rule in all the hostels.

I, as a mere spectator need to wait till theactual event to come to get a few answers. Probably, these “honourable feelings will also come in me once I watch my hostel win. Till then, I merely stand and watch the others struggle.

Introspection

As I woke up today amidst the regular hustle bustle of the other girs in my hostel corridor, I heard the chirping of the birds. Not very unusual in this part of the world. But today, I really heard them. Feeling quite nice hearing such soothing sound, I went out of my room to be welcomed by early morning sunshine warming the corridor. Well, I had to smile at this!!

Sometimes I wonder how beautiful and lovely it is to be woken up right in the lap of nature. The day definitely goes better after such a wonderful start. The way I heard the birds chirping, noticed the sunshine on the corridor made me think again if it happens everyday! And the truth is yes it does. But I never notice. I realised that even though I stay in a surrounding filled with greenery, trees, hills, I heardly notice it.

Isn’t it what has become of all of us? Havnt we stopped noticing the beautiful wold around us? Arnt we too busy making “our world” beautiful? Well a simple answer to all of them, yes we have. We all know global warning has spread its wings in our world, forests are vanishing, rivers are becoming streams, sun is scorching too hardly on us, ice is melting, glaciers are cracking, everything bad for us is happening, but we ar not doing anything.

It is true that we may not make much of a difference individually, but I am sure if we all try things will change. I guess, like I did today, we need to take notice of our surrounding first of all and then everything can happen. Observing a 5th June World Environment Day does not make much of a difference. Everyday should be Environment Day.

As I write this today, I think I should also make it a point to contribute ant little way I can to restore our environment.

You are in line!

“One person at a time”. This notice is seen outside ATM centres around the country. Though we may not be aware of this notice hanging outside the ATM centres, we do follow it sometimes. Sadly, most of the times we don’t follow this simple instruction written in three languages- English, Hindi and the local language.

In the place I am currently located Tezpur, people are probably illiterate or choose to ignore any kind of instruction. In front of an ATM centre no one follows this simple instruction of the fact that a person may be getting irritated at this breach of privacy. Moreover, there are always some smart-heads who think they know all about ATM’s and its processes and won’t stop from giving their valued opinions and suggestions when not required.

If a concerned citizen tells these people in queue to read the instruction and wait outside, smart answers like, “I want to get the cool air of the AC”, or “I won’t look at what you are doing” is alone gets. No one bottoms about it. It is really wonderful to think what do they get by entering and peeping into someone else’s transaction.


To a certain extent, if the attitude of the people cannot be changed overnight, sure the ATM centres can be changed. There is a facility in the centres where the door gets locked when a person enters and it opens only when the card is used. Sadly, in most centres this facility is dysfunctional and no one bothers to repair it.

India needs to wake to the social norms and follow certain rules which does not harm anyone but further strengthens the process. We all need to be aware of our rights and need to fight at the right time.

An emotional musing

Reading a newspaper after a long time is probably one of the worst faults of a mass communication student. Here I am supposed to be reading news everyday but I touched a newspaper after quite sometime. Not going into the reasons for it, I would rather talk about how it felt to read todays’ headlines.

“Times of India” read, “Finally, Sun Shines on Sania”. Though I had some knowledge about hers and Mahesh Bhupati’s win, it was quite something to read about on the papers. Further more, being the first Indian women to do so is quite a great achievement. But I wonder, if she will again not be taken over by endorsements and advertisements. Hope she doesn’t, we need more wins by Sania and the like to encourage other sports than cricket in India.

Anyways moving ahead, I leafed through the pages to the sports section. Here Roger Federer was shown in tears after loosing the Australian Open to Rafael Nadal. I can very well say, it was not a photo I’d like to see everyday. I mean a sportsman of his caliber in tears that too in public just doesn’t match. But again it shows some true emotions that cannot be controlled. Somehow the photograph invoked a lot of emotions in me. I would love to salute the person who tries so hard to achieve his goals.

I has always thought that reading a newspaper would only give me information but today it invoked certain feelings in me. I can say I missed reading the newspapers and would surely not stop it anymore.

You can't rely on Reliance

Reliance: Anything on which to rely; dependence; ground of trust. A meaning of the word from an online dictionary.

Dhirubhai Ambani had set up his industry in 1962 with a name that would probably make people buy the company’s products. But today Reliance Industries is a total misnomer. If Dhirubhai had meant to get trust from the name of his company, today both his sons have miserably made fun of it. Here I would specially talk about Reliance Mobile. If anyone has seen the ads of Reliance Mobile, it says, Air, Food, Water, Network.

But any Reliance Mobile user would tell you that the Network part is nowhere to be found. I myself have seen Reliance users around me searching for specific spots under the tree, under a lamp post where “network” comes. If our searching for “network” is not enough, most of the times, “all lines in this channel are busy” or simply “network busy”.

This is simple terms means trying to get through a connection in some 20-30 times, if anyone is left with the patience.

I sadly say that I have been a Reliance user for the past 3 years and even though I have many a times gone through such terrible “network”, even after changing location, I insisted on having Reliance because of their cheap rates. But today, I am so disgusted that I would harm my dear phone in my anger to get through a number and on the other hand, dear Mr. Anil Ambani would be getting richer.

One would say, what am I getting venting out my feelings through this blog. Probably NOTHING. But the fact that today atleast I am venting out my feelings gives me immense peace.

May His Soul Rest In Peace and May his Sons keep getting richer. That’s what I can ultimately say for our own GURUBHAI”