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wordspill-1-1DU Beat in association with American Center
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WordSpill

Theme: What Should President Obama do when he visits India?

Send in your entries to: [email protected]

Last Date of Submission: 17th December 2009

Grand Prize: Rs 3000
And your article gets published in DU Beat!

Other Prizes:
American Centre Library Memberships for 1 year for 10 finalists
American Centre Goodie Bags
Free SPAN subscription for 1 year for 3 finalists

Finalist Entries will be judged by three American Centre judges including the Editor-in-Chief of SPAN magazine

[/caption] A philosopher once said “the scope of our lives is far greater than our biggest imagination”. Even geniuses like Edison and Einstein utilized 20 percent of their brain power. So one can visualize how our potential is still untapped and how we can STRETCH OURSELVES to make it happen. And this is exactly what this book talks about. Stretch yourself is a concoction of all the means and techniques one requires to achieve their desires and how to inculcate success into our lives. Ramola Bachan, a socialite rightly quotes “Stretch Yourself is surely the mantra for a new generation of achievers “. The book implies that the human race has always had a limited power of thinking. We do not want to stretch our ambitions and thoughts for SOMETHING BIGGER AND BETTER. It has been observed that only a meagre 2 percent believe in the power of human mind and those who have placed faith on the supremacy of thinking have gone places. Take for instance Dhirubai Ambani’s case. He went on from selling pakoras to working in a gas station to building one of the HUGEST corporate empires Asia has ever seen. His formula for success was “Think big, think fast, and think ahead”. Life is a bunch of hurdles. We often stumble on our path to success and generally lose heart. But the author effectively expresses that ‘our thoughts rule our life’. He says that negative will definitely attract negative. So, it all lies within our mind. Positivity plays a significant role in the life of achievers. “Go ahead and be like them”, he says. It is never too late to reconfigure ourselves. The author is a natural stylist, and with the help of an easy and accessible approach of intriguing the reader. Most admirable is how the author motivates one and all with his magical words and tries to condition our mind to create the life of our dreams. At times, the voice is inspirational yet at times the author settles for practicality. Praiseworthy book, must read for the youth. So think big and kick ass.]]>

Talking about Facebook may seem like news of a previous era, but it is our duty to bring to you news that may be affecting your lives directly or indirectly. There have been reported few problems in our very own Facebook chat window.
A common lament faced by all students is the delay in replying to messages sent by the person with whom you’re conversing. The process gets hanged, and thus delayed, when the other person starts typing.
“It goes off randomly and at times it takes ages to send a message. After all that, a cherry on the top is when the message does not even reach. It’s painful and irritating. My message reaches the recipient late and vice versa, so it’s like we are having a conversation on different levels,” says Surabhi Tondon.

If nothing else binds us, it’s this. It is not less than a universal lament. This problem seems to be present irrespective of what browser you use and what country you live in.

Arjun, a student in Canada says “It’s so slow that I have stopped using it. I prefer to chat on MSN. At least the conversation is intact and coherent.”
Adds Surabhi,“My cousin from US faces the same problem and to correct it, she updated her internet speed.”
Looking at the facts, it seems like an internal server problem needs to be corrected soon. Already people are switching over to other methods of communication. This may cost the most popular networking site a huge loss of its customers’ loyalties.

Geetika adds. “Overall Facebook is a wonderful site. I don’t know what would I have done without it, but these problems certainly prove to be disincentives to chat online.”

By Mehak Batra Delhi Dance fever was a two day gala event organized by Big Dance Center in collaboration with Terpsi chorean Society of HansRaj College. It was a scintillating event that changed the way Delhi swayed and brought momentum to the Delhi dance culture. Day 1 was at the International Youth Center and included a series of workshops that was aimed at enhancing the technique and skills of every dancer present. A panel of esteemed professionals from different genre of dance came for an hour long workshop where they offered their guidance in their respective areas of expertise which included various dance styles like old school hip hop, tutting, contemporary and lyrical jazz. There was also a street dance competition held which registered an impressive participation from the crowd and MAIT were declared the winners. Day 2 was held at Sri Ram Center and was full of enthusiasm and energy as it witnessed the western dance competition which was won by KNC and also the Choreography competition in which HansRaj college’s Terpi Chorean won. The college also won the Twissha Trophy, i.e. the best team award. A thrilling performance was given in tribute to Michael Jackson as well which was met with great excitement. The event was a grand success and a foundation on which Desi Dance culture could take pride in.]]>

Miranda House annual festival – Tempest ’09 started on December 7th, Monday and went on till December 8th Wednesday. It is a 3 day gala affair that was filled with fun and excitement – a youth congregation of above 5000 and with numerous cultural societies hosting innovative events and competitions, students from all over Delhi got an opportunity to display their talent.

Tempest ’09, keeping in mind the spirit of the youth, had a sprightly line-up of performances by some of the leading bands in India. Also, the various departments of the college set up innovative fundraiser stalls consisting of fun, games, food etc.

Highlights :

7th December–DJ night,performances by Spark and Route 3

8th December– Western Dance Competition

9th December–Rock night:performances by FARIDKOT and GROOVE ADDA

Also performing, Jester and Five8

JMC college presents to you MONTAGE 09. The two day festival (from 10th December to 11th December) has a wide range of events for students to enjoy and display their talent. Eighteen active student societies of the College including Choreography, Dramatics, Fine Arts, Western Music, Indian Cultural and many others work to provide a storehouse of new and interesting events to the participants. With more than 40 events, spread over a period of two days, be it dance, drama, music, debating, fine arts, quizzes, literary events, power packed performances by groovy bands, they seem to have got it all. The college festival “MONTAGE” is an attempt to provide the right forum for students to come together and interact with each other in an environment of team spirit and healthy competition.
Montage 09 awaits!!

By: Kritika Kushwaha

ARIES

While work runs smooth, the relationship front might still need a little work Try to be more understanding of the people you love.

TAURUS

If you have been thinking of pursuing something, now is the time. You need to spend more time with your family.

GEMINI

You can leave your financial worries behind for this week for you will get some money from someone. Your family will lend a helping hand.

CANCER

You will get noticed courtesy a talent of yours and good times are seen on the study and activity front. Make the most of it.

LEO

You come out of your shell to interact with people again, on a large scale too perhaps. Try not to divulge secrets to outsiders.

VIRGO

A rather busy week lies ahead so get ready. An innovative idea will come into play for the good. The Lovers card indicates a good time to initiate a relationship.

LIBRA

You work hard this week, ending the week by partying harder. Some of you might go for a short holiday. Keep peace with your fellow travelers.

SCORPIO

Work, work and more work is keeping you on your toes. It’s a busy time so don’t mess it up by multitasking too much. Take life a little easy.

SAGITTARIUS

The run of good luck spills over to this week too, as your work gets completed and you have a good time with your friends and loved ones. You’re on a roll.

CAPRICORN

You still have some doubts in your mind regarding some decisions. Seek help and you will get it. Things, slowly but surely, will improve.

AQUARIUS

The good flow of money has probably made you a little tempted to spend it all at once so keep a check on your needs. You will have a good time with friends and family.

PISCES

The work front seems good though it will take up most of your time as you will be travelling around a lot. However do keep a check on your health.

Disclaimer: The opinions contained in this section are not of the paper’s or the writers’. They simply depict stereotypes and stereotypical understanding of gender differences, the presence of which though regrettable cannot be denied.

I understand that I fail to understand girls

I have been wondering —what principles, laws or theories in this universe govern a woman’s behaviour?
Sometimes it seems so simple. You meet someone, you talk to her, you form an impression and hence you get to like or dislike her. Unfortunately it’s seems not to be so simple for women themselves. In reality the fairer sex in its adolescent age is ‘dynamism at its peak’. Usually in the age group of 16 to 22 one can find highly peculiar and specific traits among females which are peculiar in the fact that they are absolutely erratic. This capricious personality of girls is fickle to such an extent that I am forced to assume they themselves are little in control of their changeability. Their thoughts race down a new track every few minutes and you are left completely flummoxed for explanations. In fact this is the very reason for the unpredictability of this whimsical “mystery race”. Girls usually lack stable thought and have dangerously flexible rather fluid premises and postulates regarding worldly matters which form the foundation of a fragile judgement. (Not to say that boys don’t lack sense, but atleast their insensibilities are uniform and less erratic, and therefore less chaotic).

Girls typically look but do not observe, listen but refuse to understand, read but do not learn! Their moral conscience comprises of preachy forwarded messages advocating positive attitudes, all written in flowery prose which itself must have been composed by fluffy brained women living in pink ivory towers.

While lounging at a quiet dinner table with mild music playing in the background these girls need must loudly discuss their new nail polish brand or the quality of footwear at a new mall. Moreover if an unfortunate male victim comes along, they would scarcely condescend to listen to his ‘useless’ discussions of political problems or economic depression, and despite being perfectly able to comprehend the issues talked about would refuse point blank to display even an iota of interest in such ‘boring’ matters. If a girl does mention some random fact that she may recall regarding the subject under discussion it would only be because, as she would admit herself in aggravating fashion, she had mistakenly taken the editorial part of the newspaper to the loo instead of the lifestyle and entertainment supplement and thus had to bear that ‘crap’ for ten long minutes.

We see so many girls today belonging to this specific age group displaying the pervasive jealousy, insecurity and complexes characterizing their kind. Each girl need must be concerned about what the skirt of an unknown girl in the elevator shows and what it hides. A girl will utilize all her brains to conclude whether the dress of the lady sitting right next to her in the metro is from the shelves of a UCB showroom or from that of Palika Bazaar and achieve a sense of accomplishment about it. A lady would rather notice the way another lady gorges on a burger at Mc Ds and mock her for it than concentrate on her own plate.

The theoretical basis for emotional and behavioural problems in adolescent girls shows systematic links with peer pressure, early partnership transitions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder etc. Historically, girls have evoked images of sweetness and light, purity and beauty. In this fairytale land of youth, girls are angels and princesses, characterized by positive adjustment and certainly not by behavioral or emotional problems. However, in reality females and especially young women are much more complex, unpredictable, arbitrary and indeed a great deal more maddening.

-Tanmay Dhall

I understand that there’s really nothing to understand when it comes to guys

Mankind, humanity, humans. Trust men to go to such lengths to assure themselves that the world revolves around them. This mistaken conviction evidently rises out of a sense of insecurity since everyone knows that without women, the human race can just as well say “goodbye world!” and start digging its grave. The one petty role men had in creating life that they’re so obsessed with has also been rendered redundant thanks to the advancement of science and women can now spawn little baby girls completely independent of the hairier sex. So, technically speaking, men serve no purpose on this planet, except perhaps to break the monotony and provide a permanent affirmative to the question “Can it get worse than this?”

They have classified us as the weaker sex (another of their self appeasement ploys), a statement which may hold true in the very basic physical sense of the argument, but when it comes to inner fortitude and rationality, we women can kick their sorry rear ends any day. At the age of eighteen we may all have turned adults on paper but only women are trusted to possess the mental faculties required to make crucial decisions like that of marriage while men have to wait another three years. Yes, boys will be boys in every sense of the phrase. They may be ageing physically, but society has resigned itself to the fact that they will never really grow up. Little adult boys cannot survive without their mommies so we leave our own families to join theirs after marriage. Teaching is a job seen as the female forte. Why? Because, duh, men are so clueless about their own lives, it’ll be catastrophic if we set them loose on young children.

Dense as they are, you’d at least expect them to know the difference between a loo and public spaces. Unfortunately, they fail to live up to even this infinitesimal expectation. They’ll unleash their bladders on walls, trees and bushes, apparently unconscious of the fact that there are other inhabitants on the planet who may not find the stench of their bodily fluids very attractive. They paint the town red very literally with disgusting splotches of paan strewn on walls and every other street corner.  When it comes to etiquette, their knowledge remains constricted to its spelling (wait, I’m not even sure of that, actually) and they find it perfectly acceptable social behavior to violently scratch objectionable parts of their anatomy, belch and dig their noses and indulge in other such revolting conduct in public.

Through eons of evolution men have not yet managed to shake off their cave manners. Women may have evolved from apes but men are still just less hairy versions of them (though the likes of Anil Kapoor don’t even have that distinction to their credit). They can continue to live in denial, tell themselves we’re the “weaker sex” and that humanity’s fate rests on their able shoulders. We, on the other hand will continue sniggering behind their backs and running the world like we do. Abhishek will always be Aishwarya’s husband, my dears and so will Rahul be Sonia Gandhi’s son.

– Aina Mathew

Battle RoyaleBased on the novel of the same name by Kenta Fukusaku, Battle Royale shook the world when it first appeared on screen in 2000. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku, the movie raised quite a furor in Japan at its time of release and caused many eyebrows to be raised in film circles. However despite the gore fest that the movie undoubtedly is, its theme was finally endorsed by critics for the disturbing insight it led into the workings of power, and the critique of cruel and authoritarian governing systems that it engaged with. Set in the near future, the premise of the story is set by the prologue title card, which reads: “At the dawn of the millennium, the nation collapsed. At fifteen percent unemployment, ten million were out of work. 800,000 students boycotted school. The adults lost confidence, and fearing the youth, eventually passed the Millennium Educational Reform Act—AKA: The BR Act…” With juvenile delinquency on the rise and the increasing discomfiture of the government, the Battle Royale Act or the BR Act serves to create the means of keeping the youth in check and frightening them into submission. The Act allows for a randomly selected class of students to be selected each year to participate in the Battle Royale, a three day programme in which the students are whisked off to a remote isolated area where they are fenced in, given basic survival packaging and weapons and told to kill each other off. Only one person, the last one alive at the end of three days, may be allowed to go home safe, and if there are more than one left at the end of three days the explosive collars they have been forced to wear will detonate, killing them all. The movie begins with a Ninth Grade class ragging their teacher Takeshi Kitano. One of the students slashes him with a knife but is protected from resulting prosecution by one of the protagonists Noriko. Kitano resigns soon after in frustration. A year later while on a school trip the class finds itself gassed and kidnapped only to find they have been selected for the military sponsored Battle Royale programme and Kitano is the one behind it all. Now if any of them wants to get out alive, they must ensure that all their classmates are dead. Armed with an arbitrary weapon contained in their safety kit, which could range from a paper fan to a tin shield to a submachine gun, they are now set lose in an island where suddenly age old classmates have become a threat and friendships hold no value. We see how even as different people react differently, either by joining wholeheartedly in the blood fest, refusing to be party to it, hiding away or rebelling against the ones responsible for it, ultimately almost all fall victim to a game constructed by a power much larger than any one of them. The excessive gore, violence and bloodshed hence gets sidelined by the deep emotional and psychological trauma of the experience and it’s the latter which ends up being the more horrifying aspect of the film. Apparently influenced by both his own experiences when his class was drafted to help out during World War II and the highly competitive educational and work environment stifling the youth, the movie simply shows us in an extreme form problems which already exist today and solutions which governing bodies already recourse too albeit in a less palpable manner. Although often compared to Lord of the Flies, the movie’s premise is different in that this is the controlled aware adult world knowingly, consciously and deliberately manipulating the hapless youth into engaging in gory violence. The violence is never shown to be a natural impulse on the part of the youth in ungoverned situations, though it is shown to be an easy way out in times of desperation. This notion of organized planned state authorized barbaric toying with helpless citizens has been oft used in fiction, most notably in the recent bestselling book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which has often been compared to Battle Royale by critics. Indeed as far as dystopian Sci-fi or indeed cult movies go, Battle Royale is a must watch for every true connoisseur of films. My Rating: 4.5/5 ]]>

Wikipedia describes rock and roll as a genre of music that originated in America in the 1950s and is played with a lead guitar, a rhythm guitar, a string bass and a drum kit…or is it? rock Rock and roll proved to be much more than just music. It was the sound that truly shook conservative America for good, and eventually took pretty much the whole world by storm. It wasn’t just music, it was a provocation. It was an affront to authority and the oh-so-propah world with its set rules, rules the youth was desperately trying to find a way to break away from. As rock critic Jim Miller put it, “the name itself was sexual, derived from black slang for copulation.” There was something about the music itself, which with it’s out of the world back- beat and amplified guitars broke all conventions, perhaps it was the crudeness and utter madness of it all. But can we really blame music for bringing a revolution in a quiet, conventional world? Well, the music then itself was pretty simple, with plain riffs and casual lyrics. However its origins were not. In fact, rock and roll was the result of more than a century of musical cross-pollination between white and black, master and slave; a music born of miscegenation. It was a symbol of fighting back and breaking the chains of subordination and slavery. It thus went on to become one of the first signs of democracy and a true product of the consumer society. It was also its easy availability which soon led to its rapid base growth followed by an ever increasing fan following. And this was only the beginning. Then came the (in)famous 60s when it became official- the new mantra was that of ‘sex, drugs and rock n roll’ (President John F. Kennedy being a notorious icon and consequently a victim of the age himself). This is when bands like The Beatles, The Doors and the Rolling Stones came into the mainstream with path breaking music defying conventional thoughts and gave their listeners a new zest, the freedom to question, to fight. At that point of time, any kid who could muster up the finances for a new guitar and find some like – minded people could start a band of his own, and not surprisingly this is how many of the most famous bands came into existence. Thus this is where rebellion took its initial shape and was molded further. It definitely had its pros and cons, as this was followed by the hippie culture which was more subtled down yet deeply influenced nonetheless. And Elvis Presley, Queen and AC/DC et al prove it. The 70s will always be remembered for the revolution it brought which changed the way people thought around the world. Forty years have passed since then but the impact remains deeply embedded in our beings, mostly passed on to us as legacy by our parents by having been contributors to the age themselves, the age of sheer rebellion, the age we feel we deserved to have been born in, the age that started it all…the age of rock n roll. ]]>