January 2012

Your sport’s diary for 2012

By hamza January 14, 2012

If you thought 2011 was the best year in sports with India lifting the Cricket World Cup, Formula One making its debut in India, Barcelona shimmering with another European Cup, Manchester United knocking Liverpool off its perch and Djokovic bullying the likes of Nadal and Federer , then rest assured, 2012 will only pick up from where 2011 ended. For all sports devotees, 2012 promises to deliver a plethora of mega sporting events.

The year could not have started better for football fanatics in India. The charismatic Bhaichung Bhutia bid farewell to the national team with a high profile friendly with Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich. Apart from this, the tennis season starts with the Australian Open from January 16, followed by Rolland Garros, Wimbledon and finally the US Open. It would be interesting to see whether Novak Djokovic is able to continue his dominance, especially as both Nadal and Federer would be hungry for revenge with another protagonist in Andy Murray vying to break his final jinx with the support of new coach Ivan Lendl.

In cricket, IPL-5 starts on April 4, promising another season of thrills for the cricket-loving nation. This year, Sri Lanka hosts the T20 World Cup in September and would be looking to win on home soil. Subcontinent giants India and Pakistan will be among the favourites to lift the trophy as well.

This year is a special treat for the football fans as the Carling Cup Final, FA Cup Final, UEFA Champions League Finals are all lined up in April-May. In domestic competitions, a stronger Real Madrid would look to end Barcelona’s dominion, while in England the clubs from Manchester would look to fend off competition from rivals to vie for the title. On the international arena, the 2012 Euro Cup will take place from June 8 to July 1 in Poland & Ukraine. A younger Italian team along with Germany, England, Netherlands and France will look to counter the Spanish flamboyance.

The bumper event for 2012, the Olympics, being held in London, kicks off from July 27 and will culminate on August 12. USA would like to regain its top spot after China toppled the former, accumulating greater number of gold medals in 2008. Indian sporting fraternity caught in the web of babudom and doping scandals would like to justify its good performance in the Commonwealth Games with wrestling, boxing, archery and tennis being the sports to watch out for.

In motorsport, the Formula One season starts from March 16 with the Australian Grand Prix. India will host its second Grand Prix, and would look to remove the flaws in track and organization from its inaugural race. Other than that the Buddh International Circuit will also host the new i1 supercar race in April.

Overall, the year promises to be an entertaining one for sport lovers with plenty to cater to the needs of all.

Syed Hamza
[email protected]

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Humouroscope

By Kriti Talwar January 14, 2012

Aries– Regulate the pace of chewing your food and colour-coordinate the clothes in your closet for some credible karma.

Taurus– Accidentally installing timeline on Facebook will put off the longtime object of your secret amorous attentions who finally found you marginally interesting enough to check out.

Gemini– A good time to purchase the Gulshan Kumar T-series Boxed DVD set with special footage of Mithun Chakravarti.

Cancer– Oddly enough, accidentally eating the food meant for your fish will finally grant you the eyebrow hair growth spurt you’ve been desperately hoping for.

Leo– An excellent week to shimmy into your lucky SpongeBob underwear and not emerge till at least Sunday is past. Hygiene and dubious looks be damned.

Virgo– As you are walking along, you will notice someone leaning back in a chair. You should stop and insist that they bring their seatback to a full upright and locked position until the captain has turned off a sign.

Libra– It’s time to finally accept…that The Big Bang Theory is fiction. And that no matter how much you toot the horn of your awesomeness, you will never be Sheldon Cooper.

Scorpio– The universe wants you out of those tight red pants. Take a hint, would you?

Sagittarius– Use the word ‘Panjandrum’ with repeated frequency. The only person who asks its meaning is the culprit behind your absconding sandwiches.

Capricorn– You. Yes, YOU. You are the reason why sequinned unitards made a comeback.

Aquarius– Make hay while the iron is hot. Because every silver lining is made of mice and men.

Pisces– Chance encounter with a Big Boss winner of yesteryears will bring you inner peace.

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Spo(r)tlight

“I’m a lucky dog”

By hamza January 14, 2012

Syed Hamza, DU Beat correspondent and photographer for Barefoot magazine, recalls his dream-like experience of being the official photographer for Bhaichung Bhutia’s farewell match.

Walking into Jawaharlal Nehru stadium amidst the roar of over 35,000 fans, I felt like a star myself. The chants of “INDIA-INDIA” could have given goose bumps to anyone standing in the middle of the pitch. Yes, I am talking about the India-Bayern Munich match where, I can proudly boast, I was present on the ground as a photographer for Barefoot, an online magazine on Indian football.

The feeling that you get when you look through the lens and you find the majestic Arjen Robben making another of his trademark runs, rushing towards you with indomitable precision is simply astonishing, to say the least. At that moment, I genuinely considered myself the luckiest person alive to witness this once-in-a-lifetime fest from an extraordinarily close distance.

Oh, and if you are not envious of me already , I should tell you that it is even more amazing if the preceding night you actually get to meet these superstars at a press conference and manage to shake hands with them and get a picture to flaunt among your friends. I know a lot of you would want to kill me right now but well, all I can say is that I’m a lucky dog. This isn’t the first time I got lucky though; the other times are not relevant here I suppose.

Coming back to the match, everyone did expect India to lose and to do so by a margin. But no one would have thought that we would maintain a clean sheet throughout the second half and even come close to scoring a few times. Practically, it couldn’t have been better. The only thing that could be better than this would be that I were on the other side of the lens or India had won the match (I did mention “practically”, didn’t I?). Baichung Bhutia couldn’t have had a better farewell after all he put his heart and soul in trying to make the sport popular in India for the last sixteen years.

For me, the two hours on the pitch were the best I ever had, more than a dream, an exhilarating actuality.

Syed Hamza
[email protected]

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Campus Central

‘The People Tree’ at St. Stephens College

By mannat January 14, 2012

‘THE PEOPLE TREE, we have no branch’. These were the words written on the piece of paper put up on the dhaba tree right opposite to the Stephens cafeteria on Friday at 1pm. Amidst the clamour of the teachers staff protesting against the principal, the security being tightened as a consequence of the governing body meeting being held on campus and the gentle winds around the cafeteria carrying the aroma of coffee, a group of students from St. Stephens gathered to have what they described as ‘a larger private discussion’. A group of about 40 people assembled under the Dhaba Tree, took turns to stand up on the stone mounting around the tree to give voice to their opinions on a wide array of issues.

The issues which were raised in the discussion were extremely thought provoking. Listing them one by one, the first was regarding the method of induction of students into various college societies. What many people wished to convey was that everyone desirous to join a society needs to be included in it. Once they are a part of the society they need to be rigorously trained by their seniors and final induction should be done depending on whoever has progressed most from the training. However this was soon followed by a dissenting rebuttal which opinion-ed that the widespread training programme was not possible and went on to further uphold the ongoing system.

The second issue was regarding the criteria for allocation of hostel residence to students. A couple of students felt that the criteria was unfair and too tough on most of them. But it was accompanied by conflicting opinions as well.

The issue which caught everyone’s attention and was unanimously applauded, expressed disapproval of the separate lists which come out during college selections. The names of those who are selected through the general category and the names of those who qualify through the reserved category are stated separately. According to them, this defeats the whole purpose of reservation, which is to instil a sense of oneness among the students, while what separate lists actually do, is create a divide in the minds of students, even before they enter college. A divide which makes them aware of ‘whose entered how’ and a divide which takes expression in the form of the occasional remarks in class, for example, ‘mainey tera naam dekha tha list main,tu toh reserved category se aaya hai’ (I saw your name on a separate list, and I’m well aware of the fact that you come from the reserved category).

The discussion later on revolved around extraordinary, with a compelling voice talking about the need for Stephanians to stop pretending to be the ‘elitist of them all’ and accepting the fact that most of the time people from other institutions do land up being better than them. And that they shouldn’t restrict their learning by pretending to know it all. Surprisingly this was the one voice which was followed by consentient approval and the classic ‘amen to that’.

The subsequent issue was even more stirring. This voice wished to convey that no one is ever completely apolitical. One only pretends to be apolitical in the veil of apathy. And this epidemic can only be sniffed out of the general sensibility by an initiative taken by the students union to create a ‘thinking and speaking’ space for everyone, so that the voices of those who are more vigilant can help change the mindsets of the so-called apolitical category of people.

After some heated discourse, the axis of the whole dialogue shifted towards the way the decisions are taken in the college, with a complaint against the name of the college fest being changed from ‘Harmony’ to ‘Winter Fest’ without there being any voting for the same. The seventh issue focussed on gathering support for putting forward a plea to the college management to allow entry to the Andrews Court. The whole discussion was interspersed with lighter talks as well, with a foreign student sharing his experiences in Stephens. There was even a ‘kebab and chicken’ discussion

The whole concept of ‘People Tree’ should be propagated in as many colleges as possible and one can only hope it proves as flawless as the inspiration behind it.

Mannat Sandhu
[email protected]

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Campus Central

'The People Tree' at St. Stephens College

By mannat January 14, 2012

Udit Bhatia (President, Students’ Academic Council) communicated to the students saying that this was their speaking space, because according to him, “we always talk about each other, but hardly ever talk to each other”. At first the students were hesitant to begin. Probably they were contemplating the limits to what all they could discuss here, unaware of the fact that this was one place where anything could be discussed, and it is exactly this potency of ‘no limitations at all’ that granted this discussion a power like no other. The issues which were raised in the discussion were extremely thought provoking. Listing them one by one, the first was regarding the method of induction of students into various college societies. What many people wished to convey was that everyone desirous to join a society needs to be included in it. Once they are a part of the society they need to be rigorously trained by their seniors and final induction should be done depending on whoever has progressed most from the training. However this was soon followed by a dissenting rebuttal which opinion-ed that the widespread training programme was not possible and went on to further uphold the ongoing system. The second issue was regarding the criteria for allocation of hostel residence to students. A couple of students felt that the criteria was unfair and too tough on most of them. But it was accompanied by conflicting opinions as well. The issue which caught everyone’s attention and was unanimously applauded, expressed disapproval of the separate lists which come out during college selections. The names of those who are selected through the general category and the names of those who qualify through the reserved category are stated separately. According to them, this defeats the whole purpose of reservation, which is to instil a sense of oneness among the students, while what separate lists actually do, is create a divide in the minds of students, even before they enter college. A divide which makes them aware of ‘whose entered how’ and a divide which takes expression in the form of the occasional remarks in class, for example, ‘mainey tera naam dekha tha list main,tu toh reserved category se aaya hai’ (I saw your name on a separate list, and I’m well aware of the fact that you come from the reserved category). The discussion later on revolved around extraordinary, with a compelling voice talking about the need for Stephanians to stop pretending to be the ‘elitist of them all’ and accepting the fact that most of the time people from other institutions do land up being better than them. And that they shouldn’t restrict their learning by pretending to know it all. Surprisingly this was the one voice which was followed by consentient approval and the classic ‘amen to that’. The subsequent issue was even more stirring. This voice wished to convey that no one is ever completely apolitical. One only pretends to be apolitical in the veil of apathy. And this epidemic can only be sniffed out of the general sensibility by an initiative taken by the students union to create a ‘thinking and speaking’ space for everyone, so that the voices of those who are more vigilant can help change the mindsets of the so-called apolitical category of people. After some heated discourse, the axis of the whole dialogue shifted towards the way the decisions are taken in the college, with a complaint against the name of the college fest being changed from ‘Harmony’ to ‘Winter Fest’ without there being any voting for the same. The seventh issue focussed on gathering support for putting forward a plea to the college management to allow entry to the Andrews Court. The whole discussion was interspersed with lighter talks as well, with a foreign student sharing his experiences in Stephens. There was even a ‘kebab and chicken’ discussion The whole concept of ‘People Tree’ should be propagated in as many colleges as possible and one can only hope it proves as flawless as the inspiration behind it. Mannat Sandhu [email protected]]]>

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Sri Venkateswara College

A dreadful encounter at college

By Rohan Seth January 13, 2012

After waiting for almost an hour outside that imposing room, and with the already investigated coming out with sunken faces and the words, ‘They screwed me, man’, tumbling out of their slipping tongues, it was finally my turn to step into the battlefield.

‘How bad could it possibly be’, I constantly asked myself. I had to see it to believe it. So in I stepped, believing firmly in myself, and with confidence pouring out on my face. Clad in a simple t-shirt and cargo shorts, I didn’t think my wardrobe would affect my encounter much considering I was told about the sit down an hour back.

This room was situated in the pristine premises of Sri Venkateswara College. The ‘torture’ chair was surrounded by a group of three canescent men, which I later came to know included the vice supremo, some office babu and the history head teacher, with condescending looks on their faces and that know-it-all, somewhat old man-like smile; and of course the supremo, who looked quite clueless, but was clearly happy about something, the reason for which laid beyond the scope of my relatively immature mind.

After all, it was just an interview. A few questions shot towards you. You either shoot back, duck for cover or die a martyr. This interview was supposed to judge whether you are good enough to be a part of a cultural exchange program undertaken by DU, in collaboration with an Aussie university.

So a series of questions were shot at me. They wanted to know what my take on Hinduism was, and what made an increasing amount of foreigners to come to India in search of spiritual guidance. I gave a long drawn answer, trying to explain how every individual would like to explore and try new things.

Apparently, they didn’t really appreciate one of my explanations that included the words, ‘the grass always looks greener on the other side’. I think they took serious offence to that phrase and tried all their might to relate it to the assumption that I look down upon my country (WHAT?!). After all, speaking something that they do not wish to hear (or not speaking something that they wish to hear) doesn’t go down well with quite a lot of people.

Several minutes and several questions later, this one gentleman (in a heavy, somewhat incomprehensible South Indian accent), asks me, “Tell us five Indians who have influenced the world”. At least that is what I could figure out. So just to confirm, I repeated, “You want me to name five Indian people who have influenced the world, right?” Suddenly, the clueless head honcho sprung to life in much the same way as a visibly unconscious man suffering from multiple organ failures in one of our movies, springs right into action on being given the ‘shock therapy’ and goes on to save the love of his life from the Mafia hideout. She loudly said, “NO! Tell us five people from the world who have influenced India.”
(*Facepalm* in my head) I looked towards the gentleman who had posed the question. Looking sorry, he clarified, “No, you have to name five Indians who have influenced the world.” The poor woman reached an all time high in cluelessness.

This seemed like an interesting question. So I began with the obvious name that would come to everybody’s mind, the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. The second name that came to my mind was Mr. Narayan Murthy, Co-founder and ex-Chairman of Infosys, and I was quite confident that the gentleman who asked me this question would be extremely delighted on hearing this name. And quite apparently he was. Thinking hard, the next person I named was Mr. Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro and a well-known philanthropist. These men have made a great name for themselves and their companies internationally, and have helped establish the new wave of Indian MNCs.

But I was now told, that I am only naming people from the IT sector, and chances are that most of the world would not be aware of them, or the work that they have done. Seriously Whattt? This sounded utterly ridiculous to me, so I blasted out, losing a bit of my patience, and telling them, “I am sure that any one who would make the effort of opening the newspaper, would definitely be aware of these people.” They, however, still did not seem to agree with me, so then to give further strength to my argument I added, “If I agree with what you say, in that case we cannot include Sachin Tendulkar in this list either, because only the countries that actually play cricket, which are quite a few, would be aware of his tremendous contribution to the game.”

This was met by a lot of noise, some voices of laughter, some of denial, some blatantly dismissive but there was no concrete statement made by either one of them to counter this argument of mine.

Then suddenly, another gentleman, trying to end the confusion surrounding the previous question and the answers that followed, asked me, “What do you think about dressing?”

“Excuse me? What exactly do you mean by that?” I said, trying to sound as polite as possible, though I knew exactly what he meant.

Trying to clarify, he said, “I mean, should there be dress codes imposed? Do you think that you should be dressed according to the institution or the situation?”
Clearly heating up, I said, “No. I don’t think any kind of a dress code should be imposed upon any individual by any one. We are all old enough to decide for ourselves, and I don’t think such moral policing is required in this modern day world.”

But clearly, he didn’t seem to agree with me. Frankly I would have worn a tuxedo, black tie or even a sherwani if that would have secured me a sane interview. But the babus at the college thought an hour’s notice was good enough for the series of questions. After a long (somewhat heated) argument, everyone in the room thought that they had had enough. And I, honestly, was dying to get out of this room filled with such obnoxious and narrow-minded self proclaimed harbingers of an enlightened generation.

I knew that I had blown any chance of me being a part of the exchange program, but I could proudly step out of the room and fearlessly say, that to an extent, “I screwed them, man!”

Aayush Saxena
Sri Venkateswara College

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Campus Central

The Journey to Redraw India

By Additi Seth January 12, 2012

Teach for India was started in 2009 by Ms. Shaheen Mistri, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the organization, taking ideas from Teach For America, a similar organization operating in USA. The organization believes in achieving educational equity for all the children across the length and breadth of our country. And they also aim to bridge the gap between various schools. Starting from Bombay and Pune it has now spread its roots to Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai.

They recruit graduates and young professionals to teach in the Low Income Schools – both government and private. These young volunteers are required to work full time and for a minimum of two years. They are also given separate classrooms to teach.

Their work includes connecting to different communities as the children come from various backgrounds. Those from the low income groups also include the slum dwellers and labourers, etc. In their second year of work, the volunteers have to identify community-related issues, such as cleanliness, and work on them, along with the teaching.

Elisha Patel, who is a graduate from St. Stephens, works with the organization currently. On asking him about his experience so far, he says, “It is a very unique experience. Although there is minimal training, the progress is fantastic. There is a lot of hard work that goes into it, apart from the planning and the time spent on it. But the outcome is always satisfying.” Elisha is teaching in an MCD School where the children are provided with free education. The school is located in Majnu Ka Tilla which is at a walking distance from Delhi University North Campus. The children attending this school are those of labourers, cycle-rickshaw pullers, pani puri walas, road side vendors, etc.

One of the major upcoming events of the organization, Redraw India, is being held from January 12 (South Campus) to 13 (Arts Faculty, North Campus) in various Delhi University colleges. The event is basically for spreading awareness about the need for providing education across all borders and communities. The event also has competitions and many other things lined up. Some of these are: Tweet for education, Photo Competition and Gallery, Live photos, March Against Educational Inequity and others.

Continue watching this space for photo coverage from Redraw India.

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DUB Speak

Yes I’m Bihari!

By Rohan Seth January 12, 2012

Back in the day when there were no cellphones and people didn’t have to text/bbm each other a million times to meet, everyone would get together at the park for a game of cricket. Childhood aberrations can be peculiar and a portly senior at the colony park who was also my neighbour gained cognizance of my ‘Bihari’ relatives who had come in from Dhanbad(is now in Jharkhand).

Next thing you know, I was the ‘Bihariii..’ at the ground; if I dropped a catch, if I fell in a pile of mud, if I miraculously scored a run, everyone employed that phrase to ‘address me’. I was the midget at the ballpark, and so when the hoary grandad asked, ‘Why is your friend so short, usko bolo latka kare‘ , the yappers were quick to point out my rumoured allegiance to Laluland. Yes that perfectly explained my midget-ness, they thought. I didn’t take much of a liking to that name and saw it as an insult, a contemptuous ‘epithet’ that was thrown at me every single day of the week and I wanted it to stop. I always thought of myself as a Delhiite and tried my heart out to make the boys at the park believe that I wasn’t from Bihar.

Of course my mates at that time didn’t really know what they were talking about, it had to have trickled down to them from the elderly. At first I could not understand this frivolous prejudice or racism or whatever name you could give it, but then at the second thought it occurred to me that it was present everywhere. For me, discrimination on the basis of economic wealth is as condemnable as being partisan on race or colour. Even though we have our ‘colour’ issues, the predominant mindset in the country is that ‘Hey I’m better because I have the more money, so what if I just work at a call center and you work to save children in Darfur’. May be all of us are racist then- but that doesn’t justify randomly hurling out ‘Bihari’ like its a pejorative.

How can you malign the people of a land which is of great historical significance, has fertile plains and contributes immensely to the food production of the country. Bihar was rated as one of the best administered states in the country during independence, but dammit.. who knew Lalu Prasad Yadav’s appetite for cattle fodder and antics in parliament would cost me so dearly in childhood.

Turns out my paternal side is from Punjab and my maternal roots from Sindh, my father spent his childhood in Jharia(which was then in Bihar) and in spite of living all my life in Delhi, I still prefer to call myself a ‘Bihari’. My Bhojpuri skills are getting better by the day and so is Bihar under the rule of Nitish Kumar.

Rohan Seth
[email protected]

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Sri Venkateswara College

To Venky… With Love

By Rohan Seth January 10, 2012

‘Life is a race’, realized when I migrated from Deshbandhu College to Sri Venkateswara college a.k.a Venky. The experience of this transition is worth sharing. Some call it a transition but I consider it as a “miss appropriation”. The changeover was not a cake walk; acclimatizing to the new climate was extremely difficult owing to not only the fact that students over here were brilliant at academics but also that they talked like any top notch journalist or political commentator.

Turns out that academics became the least of my worries; one can’t expect from a 20 year old who spent most of his life in a mundane boy’s school to concentrate on studies if he his presented with a chance to study in one of the most ‘glamorous’ colleges of D.U. As hard as you try not to stare at them, every moment in college you are spellbound by some or the other girl. Things become worse, when after all the deliberate effort to avoid it, one has to ‘unwantedly’ sit in the lecture hall beside some of the most beautiful female folk of our college. All your sensory nerves are on high alert, you become conscious about every move you make, pretending like everything is normal but you only know that your world has turned upside down.

‘Unwantedly’ not because one doesn’t want to savour these moments, but because one hasn’t mastered the art of being comfortable in such a situation. You feel inferior and out of place when you see your co-educated metropolitan classmates extremely confident and well situated in such occasions. Here the situation is analogous to the movie “Love Aaj Kal” where our metropolitan counterpart is similar to Jai (the younger Saif) who had loads of affairs and people like me can relate to Veer Singh (sardar ji) who had only one affair in his whole life (in our case that one affair is also quite rare).

So boys like us usually end up forming groups like FOSLA (Frustrated One Sided Lovers Association) or NGO (Non Girlfriend’s Organization).

If by any chance one of our FOSLA* brothers gets lucky and enters into a relationship, it improves their social status. The telecom sector is the core beneficiary of this status elevation. So much so that a couple or more of such cases could actually recover the losses of the 2G scam. Speculating about this former FOSLA member’s love life becomes a more important discussion than the Indian economy or Barack Obama.

A year has passed now and even after opting for Feminism over United Nations as a subject in my third year political science course, I still lack the mannerism required to converse with a female colleague. Engulfed with inferiority complex, fighting with “identity fracture”, I have no clue how this war between middle class values and college corporate culture will culminate. But one thing I observed and would like to convey to all our FOSLA brothers that one doesn’t need a Royale Enfield, dolle-sholle or ek liter doodh to mark his presence in Venky.

Disclaimer: – The writer does not intend to offend any group or sex. It’s a mere depiction of one’s experience. If there is any kind of resentment caused, it is deeply regretted. Your feedback is welcomed at [email protected] .

Vyom Anil

Pol. Sc. (H) III year

Sri Venkateswara College

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Campus Central

LSR: The Promised Land

By DU Beat January 7, 2012

PHOTOGRAPH: Sapna Mathur[/caption] A day that begins at 8.45am and ends at 4pm with back to back classes is not what one has in mind when they picture college especially if they have grown up watching Karan Johar movies. It takes about a week into college to realize that one has been tricked by their mother as the 12th std. board exams are definitely not the last time one has to study with superior concentration. For an outstation student settling into a new city, a new college can be tiresome. Parents, friends, distant relatives and the media don’t leave any stones unturned in making sure that you arrive in the rape capital of the country armed with a pepper spray and a prejudiced mind. The stereotypes people create precedes them; contrary to popular belief the favourite hobby of men in Delhi is not rape just like the conversation in a girls college and more specifically LSR doesn’t always revolve around hair, shoes, boys and nail paint. Surprising as it may be male bashing and feminism are not compulsory concurrent courses offered in our curriculum. Jokes about the sexual deprivation of the students of LSR which were once only a feature of lunch time conversations of college students have now become a part of stand-up comedy acts of Vir Das. Ironically, LSR students find these jokes equally amusing. The lack of testosterone in college leads to women dropping all their pretensions (almost). Thus, the sight of women dressed in their snow man printed pyjamas soaking up the winter sun while sipping on some hot chocolate is not an unusual one. It is hard to fathom that these unglamorous pyjama clad girls were once the inspiration behind the Punjabi rap song ‘Kudi LSR Di’ by the Triple Aces. Touted as one of the best colleges in the country, the atmosphere at LSR is a competitive one. In throes of self-pity students often think of the college as a ‘military boot camp’ and imagine their over achieving classmates as hamsters on steroids running an endless race. But it is these very people who constitute the mystical ‘magic of LSR’. When existential and economic crisis seem to get the better of us it is these people who come to our rescue as we try and find catharsis in mulling over about our fleeting woes together. The differences in our personalities, ethnicities and interests brings us together as we try to find our individual niche in the protective bubble that is LSR. Living in Delhi and studying in LSR are both acquired tastes. Sure, the winters are harsh and the curriculum is taxing but they both grow on you with time. There is a method to the madness in this city and in this college; all you have to do is discover it in the process of discovering yourself. Pragya Lal [email protected] ]]>