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Phone Snatching Escalates to Stabbing

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In another violent crime at North Campus, a student was stabbed repeatedly; students plead for safety measures.

A student from the Delhi School of Economics (DSE) was attacked by unidentified phone snatchers on Sunday, 2nd December 2018. The incident took place late night, at the Naala Bridge at Patel Chest Institute, North Campus, University of Delhi (DU), which is in close vicinity of Maurice Nagar Police Station, New Delhi. A robbing attempt by bike ridden perpetrators escalated into violence, and the victim was stabbed in the back multiple times, with a knife. The victim, named Sandipan, is a 2nd year PhD student at DSE. Sandipan is currently admitted at Hindu Rao Hospital, Malka Ganj.

The police was informed about the incident and given the bike’s plate number belonging to the attackers. The perpetrators have not been found yet.

Patel Chest is the commercial centre of DU, residence to many students and is generally pervaded with students till late night. This makes it more prone to theft like violent crimes; reports of many armed robberies and attacks in the past stand proof of the same. Delhi University students have often been victims of violent crimes, and the inaction on behalf of the concerned authorities is problematic. Abhi Gyan, another student from DSE said, “The incident and police’s inaction is telling of how dangerous our own campus has become”.

Safety must be a top priority in areas inhabited by students. To urge the authorities to take corrective action and ensure their security in and around campus, the students of DSE organised a candle light march from DSE gates at 4:00 pm on Wednesday, 5th December 2018.

 

Feature Image Credits: Delhi School of Economics

Nikita Bhatia
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DUB Speak

A College Procrastinator

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A fable elucidating the ordeals of an incorrigible procrastinator who seldom adheres to his quotidian activities with the alacrity expected of him.

The alarm buzzes menacingly in the distance as the hunky-dory dream comes to an impetuous conclusion. You scramble within the confines of your sheets to awkwardly grab your cellphone as the cadence of the alarm tone pendulously and with celerity drops between alternate highs and lows. No sooner than the alarm is switched off than it dawns upon you that you’ve overslept: an asperity-marked indictment of your nocturnal cellphone-skittering tendencies. You scramble out of the sheets, muttering incomprehensible bilge bemoaning your incorrigible traits, and rush to complete the quotidian ablution in a slapdash manner, another perennial bone of contention between you and your parents.

You quail with mild pain and shudder as the first drops of the frosty shower water make unremitting fusillades on your naked body. The shampoo is grabbed awkwardly, as are the shower gel and the loofah, as the sloughing process is initiated in a manner that shall put the envious blitzing pace of the erstwhile World War Two era German Army to shame. As you grab hold of your senses and exit the washroom, change your clothes, and hastily make your way to the dining table, you realize that you’re facing an immense paucity of time, and that shall likely result in you skipping your meal, despite the vociferous protestations from your famished stomach. The stomach growls in a minatory manner, while you’re stuck between Scylla and Charybdis: either have a hearty breakfast and risk irking the professor by arriving at his lecture late, or skip the breakfast only to rue the decision later when you writhe on the floor with intense agony and regret. You opt for the former, immensely aware of the fact that your mendacious nature has never let you shy away from furnishing a flimsy and lousy excuse to the professor justifying your characteristic tardiness.
The breakfast is gulped with remarkable ferventness, a manifestation of your peckish temperament, as you baulk over your unflappable callousness towards academic ventures and adherence to a rigid deadline, which results in you seldom incurring the praise and encomium of your surly professors, who have anointed you as an object of ridicule and derision.
No sooner are you done devouring your breakfast like a madman than you’re impetuously jolted out of your somnolence. The backpack is grabbed, and the customary farewells are uttered as you sprint boisterously to the metro station, only to encounter a serpentine queue of commuters at the frisking station bemoaning their doomed fates. You mutter invectives reproaching your obstreperous nature as the queue dawdles ahead. You rush to the platform, hoping to find a train rolling into the station as soon as you enter only to find the station eerily empty. The display board is citing a long wait time. Your blinkered outlook is finally reaping dividends as you repeatedly curse your damned unpropitious nature by hurling a spree of coarse vituperatives directed at yourself.
A deafening honk arouses you out of your self-deprecating tirade yet again as the train rolls into the platform. You scramble to your feet as you take a perfunctory glance at your watch: the lecture must’ve commenced. That shall remain incontrovertible. The professor scrupulously adheres to the stipulated schedule. The doors of the metro open as a torrent of commuters briskly make their way inside, only for you to stumble upon a multitude of commuters already packed into the cloistered confines of the metro. You flail your arms, jostle within the sequestered space, and wedge yourself between a snarky quadragenarian undergoing a mid-life crisis and a sprightly teenager engaged in a telephonic conversation.
As the metro hurtles through, you reminisce over your fait accompli, your diminishing grades, and a chimerical social life, which is in disarray. Before you end up scripting your eventual demise, the metro comes to a screeching halt at your station, and you hastily gather your belongings and disembark.
You hail an erickshaw, and slouch on the seat as it zooms past the oncoming traffic, evoking a shudder or two as it brushes close to some precarious collisions. Even before the erickshaw comes to a complete stop at the college, you jump off and sprint to the college entrance, flash your ID to the pesky guards whose Brobdingnagian hubris might even flummox Narcissus, and dash towards the lecture hall. A few close shaves with stationary souls induce panic as you eventually run out of breath before slumping outside the lecture complex. A languid peek at the watch is taken yet again: you’re thirty minutes late. You mumble the concocted excuse again while opening the gate to only be perplexed by the sight awaiting you: the lecture hall is eerily dark and devoid of any souls, desolate and cold.
You fumble in your pockets and fish out your cellphone to scour for messages on the class group. “Classes have been scrapped,” so goes the message, as your countenance contorts into an amalgam of despair and choleric revulsion.
You concede defeat, trot across to the cafeteria with a despondent disposition, and slump on the nearest chair while cursing your imperiled life.

 

Image Credits: Being Indian

Adeel Shams

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The Girl with a PhD: Dr. Kamala Sohonie

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In a country where women are still told which professions are suitable for their gender, Sohonie is an inspiration who literally helped open the doors of research in science to women. If somebody ever says “women are not cut out for science”, use excerpts from Sohonie’s story to inspire you forward.

 

“Kamala Sohonie was a quiet, unassuming person. A woman of few words.”- Vasumati Dhuru, an Indian author.

 

This woman of few words, born in 1911, had decided as a young child that she would become a renowned chemist just like her uncle because she resembled him in appearance. The hurdles, struggles, and misogyny did not exist for the young kid’s resolution. That did not deter her from going on to earn the title of the “first female PhD-holder of India”. Her contemporaries were budding to satiate their love for curiosity, but Dr. Sohonie had to pay the penalty of rebuke and ostracisation for her curiosity, despite the unwavering support of her highly-educated family.

 

Graduating first in her BSc course class from Bombay University, she challenged the first Asian Nobel Laureate in Physics- Dr. C.V. Raman- when he refused her admission for Master’s at the Indian Institute of Science based on her gender. She publicly stated later on, “I can never forget the way he treated me just because I was a woman. This was a great insult to me.” Yet when it came to enduring his unnecessary conditions for allowing her an education at the Indian Institute of Science, she did it all for the love of science. Professor Raman began to admit female students after Kamala’s work captivated his scientific mind. She surpassed the stereotype and opened the door, quite literally, for female curiosity.

 

She won a scholarship for Cambridge, then a fellowship at the laboratory of Fredrick G. Hopkins. Less than 16 months after working under the Nobel Laureate, she submitted a thesis on the role of cytochrome-C in the respiration of plant tissue. Her doctorate was one of the landmarks for the entire science community because it was merely forty pages in length, when theses of over ten thousand words were a common convention.

 

Returning to India in 1939, she became a professor and the HOD of biochemistry at Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi. She joined the Royal Institute of Science in Bombay as a professor in 1947, but it took her four years to head the department because of gender biases and politics. This Rashtrapati Award winner who worked on ‘Neera’ collapsed and died, 86, at the Indian Council of Medical Research shortly after her honouring ceremony, in a setting she strived in her life to be a part of.

 

Image Credits: Feminism in India

 

Anushree Joshi

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The New Norm: Nihilist Notions and Memes

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As wistful nostalgia and overweening regret over a squandered semester dawns upon college students at this imperiled hour, is the dizzying rise of nihilist memes and notions in student bastions a scathing critique on the Indian education system?

A morbid infatuation with despondency and macabre elements is palpable within the current generation of students who’re reeling with the cataclysmic effects of decades of disastrous and myopic policies crafted by statesmen and politicians patently averse to the plight afflicting college students.

At this juncture, even a languid analysis will reveal startling results. While the febrile joviality of students during their freshman year of college is infectious, for a rare brand of zeal and gumption is displayed in a setting plagued with gloom, it gradually whittles down and buckles down to the inordinate pressure and colossal constructs constantly assailing them, for by the end of their stints in college, most of them have already undergone gruelling stress and drudgery, and resort to displaying excessive servility, and a meek, demure temperament in front of the asymmetrical college administration.

Although flexibility is hailed as a cornerstone of modern education, its acceptance in the Indian educational microcosm has been proceeding at a very dawdling pace, rendering millions of hapless students stranded and desperately groveling for hope. While universities and politicians are quick to decry the paucity of student-centric norms as a farce, owing to the languid implementation of cherry-picked proposals which they foisted upon universities and students, it’s a far cry from the burgeoning instances of students grappling with mental health problems and nihilism in general.

Utterly scornful of a system that obviates all instances of exhibiting one’s creative finesse, remains arrantly oblivious to their scathing grievances, and plods them constantly to cower in front of an antiquated and regressive system, the trifecta plays a seminal role in ensuring a prompt espousal of a lethargic front and a macabre outlook, which stumps parents and policymakers alike.

However, the prolonged combat doesn’t end here, for the festering cutthroat competition is contingent on engendering a supercilious disposition in students that unremittingly smothers one’s primal instincts to deviate from the norm to strike a dissenting chord.

It’s no wonder that the dizzying rise of a monolith system that thrives on the misery of embittered students is accompanied by a phenomenon marked by a remarkable increase in students professing their penchant for memes that are either nihilist or anti-natalist in their essence, a situation that doesn’t bode well with conservative parents.

And despite the interminable hemming and hawing by policy pundits who lament the occurrence of such an aberration on a colossal scale, nothing tangible has manifested that could assuage such grouses, for students are repeatedly chided and berated for airing their grieving voices in an astringent tone, which stems from years of neglect and tactless upbringing that fosters an insalubrious environment. While universities in this nation reel with concerns emanating from trenchant student politics, rampant goondaism, and nepotism, implementation of universally-lauded measures to ameliorate the gasping concerns of students seems to be the least of their concerns. They’re hushed into silence by being exposed to the inclement power ascendancy that exists between them and the seemingly insurmountable organs of ginormous universities and hectored into ignominious submission with vendetta-laced retaliatory measures that cast aspersions on their frangible and precarious existence itself.

Collegiate elections are laced with vitriol and frequent references to one’s caste and creed are made to ensure that one isn’t cognizant of his/her perils and exercises his/her discretion with an execrable tainted mindset, which exacerbates the prevailing condition to new lows. Collegiate politics seldom invoke issues marring the collegiate landscape: academic tussles as a mainstay of the Indian education system, the imperiled nature of students battling various disparate impediments at once, and a stubborn system that refuses to reform itself despite a deafening hue and cry.

Scant flexibility around the curriculum, professors who frequently exercise their discretion in a manner reminiscent to that of Nero, and a dubious microcosm that extols academic mediocrity while lambasting ingenuity make students ponderous with dejection and dismal despair as their terms with universities come to a pitiable culmination.

Never has this despicable scenario sprouted as intermittently as it has in the contemporary epoch, with students now even struggling to scrounge for moxie for their quotidian sustenance as they drudge along while commuting, while attending monotonous, droning lectures, and while unwittingly scripting their own demise, all the while maintaining a harried expression that reeks of misery and a wistful longing for a hunky-dory past.

 

Feature Image Credits: The Indian Express

Adeel Shams

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Arts & Culture

Society Profile: Dramatics Society of DU

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It is a fact widely known that the University of Delhi (DU) takes its co-curricular activities in all gravity, and rehearses the art-forms day in and day out. One of them is the dramatics society, adoringly referred to as the DramSoc. 

The experience of viewing a play or a nukkad natak performed by the DU’s DramaSocs is similar to being in the midst of earth-shakers, both in its literal and metaphorical sense. A certain madness is transferred from the actors and inevitably catches hold of the audiences, and it might just be one of those times when people actually want to care about social issues. To those involved making a theatre production, a play is so much more than winning a tournament, it is about being the omens of change in the society. In fact, there have been numerous instances where these DramSocs have collaborated with various government and non-government organisations to promote social movements.

Delhi University’s dramatics societies have witnessed big names like Amitabh Bachchan, Manoj Bajpayee, Shahrukh Khan, Satish Kaushik and Imtiyaz Ali throughout the years.  Out of them is filmmaker Imtiyaz Ali, who in his student years in Hindu college founded the society in 1991 and named it Ibtida (Urdu word for a beginning). Members of the Ibtida organise an annual fest by the name of Medina, which is followed by a alumni meet. Members of the Hindu DramaSoc have a feeling of awe and amazement upon meeting the ex-members, and their emotions are mixed with a certain sense of responsibility because they have big shoes to fill and a legacy to live up to, considering that some of the members are now full-time actors in Mumbai. “We feel like little children in front of them, but they inspire us in ways we can never thank them enough for,” the society members say.

There is a lot of time and effort that goes into making a play, and students and professors alike share this joke about how the people in the DramSoc are never seen in class, except for when assignments are due or when there is an internal exam.“Since my practices started, I had to compromise on a few things like watching movies, being able to read the newspaper, and say, hanging out with friends,” says Deepen Gondolay, a second-year student of B. Com and the member of Verbum, the English dramatics society of Sri Venkateshwara College. “But it is not as bad as it sounds if I push everything to the later hours of the evening, I am sorted. I also have to look for tuitions after 7 p.m. every day so I don’t miss practice,” he added. 

Arguably, the members of the DramSocs are more aware of what is happening in the world around them because of the hours they spend discussing it. “The process of making a play has a lot of research involved in it and if you get past the initial dread of the hard work involved, it will change you as a person,” argues Ananya Goyal, a first-year student of English Honours of Maitreyi College, and a part of Abhivyakti. “We do get knowledge in classrooms, but working on the play is far more enlightening.”

The team becomes like an extended family, and members of Ibtida say that they have explored Delhi and surrounding areas, thanks to the society and its regular oddly-placed tournaments. “You ride every metro line with them (the teammates), visit all other campuses, and the bond that you share with your team becomes so strong that you all identify as one,” say members of Natuve, (Hindi for the one who does natya or natak) the dramatics society of Shaheed Bhagat Singh College. And it doesn’t end there, the ex-members still view the society as their own, even if it’s from a distance. “The addiction to theatre captures your soul and the inevitable separation from your little home is hard to digest. Every time you see your juniors perform without you, your heart never stops weeping. It is a place where you grow as a person and indeed it was worth living with my team all these years,” recalls Tanish Chachra, Ex-President of Natuve. 

Even though the theatre circuit in India saw allegations of sexual misconduct way before #MeToo became popular, but what is interesting to see is that the popular wave of #MeToo, which is seen in pretty much every field today, is non-existent in the dramatics circuit. This could possibly be associated with the sensitisation that the members undergo while presenting a social cause. 

DramSocs of DU are a world within themselves and the zeal of the members have proven that time and again. “There are good days, there are bad days. But then, after putting in all the effort, when you end up seeing the results, all the bad days seem beautiful,” these are the exquisite lines that Satyamitran, PR of Ibtida leaves us with!

 

 

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat

Maumil Mehraj

[email protected]

 

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Why You Should Avoid Guides and Solution Booklets

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In a desperate call for quick action, when you find an essay online that even remotely connects with your own submission, the default action is to cite without reading. Efficiency, right?

 

Most of us would agree with the truth that all our submissions are the burdens we bear. The burdens that block our exposure to the outer world; a world seemingly ours for the taking with its immense prospects and adventures. For instance, every second that you spend reading a critical essay, you could rather be complaining about the mounting work on your social media handles. And we all know that the latter seems too enticing.

 

The sad truth in the complexity of our education system is its incomprehensibility by most people. Increasingly, the idea of education has been overshadowed by the idea of getting a job. And not just a normal job, but one that comes with unending perks. Much as this debate invites moral intervention, it is nonetheless as irrefutable as the reality. In this race, we often find ourselves to be lost. And with the advent of internet, our crises are averted by ‘hacks’.

 

Being unimaginative, unthinking, and avoiding application of intellect by students today is becoming a real choice. Some may say that the choice is enforced. There is so much to do and so little time; the true refrain. It is in the event of a crisis that the need for a desperate escape is felt, and that means that we want a guide or a solution book.

 

It is not in my purview to question the credibility of such solution books, guides and answer booklets or for that matter any essay, writing or answer available on the Internet. But what can be said about all these ‘comforts’ is that they do you more harm than they offer you a chance to revive.

 

The idea of education to develop free thinking needs reinstatement. Our jumping to academic hacks implies our failures to act on our own. Sometimes, it does prove helpful to seek such a measure. But a study reveals that excessively depending on hacks and the easy-way-out, cripples your thinking. When you let the keyboard function on its three keys, your functioning of the brain is put to a miserable test. Try to use all these keys. Try to use all of your own merit.

 

Dependence is perceived to be an easy way of living. In an age where our opinions are shaped by public majority, where is the scope for expression? What we ask in such questioning is the failing object of education. There is a lot that deserves your attention. There is always a lot. And this is why you need to avoid the haphazard academic ‘hacks’. In the infinite pools of knowledge, even a quick plunge can heighten your spirit. The shallows of guides and help books will offer you a respite, but you will never learn to swim.

 

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat

 

 

Kartik Chauhan

[email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

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DUB Speak

Switching over to Examination Mode Post Diwali

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Deepawali is a flabbergasting time- a time full of fairy lights, festivities, and of course, tonnes of sweets. It is an enigmatical event, the hangover of which persists days after it is gone.

Given our date sheets this semester, and the fact that majority of us haven’t touched our textbooks (if you’ve bought them, that is), it is high time that we shift the throttle into examination gear. I totally agree that everything that I have written so far sounds nothing like feasible, since “we solemnly swear we’re up to no good”, but trust me, these ideas have been proven to help with increased concentration.

 

  • Check your syllabus
    Let us face it- we’re all enrolled into a University where not only do we cut classes, but majority of us do not have even the slightest idea about the scope of the syllabus. Therefore, the first step to take when prepping your mind to begin preparation for examinations is to check what, and how much, you are supposed to study. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to read extra chapters, now would you?

 

  • Buy the books
    One you know what your syllabus is, the next step is to buy the books. It may sound like a lot of work, getting into queues at book stores and procuring your books, but this is necessary.

 

  • Make your mood
    Having procured all the necessary material, prepare your mood. Remind yourself on a daily basis that the exam season has actually dawned upon us, and it is high time you start burning the midnight oil. You can do this in many ways, for example, you can draft a schedule, which reminds you of the upcoming examinations as soon as you look at it.

 

  • Never ask your friends how much they have studied
    One golden rule to always keep in mind- never, ever, ask your friends about how much they have studied because one thing is a fact- they never tell you the truth. We all have friends who say they have not studied anything for the exams, but score the highest. Thus, keep away from such ‘shallow’ people- we don’t need more negativity in our lives .

 

  • Study
    Once you’re done with all the preparations, you’re left with one last step- STUDY. For obvious reasons, nothing else can help you out other than putting effort into preparing for the upcoming examinations. Put in as much perseverance as you can, for it is a matter of another 15 days, after that period lies the golden age.

 

Feature Image Credits: Study.com 
Aashish Jain
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Why You Should Focus On The AECC Exam Too

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Burdened by the unending core syllabus, there is a sufferer bearing the brunt of our indulgence: Ability Enhancement Compulsory Course Paper.

You are probably wondering why one would need to focus on a subject that only requires effort in saying its name. For most of us, the AECC paper is a piece of cake. “It is seemingly the easiest paper,” says every Delhi University student ever. And probably it is, seeing as how the core subjects challenge your wits.

But in that sense of ease, we have presumed a certain lessened merit for the paper. Studying for the subject even once would tell you, assuming that you did so for an internal— which is assuming that you actually considered it worthy enough of your attention and precious time— the paper requires minimum effort. You have a few sheets to read and you can easily score well.

If I were to paint you this picture that AECC is important for your CV or mark sheet or for your future, I would make this a sermon. But I cannot help it because unsurprisingly yet sadly it is the truth. A paper that deals with writing letters, dialogues, and helps you learn the technicalities of language might sound very unexciting, and more often than not, the tutelage you receive for the subject will also question its seriousness, but it should not.

Having done the letters and reports in our high school days, the idea is probably revolting in a university. But the ideal question is the viability of this thought. Language today is taken for granted, unless you have to demean others based on their wrong usage of the past participle. Language, you see is based on certain rules and much as we should learn to master the rules, the important part is to learn humility. And that is possibly what AECC teaches you.

You would think that you know it all, but when you come to face it, you do know but little. How many of us, for instance knew about haptics and kinesics? I did not. And that is why we need to regard this paper as an important one. It is more than a paper when it comes to teaching you humility that comes from knowing that you know little. Language, you see is delicate and this paper is your medium to explore the intricacies.

So while you prepare for your core subjects, balance the strain with a relatively easy subject. Much as we all want it to be so, AECC is not just about letters and reports, it is about the practicality of us. Every word of information you read on the internet, would inform you in a certain way. And that is your preparation for this subject. Focus on your language skills and usage, because language can always use your effort on it.

But if I may have dissuaded you to read for this excitingly enigmatic paper, read it for the easy 9 on your mark sheet. After all, is it not the run for score, the reason, that made you read this?

Kartik Chauhan

[email protected]

 

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat

 

 

 

 

 

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Events

A “tweet”-a-tete with Jack Dorsey

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The CEO and co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, visited IIT Delhi on November 12. DU Beat brings to you the highlights.

The wintry morn was warmed up with people in suits and kurtas walking around the stage at the Dogra Hall in the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi on November 12. They were preparing to welcome the masters of one of the greatest technological giants of today. About an hour later at 1 in the noon, Maya Hari from Twitter talked a little about the company and its objectives for the youth and the country. A few minutes later, the man of the hour finally arrived. It was the CEO and co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey.

You would expect a formally dressed techno business executive but the lean lanky bearded middle aged exec that Dorsey is, he was anything but that. If we talk in the language of stereotype, the top shots of such companies usually sport a casual hipster look. Similarly, Dorsey arrived in a black hoodie and dark leather pants sticking on his legs with a classic techno-watch adorning his wrist. He started out a little with talking about himself. One of his opening lines was “I didn’t know that I’ll be an engineer, or even an entrepreneur”. The Twitter CEO saying this words in front of the students of one of the top engineering colleges in India just shows how irony is one fickle queen. Talking about the scope and beauty of social media, he highlights how through twitter, humanity stood first hand witness to thoughts and ideals of the people of Iran, or Egypt, the communities of which were previously unexplored.

He then proceeded to answer questions from several students that were asked to him before on his Twitter handle. These questions brought in light several of Dorsey’s views. On the dominance of Artificial Intelligence over jobs, he jokingly remarked, “I’m an engineer, so, I’ll be the first one who will be affected by it.”

On the education patterns followed in different colleges, he remarked, “I can’t talk about this much since I was a dropout myself.”

Extremely humble for someone whose net worth exceeds a billion dollars, when witnessing an extremely underwhelming response to his questions of change brought about by Twitter, he tacitly responds, “that’s more than I expected.” The question vetting system at such events; something IIT Delhi is notorious for, is always disappointing. None of the really controversial questions were addressed. For example, those pertaining to how twitter tolerates, if not encourages, users spreading hate speech. This is because filtering through the cesspool will cost these organisations users, and that would affect the bottom line; users. Beat up inspirational stories and business decisions are not the ideas warranted by the youth anymore; they want answers to the questions that are hard to answer, and that don’t have a correct answer.

On a serious note, he added how Twitter has added to a sense of political awareness amongst the masses and issues that matter can all be made relevant when used in a relevant manner, like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. The event itself had a hashtag called #PowerOf18 emphasising the importance of youth to be aware of their happenings to make a change, especially in a country like India.

Hashtags can create a conversation and this can lead to discussions and change; that’s what the 41-year old entrepreneur feels about the classic hashtag trend characteristic of Twitter. After all, technology and social change both are very needed in 21st century civilisation. So if the channel blending these two succeeds with the current generation, we might just be able to tell our descendants a better tale of life in the future.

 

Shaurya Singh Thapa
[email protected]

Nikita Bhatia
[email protected]

Feature Image Credits: Rishabh Gogoi for DU Beat

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DUB Speak

5 Natural Ways to Fight the Smog

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As you read this, take in a deep breath. So, what is that weird irritation in your throat? You hit the bull’s eye if you guessed smog or pollution.  

Yes, it is that time of the year again. Suffocating air, watering eyes, irritated skin, and agitated temperament. “Nevertheless, he walked into a Gas Chamber”, was said for the Holocaust but the statement holds true even for an individual who relocated to Delhi. The national capital ranks amongst the Premier Polluted Cities in the world. It feels like the Air Quality Index (AQI) meter is determined to achieve higher figures, on almost a daily basis. With the entire city reeling under hideous air pollution, which is bound to translate into SMOG in the upcoming days of frosty winter, we jot down this article to fetch you STUDENT FRIENDLY ways of coping with smog.

It seems like Mother Nature had foreseen this day and we as university students cannot ignore our constant lack of funds. To beat the stuffy smog, we suggest a few naturally available eatables, that aid the fight with smog.

  1. Broccoli

I am terribly sorry to have played with your feelings right in the first suggestion. But then, it is better to be “safe” than “sorry”. Without boring you by getting into technicalities, let us get straight to the point- Broccoli is good at restricting the flow of toxins and pollutants inside the body, according to studies and researches. So, the next time you see Broccoli on a pizza, devour it gracefully.

 

  1. Ginger

This is one thing the consumption of which is in itself a paradox. We love it in our cup of Chai, but hate to bite into it, solely because of its bitter taste. Chai lovers are going to love me after they read what I write next. Ginger Helps In Dealing Effectively with Smog. Now that I have given you a reason to get drunk on Chai, you may enjoy a guilt-free series of chai cups. ENJOY!

 

  1. Citrus Fruit

Citrus is another food division which, if included adequately into your diet, can give stupendous results in terms of protection from Smog. Citrus fruit is a renowned guardian of lung health. So get ready to gorge on juicy oranges, or chug that delicious fruit juice from the citrus family of fruits.

 

  1. Foods rich in Magnesium

Remember the time when your parents included hoards of dry-fruits in your “food wala bag” while you were about to leave? It is high time that you finally get to eating those nuts, for it has been observed that Magnesium rich foods (essentially dry-fruits) are helpful in aiding your lungs to cope with strain caused as a result of excessive air pollution.

 

  1. Water

I know it may not sound like a very good idea given the fact that it is the Winter season, but drinking water is the best thing you can do to your body in this particular period. That does mean some additional trips to the washroom, but if it helps improve your lung and skin health, it is totally worth it. In this special scheme, you get the added benefit of flawless skin.  Now that’s a win-win situation right there. 

 

However, apart from this, buying masks and adorning your faces with them is always an option. However, not only will that be heavy on your pocket, but you also get to take relatively few selfies for Instagram and Snapchat with hashtags like #SMOG #DELHI #Pollutionindelhi etc.

 

Feature Image Credits: Exporters India

Aashish Jain

[email protected]

 

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