Gayatri Sikka
Bsc.Hons Mathematics
2nd year
Lady Shri Ram College for Women.
5. Silvio Berlusconi and Bill Clinton: for their common taste in ‘other friends’.
4. Kashmira Shah and Madonna: So that they can both act their age.
3. Wile E. Coyote and Sylvester: They never ever seem to catch their prey.
2. Kylie Minogue and Akshay Kumar: because we just can’t take them seriously after jiggy-wiggy.
1. Rakhi Sawant and Jesus Navas: For then, she will always have ‘Jejjus’ around.
1. DU revamps website
For those who’ve been DU students for a while would know the drastic change brought about in the revamped and improvised website of DU. The students joining university for this year are warmly welcomed by a new and fresh look of the Delhi University website- www.du.ac.in. Till the last academic year, students had to visit separate websites for North and South campus to check their results and for university details, however from now all details are available on the same website.
2. DU introduces course on Research Competency
Institute of Lifelong Learning & Delhi University Library System introduces short term course on “Information Literacy for Research Competency” (ILRC). The students of the University of Delhi fulfilling the eligibility criteria mentioned in the official website of DU may apply for the short term course on ILRC. The application details are also available. The course aims to impart information literacy skills among the participants making them information literate. A certificate will be awarded to the participants on successful completion of the course.
3. Campus Bus Service
A feeder bus service has been started in the North Campus, charging Rs. 5 only. The buses will ply from Monday to Saturday betweek 08:00 am to 06:00 pm with a frequency of 10 minutes every bus. There are 3 main routes: Ramjas- Khalsa College, St. Stephens’- DSW, FMS- Hansraj College.
4. Perfect Gift to DU
A new swanky Delhi University Stadium, a Commonwealth Games venue for rugby, was inaugurated on Thursday by Sports Minister MS Gill, who described it as a ‘gift’ to Delhi University. It took almost 2 years to build.
Friendship Day is special to all of us, or at least friendship is. The DUB writers all got together to bring to you some of the most memorable sitcoms, characters, movies that celebrate friendship.
Beaches
If you’ve heard Bette Midler’s unforgettable ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’, Beaches is where it came from. The story talks of the friendship shared by struggling singer CC Bloom (Bette Midler), a free-spirited Bronx Jew; and the uptight posh San Francisco Protestant Hillary Essex (Barbara Hershey) through thirty years of highs and lows. The realistic evolution of a relationship between two starkly opposite people where they build their own middle ground in the midst of the inevitabilities of life gives us something to relate to at every step and thus makes Beaches highly memorable.
Calvin & Hobbes
Calvin and his (toy) tiger Hobbes share a peculiar relationship, with Hobbes providing the voice of reason, and Calvin the twist, in the relationship. Best seen when on being handed a ‘friendship contract’ by Calvin, Hobbes points out that “people are friends because they want to be, not because they have to be.”
Harry and Hermione
Harry Potter’s relationship with his other best friend, Hermione Granger has the elements of a typical brother- sister relationship. Hermione is the head of R&D of the Harry Potter Adventure Inc., and her friendship with Harry helps both of them see things from a drastically different perspective from each one’s own viewpoint. One wonders if Harry could have emerged victorious, had it not been for the unflinching love and support that he got from Ron and Hermione.
Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn
An unlikely friendship for the time, Finn, the wild ‘un, and Sawyer, the quintessential city slicker. Their mutual fascination for the other’s way of life was the core of their friendship. And being friends in the late 19th century didn’t mean chilling out at pubs, it meant boat escapades down the Mississippi, rescuing slaves, and escaping from bloodthirsty bandits!
Jai and Veeru
There were a lot of memorable characters in the masala masterpience that was Sholay, but none quite endeared to the public as much as the duo of Veeru, played by the hot headed Dharmendra and Jai, played by Amitabh Bacchan (save for Amjad Khan’s badass Gabbar act though, duh). Probably the most famous celluloid friends to ever have been, Jai and Veeru have since become a cult icon, and the fabulous “Yeh Dosti” almost an anthem. Theirs was a friendship of legend, and nothing quite says brotherly bonding like chasing after hot maidens together and royally kicking the ass of the most badass bad guy of all time!
The Little Rascals
Childhood days – the fun and frolic, the innocence and the sense of being carefree. This movie is all that and much more with a bunch of neighbourhood urchins showing their penchant for go-carting and “women hating.” A take on friendship in its most innocent form: the movie has spunk and charm and a fair share of slapstick humor with Alfalfa’s attempts to charm ‘the girl of his dreams’ while Spanky sabotages it all to Butch and Woim’s antics to steal the go-cart. Catch it for its guilelessness!
FR.I.E.N.D.S
Any mention of friendship is incomplete without the iconic sitcom, Friends. Love it, hate it, you have to admit that it has its moments. The ritual of the six whiling away time at Central Perk, the complicated relationships and the job woes were amusing. And everybody needs a Chandler for those witticisms!
‘Mission Admission’ may have been successfully completed, but the new inductees into Delhi University from out of town face another hurdle this year: ‘Mission Accommodation’.
The Commonwealth Games are proving to be an expensive affair, not just for the government, but also for out-station students with the leasing out of college hostel rooms. This has led to an increase in the demand for Paying Guest (PG) accommodation this year. Even though such accommodation has been made available, it has been done at unreasonable prices. Given the non-regularised nature of PGs, there has been no check on the exorbitant rents charged by land owners. This lack of monitoring has also resulted in poor quality of accommodation. Students complain about the small size or the rooms in proportion to the rent, and the inadequate facilities.
In the areas around Lady Shri Ram College, the rents stand at an average of Rs 9000 a month, a huge leap from last year’s Rs 6500. These charges do not take into account other costs like electricity, among others. While the PG owners claim that the rise in price is a result of over-all inflation, it may be seen as directly related to the fall in number of available hostel rooms due to the Commonwealth Games.
While there has been an increase in the rates of PG accommodations and in the rents of flats that are often occupied by students in north campus as well, it has not been anything out of the ordinary. Says Aditii Saxena, “My PG has increased it rates by a thousand rupees, but it is justified considering the facilities they provide. They have increased the rates due to the provision of Wi-fi.” This view was shared by a resident of a PG in Civil Lines, “I am now paying a higher rent, but it has nothing to do with the Commonwealth Games.”
Thus, there seems to be a dichotomy between the rates charged and facilities provided by the accommodations provided around North and South Campus colleges.
1. Prepare to have hours of free time. You WILL be having a lot of time on your hands- in between classes, waiting for your friends to come (because you will want to travel in packs), waiting for the lecture to begin, and then praying for the lecturer to leave!
2. Choose your friends carefully, since you’ll be making a lot of them, some for life. That said, try to avoid hostelites unless you’re living in a hostel, otherwise you will constantly hear them whine about curfews they have to meet etc.
3. Ragging. There isn’t much ragging now in DU anyway, after the crackdown. Don’t be nervous, it’s not all that bad. Try and enjoy it if you can. And keep your ego at home.
4. College societies are important. Not only will you make a lot of friends, it will give you a sense of purpose .DU gives a lot of options from the usual Debating and Dramatics to the off-beat ones like Film Appreciation, African Culture or Photography. And of course, you can always start your own society.
5. Try to avoid your car/bike to college. You will unnecessarily get caught in traffic jams. Car-pool, if possible. It’s an excellent way of making new friends and bonding with someone who understands exactly the ordeal you will go through to travel to and from college. Note-when planning taking the U-especial, make sure you have nothing planned for the rest of the day!
1) Get a body double to attend classes for you. Going by the fact that you’re facing an acute attendance problem, the teacher will probably not remember your face anyway
2) Record your voice saying “present ma’am/ sir!” and ask your friend to play it whenever needed
3) Submit a medical explaining how it’s impossible for you to attend classes because you suffer from a bad case of classroom-o-phobia
4) Mail letters from some distant place like Kazakhstan stating that you were in a training camp for Rope Skipping and so were unable to attend college though heaven knows how badly you wanted to.
5) Say that your hefty bodyguard with an AK47 will be very pleased to explain the state of your attendance if only the teacher could spare some time and meet him in a shady corner behind the college
-Janhavi Mittal and Aina Matthew
How many times have you sat around, scratching your head and wondering which emotion that bunch of brackets, dots and dashes is supposed to convey? With new smileys and rude-ys and disgust-ys and the like entering the cyber scene every other day, the time has come that someone devised a smiley dictionary. So here we are, DU Beat to the rescue as usual. Presenting – The Definitive Emoticon Dictionary!
: ) The smile emoticon. Used when the cute guy says something funny but it’s not quite the LOL moment. Variations include =) :> =] 🙂 C:
: ( The sad emoticon. Attendance beyond hope and no balance to crib about it to friends? Sad emoticon is happy (very very little happy, keeping his nature in mind though) to help. Variations include =( 🙁 =[ :< :C :@ The angry emoticon. Ye kya? Canteen aunty gave you stale toffees instead of change again? Nothing better to express your fury than this emoticon buddy! Variations include :X >: X-(
8) Cool emoticon. So you have a cool new phone. What better way to show off than send this little guy in a text msg to your friends? Variations include B) B-) 😎
😮 Surprised emoticon. What? Proxy system works, man! *insert surprised smiley here* Variations include :-O :0 :-0