Saturday, September 19, 2009

Edition # 10 - Editorial -Deepak S.[Guest Editor] (BE IT)

Hello folks,
With a fortnight of festivities behind us, we now enter the latter(and more hectic) half of the semester. I hope, by now, the freshmen are acquainted with the campus and each other.
In a summer which has seen soccer clubs spend obscene amounts of money on their recruits, we engineers have found jobs hard to come by.


However, most final year students have decided to make the most of this opportunity by pursuing further studies or appearing for competitive exams. GATE,CAT, and GRE are the buzzwords all around. Admirable indeed!


On a lighter note, as a final year student, I guess the juniors look up to us (hopefully). And there's one thing they might want to know it's about that one thing I really like after these years. Surprisingly, the answer came easily enough. It's not the swanky infrastructure, or the huge canteen, not the cool hangouts nearby and not even the cows in the campus. That one thing is the people. Everyone, the students, the teachers even the staff that make this place as exciting as it is. Moral of the story; Enjoy your life. Studies are important, but no textbook forbids you from having fun. Make memories and live them , this is the time to do it and you could not be in a better place for it. Make sure by the time you reach your final years you carry a strong sense of nostalgia. So wake up, shake a leg, and live the moment.
Warm regards,
Deepak S.(Guest Editor)


Please send your feedback or contributions to:
magclubsies@gmail.com. The online or E version of this is http://samanvaycampusbuzz.blogspot.com.
Campus BuZz team:

Karen S Aranha(BE PPT)

Shradha Aiyer(BE COMPS)

Rohit Sahasranaman(BE EXTC)

Edition # 10 - Fourth Dimension -Adarsh Nair (SE COMPS)

It's funny how humans try and find temporary happiness, ephemeral solace in so many things - art, love, leisure, music - anything to keep the days passing by. It's only some of us who seek and understand true beauty - true beauty in the form of something everlasting, something eternal, unaffected and untouched by time, something that stays with us for as long as we live, and beyond our own lives. Beauty is not confined to an object, to a solid form that rests in front of our eyes, absorbing and reflecting light to form the three dimensions that we live in. It is a feeling that goes beyond our dimensions, it is the thought that lingers into the fourth. It is not the look of a fair maiden but the look of a lover that sets his eyes upon her, that makes her beauty true and wholesome. It is not the glow of your skin but the scars on your palms that are etched into you forever, that reform your pains which stay even after you are long gone. It is not the love you feel for someone when they reach their hand out to you, it is the divine feeling of being able to hold their hand forever, even after your hand is no more.

Anything that goes beyond time, that flows alongside the rivers of eternity, has true beauty. Anything that time can touch yet not effect..is true beauty, is true immorality, and it is for those feelings, those sensations that we should live, and not for the petty joys of a material world.

Edition # 10 - “BE” THE BEST - Hari Menon (BE IT)

“TE(Third Year Engineering)…” I said when asked the year I was in by the lady in the college office and the next thing I knew I had got a good slap on the back of my head.”Dude you are in BE(Final Year Engineering),u lost somewhere?” came a voice.It was my friend sounding like a perfect college student with a sarcastic smile on his which meant only one thing which was that this incident is going to spread like wildfire in our friend circle.

I corrected myself and gave him a reluctant smile and got out of the office still with the pathetic smile still on my face but with a feeling of pride and superiority because yes indeed I am in BE!!!!!!.

Being the seniormost in any institution brings in its own advantages.The juniors suddenly develop a sense of respect for you which any human being would appreciate without questioning.Then there is the “we have been through all this” factor which is mostly shown off by advising certain tricks of survival to juniors which probably you have never done yourself. Also you need to check your actions as you don’t want to look ‘cheap’ in front of your juniors and that would not be so ‘cool’.

But apart from all this BE also marks a period of transition from being a vagabond in your own life to a mature individual with atleast a modicum of maturity.You finally start to understand what the word ‘career’ is, which also ultimately becomes the central topic in many discussions, everyone trying desperately to inculcate a mature image of oneself in the other person’s mind. For the first time in 4 years of engineering people try to write some programs on their own which was looked upon as antediluvial concept which nerds do.You start multi tasking with many preparing for competitive exams and future courses,the technical project that you are supposed to do and the regular subjects ofcourse that is when it strikes you, “ohh so this is what they meant when they said multitasking in proccessors which was hard to digest a year ago”.

BE is also the time when nostalgia is at its peak.There is an inherent feeling of hollowness within everyone that this would be the last year of their much coveted college years.The friends who were special suddenly are extra special .You start enjoying every moment.And ofcourse you get a flash on your face almost everyday, yes you guessed it right ‘photos’,photography becomes your second proffesion(assuming engineering to be the first) with people clicking photos or pics on every possible occasion with a standard dialogue on their lips “who knows may be we don’t get to do this again”.

On the flip side there is an excitement, for you are about to enter the real world the ‘bitter world’ and topping the agenda on the excitement list would be money factor.Many would get a job and start earning which means no more begging for an extra hundred in front of your parents.

Standing in a walkalator at the starting point moving forward you want to go back but cannot that is where you are in BE, starting point of a new life moving ahead though you want to stall the time you cannot, all you have is a bag of memories with you so why not move with a smile because after all by then you understand one thing………………………”BE” the best.

Edition # 10 -Michael and Me -Karen Aranha (BE PPT)

Everyone has something or the other to say about him. Good and bad comments keep flowing in. I was a little kid when this man came to India to perform. I was too little to understand the hoopla behind it all.

I personally enjoyed all his songs and was delighted every time they played the video of”THRILLER" on TV (which was rare with all the new artists bombarding us with their "Talent”). I was introduced to his music by my dad who still has a video cassette of The Jackson 5 safely kept in the drawer.

It was just another day in June and I was getting ready for another day at my internship when I read on a Hindi news channel something about the King of Pop. I didn't pay any heed to it and was too worried about missing my bus to notice.

An hour at the workplace and I am greeted with a message from a friend saying” HAPPY CHILDREN'S DAY, KING OF POP RIP". I am shell shocked and frantically text my friend back asking for an explanation, only to get a rude awakening in the form of a confirmation of MJ's death.


Unable to believe my eyes, I log onto my most trusted website Google and see exactly what I was so afraid of. My mind tells me” Yes, HE IS DEAD." My work is a blur, my mind is cluttered and my ears can hear a medley of "Heal the world, Thriller, Bad, Smooth Criminal..." I wanted to cry but tears never came, not then at least.

The days after saw me reading articles after articles on him. TV channels had unending tribute messages and celebrities talking endlessly about Michael "The Phenomenon, The Man, The Legend". Then came his memorial service, it did to me what the news channels couldn’t. It made me realize that even though I didn’t know this man personally there was something about him that made him CONNECT. Connect not only to me but also to so many millions the world over. It also made me feel for his family and most of all, it made me cry. I wept bitterly; there was a sense of void which couldn’t be filled.

I then became obsessed with everything related to him. I had to read every article having his name, every music video that was aired, every MJ special I watched with the enthusiasm and obedience of a 7 yr old, even to the point that I tried my very best on contests by an RJ friend and won one contest. I jumped up and down when I came to know I won, I shook my mom from her sleep. I went berserk.

One evening there was a Top 40 MJ Videos Special on VH1 on account of Michael's birth anniversary and David Gest was the presenter. I saw all those videos that I knew by heart all over again only to remind myself how ahead of his times Michael Jackson was. I mean look at "EARTH SONG" the video is a reminder to Save Our PLANET and NOW is the time.

I am not going to delve into his personal life because too much has been said already. My heart refuses to believe that a man who had so much love for everyone (parents, friends and his children) would do horrid things to someone else’s kid.

He was a benevolent personality is what I believe. I guess I will never fully know how much he meant to people, most of all his family and kids. I m not even sure if I will ever truly understand how he has impacted me. His songs have been an emotional rollercoaster; they do to me what Indian family dramas fail to. They make me feel. Make me feel every emotion that there is.


MICHAEL JACKSON always makes me want to be a better human being.

Guess Michael that's THE WAY YOU MAKE ME and many others FEEL.