Demos

I have always held the belief that we as human beings arent really looking to achieve anything, all we want is a phoney objective to motivate ourselves into one direction or another.The thing that matters is the journey and perhaps the reflections afterward.I say this with a third persons' observation both of myself(with all my irrepresible whims) and the world in general.All this time all i wanted was some time for myself...and now that i finally have it i tend to waste it in incovievably ridiculous ways .Never the less what i adore about today is the fact that i have returned to my blog,which is as deserted and desolate as myself.

It is no secret that i love to speak.The sheer beauty of articulation, the expression of ideas and ideals while capturing the most abstract of thoughts succintly in a sentence, has always kept me excited about speaking.Probably even the process of writing for me is accompanied with the mental imagery of a crowd reacting to every phrase that i utter.

Following is an article I wrote for the campus newpaper, Scholars Avenue. Though it has been written keeping Kharagpur and its dynamics in mind, the morale of the article applies to every domacratic organisation. Here Goes ...

A college in Chennai fined two of its students on grounds of indiscipline.The said “indiscipline” was that one of the students was a female and the two students were sitting together.Hundreds of engineering colleges in South India have uniforms and despite being a very unpopular decision among students, it still holds. Hundreds of colleges in India have a ban on students moving out of their residential colleges at all.Many of them lock their hostel gates after 10 'o clock. The point of stating all this is for us to first understand that we are indeed living in a very liberal environment. When it comes to treating students like human beings, Indian colleges fare very badly and Indian engineering colleges come at the bottom of this pyramid.Our institute gives us the

opportunity to appreciate the concept of democracy. In my one year as VP, TSG, I have realized that our institute has always given an attentive ear whenever a reasonable demand has been made by the students. Within the constraints of administrative policies, problems and perspective, steps have always been taken to make students' life better.One must realize that students move straight out of high school and enter this deserted island we proudly call IIT Kharagpur. As they graduate, they knock the doors of the big bad corporate world.Therefore it becomes essential that apart from the curriculum of Engineering and Science, one learns the liberal social sciences, languages and culture and amongst other things, the power of the institution of democracy. The very democracyfor which millions of Indians sacrificed their lives.

The power of democracy does notlie on the elected few, but in the 'Demos' or the people. Therefore if you feel something is going wrong, take up the responsibility and set it right. Recently a few students approached me, saying the restaurant owners in KGP do not behave well with the students. As a result, I took up the issue and called a meeting of all restaurant owners. If more such complaints are brought,serious action can be taken against these owners and certainly the situation will improve.

Similarly if you feel the candidates are not performing, don't follow any blind trend, judge by yourself and vote him in. Nobody can stop you from voting who you want to. If you feel the entire approach to the elections is wrong, wait for the next hall elections and make it an issue then.Make the candidates in the hall elections realize what your opinions are. How you think elections should be contested? Having been a candidate myself, I can assure you that the points raised by people during elections stay in t h e mi n d o f t h e e l e c t e d representative. Not just this, if you feel the right candidate is not being supported, demand an explanation.Take this matter up with the hall president.

The conclusion of all this is simple. As long as you sleep in your rooms, you do not have the right to demand things on a platter. Its only when you stand up to yourself that things will begin to change in your town.