Uff!! Mere Emotions on “Uff Ye Emotions”

It was during my semester exams when I got the news that Mahaveer publishers are conducting a short-story competition. Love was the genre, a genre on which I had never written any story before. But it so happens that when you read a theme, the story it forms by itself in your tiny grey cells. It did for me when I learned that the participants had to write a love story. But who had the time to pen down the story when every alternate day you have those giant exams that gobble you up in your sleep. Days went by and I forgot the story I had in my mind. My exams, they got over too. Only a few days were left for the submission period of the competition to be over when I realized I had to submit something, not because I simply wanted to, but because I had decided to and I actually had a story in my mind. 10^th January 2013 was the last date of submission and I submitted my entry just before sunset crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

5 long days of waiting; and that’s when I thought I may not be selected as entries were pouring in like anything, almost 1000, from published authors and famous bloggers. On 15^th Jan’13 a tear trickled down my cheek as I realized I might have been hoping for something which will give me nothing but failure and a disappointment. I shoved away all thoughts of the contest and carried on with my own life- a juggle of playing my guitar, reading a novel, studying for the impending exams, facebooking, going out with friends, et cetera.

It was at around 9:00 pm when the unexpected happened and with it brought new hopes and instilled new confidence in me. I won the competition; Yes, I did. And it’s now all “Uff Ye Emotions” in my mind. Yes, the anthology Mahaveer Publishers is publishing with the winning entries is christened “Uff Ye Emotions”. The editor of the anthology is none other than Vinit K. Bansal, the author of the novel “I am Heartless”, who was also one of the many judges of the competition. He also has contributed a story for our anthology. The other winners of the competition, my fellow authors are Priyanka Dey, Suresh Chandrasekaran, Pankaj Mittal (Author of “Thank God I’m Single Again”), Rachna Seth (Author of Love The Ecstasy), Saurabh Arya, Abhilash Ruhela, Stephen Anthony, Anjit Sharma aka Crestless Wave, Papan Basu, Himanshu Chhabra aka Appie and Drishti Dasgupta.

 The cover page of the upcoming anthology is flawlessly designed by Ink Studios’ Sunill Kaushik.

The book is releasing on 10^th of February 2012. And since it is a collection of the best love stories it will undoubtedly be the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for your special someone. If I were not one of the authors, I would have asked for it as a V-day gift too (Now I might have to gift it instead. :-P).

 Looking back at 15^th January 2013 now, I think UYE (Uff Ye Emotions) is one of the best things that happened to me. All thanks to the judges who chose my work and my friends who believed in me.

 And now that my friends and readers are pre-ordering for my book it gives me Goosebumps and yes, a wee bit of nervous I am.  I hope my readers and friends like my story “Happily Ever After” in the anthology. And just because I named it “Happily Ever After” doesn’t mean it’s a happy ending, right? Well, I am not that fond of sad endings either. Read it and find it out for yourself, and when you do, don’t forget to drop me a text or a comment about what you think about it.

Sanhita Baruah

http://sanhitabaruah9.blogspot.in/

Hey buddy “What’s up….Enjoy dude….Have fun…” What is enjoyment??

Hey buddy “What’s up……..Enjoy dude. Have fun.”Often we came across these words in our student life both in schools, colleges and our locality. Even you can see those words appearing in the beginning and end of a conversation in the digital world viz. facebook,sms etc. What is this enjoyment for us now? Is there is some part of enjoyment and fun alike for all the boys and girls of our age?  Whatever it is; I am trying to give my views regarding this.

Some people live for enjoyment. They would like to eat, drink and be merry without caring for tomorrow. For them, life is not a serious journey through ordeals. It is a light comedy. They might mean “kal kisne dekha hain”. In actual life however, there are a few who enjoy so easily, for life is not a bed of roses. It has many thorns around.

The Hindu religion, which believes in “karma” and “rebirth”, proclaims that it is rare to be born as a human being and rarer still to be free of deformities and illness. It is due to good or noble deeds performed in earlier births and owing to grace of GOD, that an individual is born as a human being with good health. Having attained this wonderful gift of being born as a normal human being what should one do with his life? The preposition-“The principal business of life is to enjoy it” appears to be sound and nice. But difficulties arise when one attempts to define the word “enjoyment”. It is related to one’s environment, to the habits and ideas formed in childhood, experience and knowledge. It is a highly relative concept. What is found enjoyable today or in the past might prove to be uninteresting, distasteful or even painful at a later date. Enjoyment is conditioned by time, place and circumstances. One can enjoy certain things at certain places on certain occasions and in certain conditions only. But when the time, place, circumstances or conditions etc. changes, they may produce quite opposite effects.

Another important aspect of enjoyment is that it happens to be highly subjective. One man’s food is another man’s poison. What one individual may regard as most enjoyable, the other individual may find it as extremely boring or tiring. Take the game of bridge or rummy. To those who are fond of it, it may be most absorbing and interesting to sit for hours and continue playing the game. But many find it very dull and uninteresting way of occupying oneself and quote “kaam nai aru…” Thus enjoyment is related to one’s personal preferences and interests. We have seen many people sitting in music halls glued to their chairs for three hours at a stretch listening to musical performance. To those who love this music and understand it are interested in it. This is an enjoyable experience; but there are millions who may regard music, particularly the classical varieties as mere violent exercise of vocal chords. An individual, who enjoys European music for hours together, might be unable to stand the Hindustani music even for a short time. Comment might be like: “Boring….” What the hell is he singing….? “Music  suzic nai…..” etc. Thus the concept of enjoyment remains highly selective and subjective.

Again, when an individual lays emphasis on his enjoyment, he may be causing misery and unhappiness to others. In his efforts to acquire wealth and power as the means to his enjoyment, an individual might be hitting hard several innocent people. He might be enslaving and exploiting the poorer and weaker sections of the population. If each one is to regard that the principal business of life is to enjoy, it is most likely that they may attain this object only at the cost of sufferings of others. This will lead to the prevalence of law of the jungle where “might is right”.

There are quite a few who subscribe to the view that one can enjoy by doing what comes to him or her naturally. This is again a sweeping statement. As long as the natural instinct does not come into conflict with the well being of others, it may be permissible. “Har chiz ka kimat hota hain”i.e. “Everything has its price”. One should pay the price and have it. If one wants to enjoy the fruits of wealth and power, he should work hard and earn them. The exercise of power must be in the interest and benefit of the community and the country. If it is exercised in one’s own self interest, it is not likely to last long. Soon there will be revolt and his authority and power will end. This is what precisely happened to the previous regime in India. If one wants to reach the summit of the mountain, one has to start from the base and climb up. If one wants victory, he must fight and conquer the enemy. If a student were to concentrate on enjoyments only and spend most of his time in playfields, cinema halls, restaurants and neglect his duties then his enjoyment might be prove deceptive. Now a days in our society we see people mostly teenagers addicted to smoking, drinking or drug addiction. They consider it as a mode of enjoyment. Smoking is considered cool and a mode of attraction. But they harm one’s health and shorten individual’s span of life (needless to say see the back side of a cigarette or gutkha packet or at the beginning of a movie before the names of hero – heroine appears). And these practices might cause mental hurt to his wife, parents and well wishers and bring dissatisfaction to everyone.

The approach, that the principal object of life should only be enjoyment lays emphasis on material comforts and values at the expense of one’s family, social and other responsibilities. It ignores the importance of psychological or spiritual values. The principal object of life should, therefore, be to make the best use of life that has been given to one by God. Only by living a meaningful life, does one enjoy it to the maximum extent in doing his duties and discharging his responsibilities in an efficient manner. When people are motivated by lofty ideas like patriotism, sacrifice for the sake of one’s honour or welfare of his countryman, we find them facing thrill, pleasure and enjoyment. Enjoyment comes when one develops interest in what he must do. He should seek enjoyment in such a way that he does not cause pain or hurt, physical or mental to others.

As Mahatma Gandhi quoted, “I eat to live, to serve, and also, if it so happens, to enjoy, but I do not eat for the sake of enjoyment”

Madhurjya Pratim Kashyap

Department of Mechanical Engineering

6^th Semester

in collaboration with The AECIAN; Assam Engineering College

THE INWARD CORRUPTION

‘Corruption is the cause of all evil in our country’ is the answer most learned and socially conscious citizens of India would give if asked about the cause of various socio-economic problems galvanising the country. While we are all fashionably outraged at the way politicians misuse public money with impunity, a small look at the way we lead our daily lives is enough to show that what happens in the order of millions of rupees is just a bigger manifestation of a phenomenon that is integral to our everyday life. We readily pay money to cut corners; we regularly try to cheat the system and feel proud of it. Worse still, we rationalize most of it by telling ourselves that this is all because the system is corrupt—as if multi-million dollar scams in Delhi force us to ask our kids to lie to the ticket-collector about their age.

The problem is that, in India, it’s incredibly unfair to expect otherwise. Most of the public transport in Germany (and many other countries) works on a self-help basis. You buy tickets and punch them yourselves; if you are carrying pets or bicycles, you buy tickets for them as applicable. There are no ticket-collectors in most trains, nor are there any turnstiles or other setup for verification of tickets. It’s tempting to skip buying tickets when simple probability tells you that the expected value of cheating the system is in your favour. Why buy tickets then? To feel that you are doing the right thing? The problem is that doing the right thing can make you feel incredibly stupid. What matters is not whether there are enough ticket-collectors, but whether there are enough commuters around you who buy tickets.

Before punishing wrong, it’s important to foster a culture where people recognize the wrong.  We live in a system where not letting others copy your assignment brands you as anti-social and unfriendly. The key then to ensuring less or no corruption is that people who want to do the right thing are not made to feel incredibly stupid for doing so. This is where the critical mass comes in. Once enough people opt for the right means, the rest would not be able to rationalise their misdeeds by referring it as collective corruption.

Every once in a while, we hear news reports of a public officer’s life being ruined because he was caught taking a paltry sum as bribe. It is fun to make sport of such people and to make them face public ignominy. It works beautifully—the ‘higher ups’ can give themselves a pat on the back for ‘exposing corruption’ and punishing it. The holier-than-thou common man who has been taught to feel victimized by corruption smells some kind of sweet revenge. We now have a suspended police officer, and a nation that feels slightly better. Perfect. When we foster a culture of corruption and then arbitrarily punish a few offenders, we are not being wrong in punishing corrupt people, we are being irresponsible. It does work as a one-click solution; the work has to be intricately exhaustive and inclusive of everyone.

 Abhinav Bhattacharyya

8th Sem (Civil Engineering)

in collaboration with The AECIAN; Assam Engineering College

The Mystifying Beauty

She threw a glance at me,

Her eyes a hue of gold;

The look of a brave queen,

Her majestic presence. Behold!

It was love at first sight,

A thrill beyond the senses,

Her beguiling charm captured,

Through my eye lenses.

She strutted on the grassy floor,

Draped in saffron and white,

The furry coat and canines,

Gleamed in the afternoon light.

The Kumaon hills stood tall,

The throne of regal royalty.

She was a tigress, I loved,

My muse of heavenly beauty.

Kunal Borah

6^th sem

ME

in collaboration with The AECIAN; Assam Engineering College

Survived The Torment, Only To Suffer More…

‘Will they talk to me? Will they even look at me? What if I am completely ignored?’ Such are the thoughts racing past Meera‘s mind as she stares outside the window of their two bedroom flat in a semi-urban locality. She is waiting for her father to assist her to college after a wide gap of five months. She does not even know if she has any chance of clearing the exams this year whatsoever.

Suddenly her eyes fall on a group of girls walking across the pavement. They seem so cheerful, with ice-creams in hand, sharing some common joke. This scene again takes her to the flashback, five months ago, when she was returning with her friends from a theatre. Since it was just evening and she was only two blocks away from her home, so after coming halfway in her friend’s car, she thought of walking home.

One simple decision, three drunk men beside the dark road, and it took just a few minutes for them to tear her life apart. Her father after searching for her the entire night found her hiding behind a garbage dump to preserve her modesty. News spread like a wildfire. Some people visited her to offer sympathy. They gave varied advices, but their expressions conveyed -‘you have no life hereafter’. Strangers she knew nothing about protested for her to the government, but no one, not a single friend kept a hand on her forehead and gave a reassuring smile. No one even for a false second tried to fathom how she felt at that time, no one told her that it’s going to be alright. The emotional cocktail brewing inside her was tearing her soul apart. The TV channel reporters made her feel like she was inside a circle of cannibals butchering her with their looks of suppressed hunger.

She could not face anyone, so she shut herself up in her house. She kept on thinking-Why me? Why do people make me feel that I did something wrong, that it was my fault? Is it just because our society is afraid to point a finger towards a man? I don’t see any policeman harassing outside those men’s house. Oh, I forgot, they haven’t found them yet. And why has none of my friends called me?

A week ago her parents took her to a park. A kid came and started playing with her. She smiled after so many months. But not after that kid’s mother dragged her son away from her. Her dried tears came out gushing and she again drowned in her own pathos-filled river.

Now after five months she has somehow gathered up the broken pieces of courage and decided to go to college. She is full of apprehension, full of insecurity. Still, she has to do it, she tries to sound somewhat confident to herself. Suddenly she notices a bird flying past her window, nothing to worry about, total freedom. She closes her eyes, picturing herself as a free bird, smiling in ecstasy.

‘Meera, we have to go now’, her father’s voice suddenly brings her back to reality. And she left the window with a faint smile on her lips.

Asmita Paul

6^th Semester

E&T

Assam Engineering College

in collaboration with The AECIAN; Assam Engineering College

Belief

I believe in God,,
I believe in friendship,,
I believe in love,,
I believe there are angels,
I accept there are demons..
I believe that miracles occur,
I believe in dreams,
I accept my nightmares.
I believe in beauty..
I believe in winning,
I accept my failures..
I believe marriages are made in heaven..
So I accept divorces..
I believe in myself..
I believe people learn, people grow, people change…

in collaboration with The AECIAN; Assam Engineering College