Aila

My recent tryst with Newspaper Editing , it seems, was not without a sense of irony.

When I returned home one day, after working long hours on an article for sTUDelta, my mom called me and asked, 

" Did you know that your home-town (Durgapur) is caught in a huge cyclone? The city is in a state of complete black-out and 12 people have died in the state of West-Bengal. And your mom nearly escaped a car accident in the midst of  storm."

"What ? how are you, mom. I am so sorry I was so busy that I did not keeping track of news, lately".

"I am fine, and so is your father . What are you so busy with, that you don't get time to read or  watch news ?"

"Well, I am busy with Newspaper Editing." 

Belgian Blitz on Bike

“Let’s bike to Antwerp”.

We were a bunch of international friends, with whom I was sharing a pitcher of beer at Tango, our favorite pub in Delft, at that time. The fun-filled Summer School had recently ended, the first-quarter lectures had started but no assignments had been handed out yet. And I was longing for an adventure.

“Tomorrow will be a nice sunny day, perfect for a cycle trip” replied Jabus from across the table. 

Vivek jumped in from nowhere, “Antwerp is only hundred and thirty kilometers from Delft, at an average speed of just ten kilometers per hour it will take only fourteen hours?” 

I wasn’t sure if he was sarcastic or was merely giving out facts to help us decide. Michael, our mentor of the month, did not share the enthusiasm, “You guys must be crazy. Do you even have a map to plan your bike trip?”. 

“Where is the fun in that?” I replied jokingly, “We will ride towards south on the red cycle-paths. Let the sun and sign-boards guide us”. 

Jabus took that seriously, “Dushyant, if you really want to do this trip, I will join you, who need a map anyway?”

 “Then let’s start tomorrow at 7 am in the morning in front of the Space-Boxes. We should reach Antwerp at around 9 pm”, I announced, already excited, anticipating a mad adventure. 

“I will join you”, Vivek chanted as he rose to get another pitcher of beer.

Next morning, at 6 am I forced myself up from a hangover. I quickly showered, packed my bag with an extra pair of clothes and a bike repair kit. Jabus was already waiting at the Space-Box cycle-stand when I came out. It was a bright and sunny and the sky was a spotless blue. Perfect!! While we waited for Vivek, Jabus showed me a rough sketch of our cycle track he had prepared early in the morning from Google Maps. To my surprise, Vivek showed up, almost on time and we embarked on our journey.

We biked. Through big cities: crossing Rotterdam, Dordrecht and Breda and through beautiful countryside.

We biked. Along glittering canals, into the swampy woods and across green fields, under dark tunnels, over countless bridges and on the snail-paced ferryboats.

We biked. Often in circles, lost and confused, sometimes due to incorrect sign-boards and lack of map, and sometimes due to our lack of basic understanding on direction of sun at different times of the day.

We biked. About hundred kilometres, when our back and behind started hurting. Badly.

Nevertheless, we kept going until we conquered the Belgian border. We celebrated the victory lying down in a green field, basking in our glory and red sunset with Belgian beer. Cheers!


 

Victorious in our Belgian Battle, we now headed for Antwerp War which was still thirty kilometres away. Drunk on two bottles of Duvel beer, I tried my best not to transgress into the motor-highway next to the cycle-path.


Jabus and Vivek had a tough time, not only in keeping me away from the highway, but also keeping up with my pace. The Belgian beer had miraculously cured me of my pains and had boosted my adrenalin level so much that I was cycling more than twenty kilometres per hour, non-stop. We reached Antwerp in less than two hours.

At 22:00, 15^th September 2007, The Antwerp War was won. It was time to sign the Truce at the local hotel for a peaceful sleep.

This is the article which i wrote for sTUDELTA, but two days before the date of release the management made cost cutting measures by scraping off few articles to reduce the number of pages from 24 to 20. This article was scraped off too.

sTUDELTA-18

Tomorrow, on 28th May 2009, the sTUDelta-18 will be released in the university campus. 

Its a special edition of TU Delta newspaper by a special editorial team in which I volunteered.

We have worked really hard to make it a special edition. 

Few things that this month long project taught me :

1. Never be shy to volunteer for a campus activity. These are the opportunities where you get to explore your hidden talents, if any, and make mistakes without risking your career or finances. Katherine, who volunteered for the editorial team, was not very sure about what role she will play. She did a great job in editing our articles and writing a nice essay herself.

2. Volunteer to take down the minutes of the meetings on the first day. I did not do that. But had I done it I would have learned the names of the team mates on the first day itself. 

3. Do not brag about your credentials. No body wants to hear about how many editorial jobs you have done before or prises you won for your literary skills. Instead try to be enterprising in offering your service when there is a demand for one. 

I liked the way Richard worked in the editorial team. He never boasted about his exemplary career in photography but was very enthusiastic in offering his service to everyone. He regularly posted e-mails and announcements to remind the journalists and authors of articles to send him the request for photographs well in advance so that he can make nice pictures for their  article. His professional skills were very conspicuous as we watched him dextruously set up his camera and lens to capture our group photographs in the crappy weather. 

4. Wait for your turn to speak up during the meetings. Speak out loud if you want to contribute  but do not change the topic of discussion abruptly. There might be someone with a brilliant idea waiting for his turn to speak. 

Filip, one of the coordinators was responsible for supervising the discussions during the meetings. It was nice that he brought with him an agenda with a list of topics to be discussed in the meetings. But only if he could announce those topics loud so that we would know what we are discussing at the moment. Miranda complained that the meetings were taking too long, and the reason was simple : our discussions were not structured.

5. Never collaborate with someone to write an article. Its okay if one writes and other edits it, but writing the body of the article in team/pair is a bad decision. Even when you are writing on the same topic, and agree on the content of the article, the two authors will have never have same perspective  on the issue. So you fight more often than collaborate. 

And then there is the time issue. In the busy schedule of ours it is difficult to find time to meet and think on the article together. Even when we do find time together words trickle down from brain very slow when you schedule it. 

Me and Aarabi had difficult time writing an article together. I was always so critical about anything original she wrote while she did not like me quoting Penelope all the time. We succeeded in the end, but after lot of tiring arguments. 

I have found out that I like to write alone, before I go to bed. That's the time am relaxed, thinking clearly in my head without any external influence except the Internet.

6. Make all channels  of communication free from ambiguity and misinformation's. Case-study : the miss-communication between the crew (student editorial team) and the management (TUDelta). 

I will talk about this more later, since we still have to figure out the root cause of miscommunication in TU Delta, which led to a decision to reduce the number of pages in sTUDelta by four pages, thereby scraping off 10 articles from sTUDelta in cluding three articles of mine.

Twitter Bullshit

For months now , I have been getting email requests to sign up for Twitter. But I did not. Orkut and Facebook and LinkedIN are more than enough. I did not want to join any more networking sites. And when I came to know that Twitter is just a status-update-thingy , I loathed it even more. 

What is remarkaable is the aggressive marketting of this junk site throughout mass media. What is even more remarkable is that people are falling for it so easily. 

I was not able to express it in words why the concept is so bogus, untill I bumped into this video :

I refuse to be part of this ultra-stupid concept called Twitter.

Moved

Yesterday, I moved to Marcushof from AVS40.
After living with Prem and Siddharth in Arthur Van Schendelplein 40 ( which I had started calling home) for almost two years, it was a hard decision to make.

AVS40 was previously rented by a french couple who had kept place amazingly clean and tidy and aesthetic. When we got this flat for rent, in November 2007, it was an empty house, with hollow rooms. Thankfully, they left the impeccable flooring intact and the kitchen equipped with a refrigerator, dishwasher and gas stove. 

AVS40 Kitchen

We furnished rest of the place, brick by brick, with our own hands (literally sometimes). Some of the furniture was second-hand but most of it was for free, picked up from the streets by people clearing their garage or leaving their homes. We called the later source Free-Ikea , after the cheap furniture store Ikea. The beds in all our rooms, the sofas and chairs , television and desks in living room all came from Free-Ikea.

AVS40 Living Room: Initial days

AVS40 Living Room: Latest days

It was great fun living in AVS 40. From the beginning all three of us had sworn to keep the place as clean and tidy as the french couple, and we stuck to the promise all the time. Sometimes when someone forget to clean kitchen or tidy the living room , I used to leave 'Post its ' requesting the required party of do his job. Siddharth abhorred this practice, and when he objected we started reminding people of his duty on the face. This open and direct approach worked well as we could speak our minds , rather sulk , if the chores of the house were left undone by others. The best part of living together was grandiose dinner we ate every night prepared by one of us according to his/her turn in the week. 



The kitchen was fully equipped and experimentation with food was encouraged by all. This encouraged me to try different recipes (often improvised based to what is available in the fridge) and cooking became fun as well. Have you heard of Chinese-Mixed-Vegetable cooked in Garam Masala, or Pasta Curry , Eskimo-Green-Salad and ofcourse my masterpiece, Jichkhana ?

Eskimo-Green-Salad

Although only three people were officially registered in AVS40, there were always more than three people staying in our place. Shiva, Ranadeep, Shreyas, Sandeep, Nestor, Jabus, Marilyne,Christiane, Rajeev, Aarabi.... all have taken shelter in AVS40.
Random Party Pic at AVS40

The AVS40 was a also social revolution for me. I was a able to expand my social circle incredibly thanks to the parties, dinner invitations and friends and couch surfers taking shelter at our place. Prem and Siddharth are both very social guys. Through them I have known people : not only TU- graduated students and TU-Phds, but also people outside the university .

Siddhrth Birthday Party

And they have encouraged me to do the same. Prem always kept me from loosing my focus from studies but also encouraged me to take up extra-curricular activities with equall stride. He also pushed me take these activities to the next level, which I did through my yearbook stints and journalistic achievements. Prem , apparently is cousin of Dinesh Chandra Siva , my best friend in Ramaiah. Small world huh ?!!

While Prem was my mentor, Siddharth has been my archetypal senior. His legacy as a Baba of the Gang (bang) has been narrated many times by his batch mates and I had the opportunity to witness it first-hand living in the same place. Hats off to his energy, enthusiasm for life and his unique style, something that I strive to achieve myself. Sid urf Baba B$%*# Balboa has seen it all, done it all, been there all and said it all. Yes, he bestows upon me words of wisdom, whose deeper meaning can only be understood by those who care to follow.

Last words of wisdom which I was offered by Sid, was this :

'When you become comfortable at a place, its time to move'

I took his preaching very seriously. And, when the opportunity arrived I grabbed it eagerly with both hands. I am now moving to Marcushof where I will have a small meagerly furnished room and attached toilet. The bathrooms and kitchen is common to every floor , shared by 10 to 15 people. Its an exciting place to live, since you meet different people every day, especially while cooking in the common kitchen. Every weekend and even in weekdays, there is a party on a floor where you meet even more party animals.

Marcushoff Party in Common Kitchen

Of course living all alone by myself in single room will be tough now. I wont have a friendly face welcoming me with a cup of tea, when I return from work, neither a helping hand during weekend-cleaning-ceremonies. But that is a small price you pay for big adventures. You have to come out of your comfort zone to experience new.

But it wont be so tough after all. Marcushof is just a kilometer from AVS. And since they are letting me keep the keys to the flat I have free access to my former home. Also, Its about time I immerse myself in my thesis which is progressing at snail pace. A dose of solitude will help me focus on my work, I hope.

No Enthu No Team

My biggest problem  is my obsession with excitement. I am perpetually excited guy. I am excited about my work, sports, friends, strangers, talking, walking, running, biking, eating, cooking, smoking, drinking, chatting, movies, music. Even at the age of 27 when people start thinking of settling down with family (some have already married with kids) , I still feel 18. There is still so much to see, so much to learn, so much to discover. (Ofcourse love, family, children are beautifull things to discover, but it can still wait)

One of the things which I discovered recently and which is exciting my intellectual senses beyond my wildest imagination is Journalism. I have joined a Student Editorial Team of TU Delta, an independent newspaper for the Technological University of Delft. This special team is working on TU Delta 18, which will be released on May 28 2009. 

TU DELTA-18

The team consists of around 20 students , half of them are Dutch and rest international. We have been given the challenge to make the Newspaper more appealing and relevant to students. 

There is a lot of work to be done. And right from the day one we have been brainstorming ideas towards improvement of the newspaper.  This newspaper will be by the students, for the students and of the students.

sTUDelta-18

I am the cartoonist of this paper. Edgar, one of the coordinator of this team has promised to arrange a PC-drawing Tablet for me. I can use it to draw cartoons directly into the computer and process it using Photoshop.Also, I am working together with different students on various articles. Since these articles are going to be published in Newspaper, we have to be careful with the facts and figures and follow some guidelines on professional journalism. This makes the task challenging but exciting as well

I am working harder and harder on this project. The articles are always on the back of my mind when am working , sleeping or having normal conversation with friends. Every thing I see, hear or feel is processed by brain cell for worthiness of an article in the Newspaper. New ideas which keep popping in my head, I jot them down , to explore its possibilities later.

However, the problem starts when your enthusiasm and excitement is not shared by few people working with you. The purpose behind creation of this special editorial team is not only to create a student's newspaper  but also provide a platform where dutch and international students can work together, to bridge a social divide which plagues the university campus. However, the goals of the team cannot be fulfilled if the team-members fail to show up in the meetings and work alone on their respective articles. If they were so busy , they should never have volunteered to join team. If they are such good writers , they should have sent their articles to the full time editors and get them published in a regular TUDelta newspaper. We do not need your literary skills and past editorial experiences and neither your apologies for absence in the meetings or blackboard discussions. 

What we need is your enthusiasm. A passion to participate. A love for integration.

Life under construction

Soon after my birth in Bhopal my parents brought me to Durgapur where my Dad worked in Durgapur Steel Plant. We used to lived in a small township in a small house provided by DSP.

Durgapur under construction

As I grew up I saw my town grow into a budding city. I saw woods in front of our government housing being felled to create residential complex. I saw truck and lorries piling mountain of bricks and sands and cement on the cleared sites. It was a dream come true for the children in our locality. We used to spend hours playing in the mud, digging tunnels through the mountains of sand and cement and searching for our slippers and shoes lost in the sand piles. At dawn our favorite game was hide and seek in the newly constructed hollow buildings. It used to take mom an hour to wash away dirt from my scalp, ear, nose and nails !!

Since then we have moved to bigger appartments (after every major promotion of dad) and I have played with every brick and every pile of sand and cement which went into their construction.

Even after I grew up to my teens, too old to play in dirt, the trucks, lorries and road rollers were still ubiquitous in Durgapur. It was nice to see the next generation of kids still playing the same sand games in the construction sites. I sometimes used to join them to revive old memories and teach them the art of digging deeper tunnels in sand piles.
It seemed that my town will be forever under construction.

Bangalore under Construction

When I got admitted in Ramaiah, Engineering college in Bangalore I was glad to leave the small developing town to live in a fully developed city. However, little did I know that even this hi tech city was trying to rebuild itself to compensate for the population explosion (due to software and telecom revolution). So the the first thing I see on my arrival in Bangalore is renovation of the Central Station. Then I saw roads being widened and the ones which could not be widened anymore getting converted into oneway lanes. New Malls and resdential complex were springing up every week and new restaurants and bakeries ever day.

Even Ramaiah cammpus was not aloof from the reconstruction mania. The Electronics Department had just been demolished and a new building for Electrical Sciences was under construction. At the end of my first semester I saw my Mechanical Engineering Departmental Building go into rubbles. And for the next four years we never had our own department. We had to share facilities with Civil and Electrical Engineering.

Mechanical Photoshoot infront of Electrical Sciences Building

We lived in the students hostel with a constant threat that soon the hostel will be demolished and hostelites will be asked to evacuate the place. The threat was real. Because somehow despite refurbishment of the entire university, the hostel was always the most neglected section on the campus. The rooms were never repaired despite complaints of leaking walls during monsoons. The dirt road in front of the hostel was never repaired and the parking space for hostelites never constructed. What they did instead was constructed a new Degree College right next to the hostel which brought more dirt and dust into the hostel premise.

We had heard rumors that founder chairman of Ramaiah Institute was cursed/blessed with eternal prosperity only if he never stops constructing. So Ramaiah demolishes and reconstructs existing building if there is nothing else to construct !!

TU Delft Under Construction

I came to TU Delft again expecting that the university with world wide reputation will at least have a fully developed campus and facilities in place. Alas.... this is what I got : (pics to be uploaded)