Newfound love for language and grammar on Internet

My body cells divided and redivided themselves somewhere between 'grammar' and 'grmmr', 'love' and 'lve'. Now the complexity in this case is that ‘lve’ can stand for both 'love' and 'live'.

Hash tagging every important word and being part of the new trend, sending ':D' even when one doesn't curve his lips in the shape of a crescent moon after those lame jokes, is by the way, a trend these days! What say do you have regarding 'stahp' in place of 'stop'? Typing another alphabet didn't cost u much, did it? We live in a world where "switch off" has a lesser significance than "fuck off".

In the process of growing up, we abridged our texts, trimmed our feelings and conquered emotions. Not to forget blaming the prediction software every time the 'Grammar Nazis' point out our mistakes. Introverts get a chance of exposure while extroverts make every unnecessary and sadly, very necessary things for themselves, public. That summarizes the social media in today’s generation. I know you can read "Iliad" if you decide to read it just then but sadly e-books neither smell as sensuous as old books nor are as voluptuous as the new books do. Due to some mysterious reasons, I have always preferred flipping pages over clicking mouse buttons to slide the page forward, favoured ransacking different libraries for an appropriate criticism on Alexander Pope, than being satisfied with Wikipedia and the copy paste of its contents on several other less important sites.

I know that the internet is an inexpensive, easily accessible and extremely economic source in its terms and conditions but don't blame me when suddenly the airtel 3G net pack and wi-fi stop being sympathetic towards your endless demands. Though at some point I fear I cannot defend my arguments since they have their own set of advantages too, in today’s fast paced life, where I will sound like the 'meek lamb' and the people who love the Internet as a medium for learning or propagating language will be represented as the ferocious 'tyger'.

But if one claims his preference for long-term relationships over those one night stands, so can I for my 'old school of thoughts' and learning.

About the Author:

 Ahana Bhaumik is an English Honours student at Loreto College. A determined atheist, she will be found doodling anytime, anywhere. A writer and amateur photographer, she lets music speak her mind.

Indians and their Hypocrisy

Ask Indians how dirty the streets are, they are likely to get excited and talk in lengths about the corrupt politicians, poor implementation, lack of planning et al, and then you ask them what they have done to change this, they would run out of words. Yes, that's how we are.We the Indians!From the early morning till late evening one can find food stalls along the streets and people relishing on the hot samosas and other delicacies, unaware of what they are littering on the streets and doing nothing to keep the city clean. Yet we can lecture you about why our country is way behind other developed countries. We are really unique in our way you see!

We would express our aversion to Bollywood song and how the lyrical content damages our 'Cultural legacy'. Nevertheless, we match our steps with its very rhythm while partying somewhere. Wouldn't you call it a sheer hypocrisy?!
                         We would recall our good old days, our childhood before technology took over, how we used to play on fields and not fixate our heads on smart phones; how kids these days are glued to their smart phones and other gadgets, we lecture them the value of regular physical activity and maintaining fitness. However, we never think twice before uploading a picture of a recent place we have been to on social media, do not hesitate to 'like'  profile pictures of our friends and relatives.

Even we are much delighted to order a pair of cushion covers online, scroll through the 'Online Shopping Sites' and let me talk about something worse now, we even 'whatsapp' our kids to come home early! Yes, that's true! but we never admit that technology has made our lives faster, easier and comfortable as much as we loathe its harmful impact.

                     We Indians, and especially the Bengalis, like to talk behind people. We have got so much expert views to throw at them, albeit from behind! We only have worse things to say about them, regardless of who or what they are! we are experts in criticizing others, we confine such analysis of human behaviour in our small groups, where such discussions tend to sum up becoming a 'hot topic' and a great game to pass the time.

But we fear to tell such things upfront and are even weary of picking up a fight or facing confrontations. Yes we are cowards, deal with it!
                     And finally, the most hilarious one. The entire nation went abuzz when Maria Sharapova declared that she doesn't know who Sachin Tendulkar is, the man whom we all consider the 'God of cricket'. We designed a number of memes on every social media platform, of course, to humiliate her statement shedding light to its 'idiocy'.

But sometime later when an Indian named  Kailash Satyarthi won Nobel prize for 'Peace' we were caught with our pants down when we had to google him. Surprisingly another Nobel laureate in the same category is known to all of us! Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani national! 
                       Interestingly we don't care about our shortcomings, rather we are cool about it, we take little interest in straightening ourselves, our problems hardly bother us! We believe in 'Chalta Hai' ( willingness to easily compromise )attitude and the 'Jugaad'(a quick fix to a seemingly difficult problem) without addressing to the real problem.We like working on our own terms.

'Indians' we are, a 'laid back' race!

About the Author:

 Sandipan Mandal is presently studying information and communications technology at Jadavpur University. A movie buff, Sandipan holds a keen interest in writing and voicing social issues out loud.

The Love Ballads

Everyone of us has seen one of the many glorious love ballads played out on screen at one point of time or another.  And at least for a moment or more we have marvelled at the larger than life cinematography of these songs. 

Now let's take a moment here.  All of us have in our heart of hearts framed an idea as to what love is, what it looks like and other blah.  Although some of us,  have this hypocrisy of the new age 'Love is crap!'.  But come on, we do take ourselves down to Earthly pleasures. Attachment sounds sense. Isn't it? 

Anyway,  now as all the great minds and philosophers of the world have put it,  love is a relatively simple matter of fact. It is something which exists in everyone's life in one point of time or another. So what is this larger than life unreal portrayal of something that is so corny and common?

  Yes,  we all agree that the average mainstream movie making IQ of our times is terribly low.  But I am referring to a routine  which has been in place for more than half a century. Romantic songs shot in a dream sequence, a surreal location.  Ask yourself.  Why?

Somewhere in our underlying subconscious do we feel that 'romance' is a far fetched notion? As in getting attached to someone romantically is a misnomer in itself?  Hold your knives.  I hope not as well.  But just food for thought. Why is it then that famous directors(read brilliant cinematic minds)  have always portrayed love songs in otherwise grandeur sequences?

  And we always seem to lap it up easily. On the other hand, the 'sad' songs are shot in commonplace settings, mostly. Apparently,  if a person with no understanding of human emotions would perceive love as intangible and heartbreak as very very real.

Perhaps(or maybe not),in some abyss of human psychology,  we all know for a fact that true love,  Like the one we eulogise can never truly exist and what we see around us is too plastic to debate.
Does 'Love' really require such exaggerated depictions?

Think.!!

P.S -  From a believer. Not a pessimist. 

About the Author:

 Kunal Gupta is a Software Engineer by profession. A music aficionado and Literature enthusiast, Kunal is a big time foodie and admires 'Chandler'.

Vulnerability

"Sometimes, I wonder why I have become so vulnerable. Is it because of him?..Maybe it is.Small things did not affect me before, even when it did,I never felt it to be necessary to share with someone .Emotions have become my weakness.Instead of growing up, I am stuck in this phase of constant emotional upheaval where the smallest of taunts from people upset me.

The pieces were falling bit by bit and I didn't even notice.Now it is too late to do anything except lament over it.There was a time when I could pretend with ease the fact that nothing affects me..Well, when he arrived I was finally able to admit to someone that his practicality affected me since I was idealistically inclined towards Utopian concepts..
         Gradually, I started to admit to him how almost everything affected me.

I cried.. I moaned...I shouted! He handled it well..but for how long?? The smallest of snide comments upset me and I blabber that to him..How and when did the strong walls that I had built around myself shatter? Emotionally, I have become a vulnerable lunatic, depended on "sweet" words for happiness.
            It's time to pull myself together. I've to try! Loving him, I have learnt practicality..'learnt' won't be appropriate.. How about 'learning'? It's time to pick up the crumbling remains and build those walls again..to control these topsy-turvy emotions..to stop being so vulnerable..to be as strong as I was before..otherwise, he'll eventually get tired and exhausted and irritated of my very presence. He'll get tired of loving me!

Maybe that is why, I feel that if I am not constantly in touch with him, he'll probably disappear like a very good dream disappears when you wake up, leaving you with that "too good to be true" feeling...

           Yes, he is that dream"..

-Sneha Mathur, Age: 16

During Adolescence, the stage of development which Psychologists often term as the 'GANG AGE', the teen brain does go through dramatic changes. Teen-hood is the very time when the acts made by youngsters are too juvenile to consider sincerely. This however, leads to emotional turmoils, gives rise to dilemmas, bipolar behaviour, mood oscillations....Ah well..so much more!

Why is the Teen Brain so Vulnerable?

During early and mid-adolescence, the teen brain undergoes a rough time. Consistent Neural Growth and synaptic pruning changes the connectivity in subtle regions of brain. Also, the 'Prefrontal Cortex', which is the seat of 'Executive Functions' remain pliable in adolescence. Hence, the brain struggles a Transitional Switch.

Few Statistics are of the opinion that human brain does not fully mature until about the age of 25. As a result of which, youngsters grow malleable. They mess their room bad, laugh uncontrollably at times, cut wrists because of silly reasons like Break-ups and flunking in exams, and get along somehow. Nevertheless, mostly daydream!

So, Hey! Teenagers out there! Do not worry! You haven't grown up yet. It's just the fact that 'Teenage' is the age when you cross the big seas, fight the storms and beat the devil down. You are susceptible to stress. I know you stealthily grab pack of smoke from the Grocer's shop. I know you wet your blankets howling. But it's okay! Once you get to know you are getting deviated from the path you should have traversed, take deep breaths, sob out your troubles with your mate, start from the scratch and move.

That's how we grow up kid!  

About the Author:

 Barsha Bhattacharya is a First Year English Honours student at Loreto College, Kolkata. A bibliophile, Barsha cultivates a passion in her for writing pieces. 

                                             

'Karma' is our Creation.

The aggression after a fight or a breakup or a conflict or of being a victim of something worse often trigger something unusual in us and many of us rather most of us do yell out with all the agitation,I believe in karma and it definitely is a "bitch." I don't wish to hinder the outlook of the devotional beings , categorically termed as the "orthodox." I wouldn't be emphasising on the Bohemian outlook either. It's definitely not a bizzare to have the profound faith in the unseen. Although I would like to inquire do you know who wrote the bible or the Bhagwath Gita? Have you experienced something out of the world, some eccentric power to turn the coin on your side when you've lost a toss? You didn't I presume, to emphasise on luck would deviate the topic of concern but it might just be an instance, everything might just be an incident or coincidence. It might be , although  at times I wonder the root of them, the root of our own existence as human beings. Did the apple bite really set the beginning of all the human beings ?

If it did Adam and Eve's were offsprings of another couple of apple eaters and so were their ancestors? So to badger about what I started to conflict with in my mind and typing them down,that whether karma is our own creation. I would love to wonder how the beggar in the street who you knew would beg for some money to feed himself and his son ,died one day out of hunger.He must have always cursed karma, he must have always prayed to the almighty for the magnificent to happen. Did it happen to him? I think you have your eyebrows meeting each other and a smirky faced expression to have read what you just read. I knew the really over-smart little kid in our nearby bus-stop , he was definitely good at observation, he observed the ones he begged from, he observed the way of communicating, he skilled himself to learn and know some English words, had the grey matter to embrace an affectionate relation with a cigarette shop-owner next lane to his street where he slept and I eventually saw him working there, washing the tea cups and earning himself a shelter on the benches behind the shutter. It wasn't karma but his will power to not cling onto the anguish of being an orphan but have his own identity and to have the pleasure to call for a much better life. He perhaps have had the faith that almighty was kind enough to him than the rest who just are like him,letting go of his own capability to have earned it. The politician who you think should probably be hanged to death but has all the power he or she is playing with has mental peace?

Trust me he or she dies in fear everyday, does everything unusual to cover up that what kills him or her with the fear of losing everything one day.That is not karma but the fear wrongdoings will make him or her slip out some unexpected evidence that'll call for the end of their reign. It's never hierarchical in today's society. You think Ajmal Kasab didn't panic or howl in memories of what he'll leave behind when he was hanged to death, that's how "karma" was polite to him or rather he himself was to himself by having the power to understand the  essence of the disaster of 26/11 and died in repentance but peace. I would now loiter around something complex, the Indian society, the tremendously hyped relationship between a daughter in law and  a mother in law. We mostly sit with the bucket of popcorn and gape at episodes after episodes, the more known term being the "k" serials. We hear of a million cases in real life too and over 60% of complaints of the middle and lower middle class economic group made to the police , lawyers for a divorce has been this.

The daughter in law for instance have been horrified with the torments and household tornado, she out of aggression or pain commits a suicide . The in laws are all hailed and welcomed to the lockup , after some interrogation they somehow get out of that mess and then they look for the betterment of their son, they get him married again. It's the fear of what they have been through will help them rectify them. It's karma? No, the laws. It was so obvious and expected. What about the boy who was bullied everyday in his school and then the teacher or principal receives the complaint, the "superior"peers have the time of their life and they are scared so they transform to being better, it's not karma, it's self realisation. I wouldn't sympathise with the kid who gets bullied everyday and doesn't take a stand for herself or himself. Although the growing impact of the thrust of grief will play with those nerves that let him or her be calm and terrified. He or she might someday acquire some psychological disorder or have some alter in the configuration of perseverance way different from the rest.Once cured from there might turn out to be an unique independent, successful being and might have some real guts to face the hardest of hardest storms. He shall have the sun kissed phase then but that was him, that was the incidents that defied the definition he would have to define himself. I wonder how much you've cursed you ex boyfriend or ex girlfriend to have left you after you loved him or her so much.

The "ex" might have realised and maybe came back to you and you slammed the door on his or her face. The one you cursed for all so long , well they have had the lesson. Alright for the other instance, you did accept the one who had apparently let you all alone and shattered after the person comes back to you because that is how you wanted and you've earned that because of the way you are , because of the way you loved them, not because karma was kind to you. And for the worse who is a "bitch" or "dog" or "moron" or what you generally refer to as ,is a "whore" might hop onto one relationship to another but someday will have his or her heart skip a beat , will think of you and feel bad and curse karma, curse himself or herself and would finally realise he or she was wrong.They might get the rejection from the society too to have the enlightenment of self realisation. They might not knock at your door to console you with the realisation but would you keep waiting for someone who would move on with another  person and not ever be considerate about your feelings? The day you'd move on and find the glitters of your life, you might just proclaim Oh! Karma does exist but would you have no faith in yourself to have come out strong and bestow yourself with what you really deserve? I'd again go back on the popcorn craving instances to today's society,a girl repeatedly gets molested , tortured and is left shattered. She gathers herself and earns the bread of honour, the honour she deserves to have come out strong. You really think the rapists, the frustrated bloodsuckers have any peace in life ? They do have some definite , abnormal rage in them to have become what they have. The frustration level of those vampires grow all the more and the conflict clock keeps clicking in their head, they end up ruining their life, they definitely don't have one though. They have made it that way for them to have all the peace stirred . The ones who are abducted lawfully have the best kiss of fate intercoursing deep down to have that organ castrated literally having no apparent use of it left to them. That isn't karma , that is the conflict of mind that drag you down when you let someone down.

We do hurt people around us unknowingly or knowingly ,judge unintentionally or intentionally and trust me when you're talking about someone , how do you know you are not being talked about or the person you're speaking to might just be judging you too. The times you realise your flaws, you have the repentance, you might say sorry or you don't. It's just a word though it does make a lot of difference. It's not karma but your self realisation to change your outlook and have respect for the other one. Trust me your relationship with yourself sets the tone of your relationship with the rest.

About the Author:

 Chirasree Bandyopadhyay is pursuing BSc. Animation and Multimedia from VIT University, Vellore. Born and raised up in Calcutta, Chirasree nurtures unfathomable love for writing that seems to be her only recreation from everydayness.