It was an uncharacteristically cool morning in Chennai. I had a female friend by my side and we were enjoying a nice walk along the beautifully tiled pavement outside IIT Chennai. All of a sudden a guy walking in the opposite direction slammed into my friend. The impact was so violent that she lost her balance and fell on me and by the time we were back on our feet he was long gone.

What happened to the Delhi brave heart is similar to what happened to my friend. It was an unprovocated act of violence on a female. Rapes and violence against women have been such a common occurrence that it had got confined to just another news article for all of us. But something about the attack against Jyoti Singh Pandey hit a chord in all of us. Was it the brutal nature of the attack, the story of a girl from humble background with tremendous support from her parents and great will power striving for a better future or just the fact a young couple were brutally attacked after watching a movie, something all of us can relate to. I tend to believe the attack shows the collective failure of our society. If one of the several odd auto guys at saket mall had decided to drop the couple or If we had proper public transport systems at night or if the police had acted upon the complaint of the carpenter who was stolen of his money in the same bus or if the 31 police check posts that the bus passed had stopped the bus in time Jyoti Singh Pandey would have graduated, supported her parents and maybe even opened a medical clinic in her remote village. We as a society could not protect a 23 year old woman someone who deserved to live maybe than most of us someone who could have given so much to our country.

There is certainly something seriously wrong about how we see our women. Rape in itself is a heinous crime but what I couldn’t digest was just the monstrosity of the attacks. Leave alone men attacking a woman, how is it possible for a human being to behave this way to another human. From what I read, the doctors on duty that night at Safdarjung Hospital were just shocked at the amount of physical trauma inflicted on the girl .When admitted she was left with only 5% of her intestines and had massive internal injuries which led to the cardiac arrest and subsequent death. She was raped and tortured to death and what is the most disturbing is the youngest of the accused at 17 years was supposedly the cruelest. It is certainly our very low conviction rates in rape cases coupled with the confidence that they would never be caught that led these people to commit such a heinous crime.

The whole country came out in protests but do we really have the right to protest when we ourselves are to blame. The friend of victim says for near 20 mins when they were lying on the road naked, broken there was not a single one who came to their help. The auto guys, police, politicians the passersby everyone involved are people like us. There has been a sudden clamor for capital punishment for rape accused but if capital punishment was a deterrent then murders would have reduced long ago. The fact remains we are not able to protect our women. For the women reading this we are sorry, our country needs more you but we don’t have the spine to protect you. We as a country should never forget the brave heart who was being raped and tortured when the rest of us having a meal with our family and friends, enjoying a movie or just going about her life. She didn’t deserve it but we failed her.

S3 Starts with a bang.

Our college, being ranked among the best in the country owes that credit to some of the unparalleled teaching geniuses working among the staff. It was always noted and said many a time that MOST of our teachers were just out of the world beings, one’s who could just come to class and teach entire subjects at a stretch without anything as little as a glimpse into the text books. The following might tell you why.

We started the third semester two months ago. And like always, we have new teachers, and new subjects. One of these dealt with heat transfers and stuff, which a mere mortal like me still finds pretty hard to comprehend. I was trying to study it for the series exam tomorrow. And then this incident flashed on my mind. Since I’ve already officially given up hopes of passing the exam, I thought I’d just come here and put this much down, hoping to give life to my wheezing, dying blog.

So where was I. Ah yes, Heat transfer.

So this Sir. Let us call him Mr. X.(For the sake of mine sessional marks in the unlikely event of him coming across this post). So Mr. X is teaching us about heat. I’m as usuall nodding off in class(so are many more people); my upper torso on the verge of falling over- thanks to another late night the day before, wasting time fruitlessly online. And it happened before I could control it.

YAAAAAAAAWNNNNNNNNNNN

Mr. X: “ Ellarum enthade oru ksheenam pole, orakkam thane” (Why is everyone so sleepy?)

Some wiseguy: “Sir this is a BIT boring”.

Mr. X:

This might be boring. Let me make the class a bit more interesting. Let us talk about wider topics. <loads of blah blah>. Anyone know what re-entry is?”

Another wise guy: “Term used for when a space vehicle returns to the atmosphere”

Mr X: “ Correct!. Now the speed at which the vehicle returns is approximately 20 thousand miles per hour. Due to the friction with air, that generates a heat of kakkathollayiram into ten raised to 5 joules per centimetre”

*Class sits up straight. People are definitely getting interested*

Mr X Continues:

“So proper heat insulation is mandatory for the space vehicle. NASA has developed different substances for that. Example, silica tiles.

VSSC il insulation tiles research chaiyunan oru main character njan anu (I’m one of the main people doing research about this at VSSC)

We have developed a new material and tested it for heat resistance and then we plotted a graph.

This is the graph I got *Draws a graph*

And this is the graph NASA got for their material *Draws a strikingly similar graph*

Iee subject ile RANDU international paper ente peril anu. Njan ezhutiyata. Ente peru google chaitu nokiya kaanam (Two international papers in this subject are by me. You can get it be googling my name)

*explodes*Basically njan ithrem valia oru sambhavam anu

Ah ente classilanoda neeyokke kedanu orangune ? ninakonum naanam illeda.

Itoke bhayankara interesting anu.. itonum arinjodate neeyonum orukaalatum pass akan ponila. Gonam pidikathilla

Alla pinne”

(Basically I rock. And how dare you sleep in MY class. Shameless creatures. This is an interesting topic. Without knowing all this, you will never pass anything.. be damned)

Audience: “blink blink”

-A.M.D.G.

LOBA AGM-08

The LOBA, AGM(Annual General body meeting) took place on the 17th of August as planned. The venue was the Subramonium hall of Trivandrum club. The function was attended by Rev. Fr Varghese Anikuzhy- principal, Loyola school, Fr.Joseph Edassery- Vice principal, Loyola school, Fr. Pius Vachaparambil-Rector, Loyola Institutions and Fr Toby and Fr. Biju- the new jesuit teachers from Loyola.

This years AGM recorded one of the lowest attendances in recent times with the tally hitting just 78, and hitting  near 100 with family included. As always everyone has a different reason as to why the attendance was low and this time it was blamed on the Kerala University exams which keeps the college students in Trivandrum busy.

Fr. Anikuzhy and Fr. Vachaparambil spoke on why we needed to take care to see that these functions are taken a bit more seriously and why every member should take upon themselves to make it a success. Mr. Pradeep Kumar, an ancient old boy, in his umpteenth role as a speaker at a LOBA function stressed on the importance of the same and went on to say about relating with other jesuit alumni associations. Fr. Edassery continued on this note and went on into detail about the jesuit connections all over the world.Fr. Edassery followed this up by announcing the office bearers for the next year. Mr. Arun George was chosen as the President. Syam Nath S(ie. ME) was elected to be secretary. Mr. Manu Cyriac was chosen as the treasurer whilst Mr. Ashik S. Kalam became one of the two joint secretaries.

This was followed by cultural events, which included a few dance items by the children of some OBA members, who are presently studying in the school, and playing of the piano by an old boy(I forgot his name 😐 ). The audience then went on to have a well prepared seven course dinner before leaving the venue.

***
From the recent 10 years batches, we had former school leader Krishnachandran (98)( and a few of his friends) and School leader, Arun Mohan (2005) attending the ceremony.

This years AGM cannot be claimed to be a big success. However, I am not selected as the Secretary. A post I did decline at first but which was thrusted on me.(Ah well, I think only i voted against me 😐 ). I want to give it my best shot in the coming year. I want to make a difference. I want to rekindle the spirit of the association. These are dreams. But as Dr.  Kalam said, you have to start dreaming. Only then you can turn those into reality. Today, im wishing that we could bring about a change in the Association. Perhaps we can work together and change it such that one day the AGM will at least be attended by scores more.

For starters,
I think that a lot of potential audience did not turn out today just because they didn’t know about the function(Some told me so). We are trying to start an SMS alert system for the old boys- for we/I think that more people check their SMs’s than emails or posts. For starters i wish you people would just register for the alerts. Alerts will be send only on occassion which might run into 3-4 a year.
Please click HERE to join the list.

Taking charge as secretary, I want to start being a bit more interactive with the members. Can’t you tell me how to start? Can’t you people take a bittttttt of an interest and at least suggest some measures. Suggest some ways to make our programmes more attractive. Anything?

Also, Anyone who is willing to volunteer to be in charge of the LOBA website please contact me at getmesyam@gmail.com.

I need your suggestions and support. If you could please do that, i’d be very greatful 🙂

Thanks.
Expecting many replies
Syam Nath S.
Secretary.
LOBA

-AMDG

LOBA – AGM

Yes, I’m back and hopefully for good. The short break I took wasn’t so short. I got too busy with Semester exams and stuff. And before that my computer crashed. Anyway, now that I’ve finally opened this notepad I will write something I wanted to for a long time now.

****

The LOBA, Annual General body Meeting-hereafter referred to as the AGM- is set to happen this year on the 17^th of August. Most years we have the AGM at the Loyola campus. However, on a rather old old boy pointing out that the best AGM’s ever to be held were held at Trivandrum club, the venue this year has been shifted to the Trivandrum club. This venue is also more suitable for a family gathering, as it is not so far as Loyola is from the city. The programme will begin at 5:30 in the evening and go on till 9 or 9:30.

Last year, when I had joined LOBA, I then itself got “appointed” as the joint secretary(grr id like to know who did that). And I used to think it was pretty easy running the show. On the way I’ve heard criticisms of how the committee functions. I thought maybe its just a talk, and maybe we’ll pull out a spectacular show at the back to school programme. With DP being the chief guest, a large audience was expected. Thinking along those lines, the committee arranged for large amounts of food, which turned out to be a mistake as only 120 people turned up. Now 120, is a normal attendance for an AGM. But as like every year, we overestimate the number and order huge quantities of food, causing a financial loss to the committee.

*****************************************

(on a personal note)

Why I like the OBA.

When I left school I was kind of sad, just like every other classmate. Sad because we knew that we are leaving the happiest days of our lives behind us, because we knew, like every other kid leaving that place, that life wont be the same again. They may say that college would be a happier place, it is SO happening, etc, but I’m sure that all the Loyolites agree with me that they pleasure we find in the company of a Loyolite gang is unsurpassed.

And most of the gang says they’ve found good company there. So have I, but I still think that I’ve found better company by joining up as the LOBA joint secy, than joining college. People two times my age have given me better companionship than those in class.

I’ve found friends from every branch of the Loyola family tree. And what wonderful people they are. I’m always proud to say that I know people from the very first batch of Loyola. Isn’t that what the OBA is all about? Knowing people and keeping in touch ? Myself, I am a social animal (as a teacher told me at school once). I love making new friends.

I’ve noticed that, once you are in that gang, whenever you need a help, be it anything in life, you will always know the right people to ask. We have contacts- important contacts- from every field imaginable. I’ve always felt that whenever ive wanted to know about something etc, I’ve always knew where to turn to. Is 2 hours of your time at a nice venue too much to pay for that?

To The Critics:

I’ve felt many times that many people do not agree with the way LOBA functions. It is easy for them to criticise. Many people do not realise that a handful of people spill cash out of their own pockets to run meetings etc. Never is a rupee touched from the fund that we have as deposit. Every time a loss was incurred at the AGM or any other programme; someone had taken up that cost. It costs them a lot of money, time and energy to organize something like this. It is just too sad to see that not many people realize it. I know there are many, who will turn up for the occasions, not for the grandeur of it, but just because they want to relive their school lives, meet old friends. This is a request that as many of you as possible try to make it to the place and help recreate the school days we soo miss. I really hope that many more people feel that way this time and try to make it there on the 17^th of August.

Blooper of the year

This happened yesterday. Thats like the last day of first year in college. Me and three friends are on our way to the juice parlour in front of the college. Two of them stand outside as me and the 4th(Ironically, he shares my same name), enter the shop. Now at this place you can get watermelon mixes for 5 a glass. I see a girl- possibly a senior of ours- sipping on one and i turn and tell my friend “De iee sadhanam kollam”. He gives me a blank straight faced expression and walks out. I’m left wondering what happend till i turned around and seized up the situation. There i am, pointing my hand at that girl and saying “de this ones good” and that girls staring at me.LOL.

Now thats not the end of the story. After around 15 minutes we get in and order our stuff and THEN, the other two guys walk in. One asks the other “de enthanu iee water melon sambhavam ? ” (Whats this watermelon stuff ?”). The latter points to that same girl and quips. “De iee sambhavam… kollam ”

Girl ..stares.!

-AMDG