CrOsSwOrD !!!

FRONT BENCHERS-

a baffling species …

Front benchers have always been highlighted as the brilliant CFLs amongst the zero watt bulbs. Isn’t it a pity that the people who are the majority “seat-holders” in the class (namely the back benchers who are considered extremely virulent organisms causing communicative noise-o-comial infections) have to bear the brunt of sarcasm who thinks sense of humour is something that only is the anterior chamber of eyes (yes!! The front benchers)

If you thought a front bencher was a shy and timid character with (1) spectacle, and (2) heavy bag

You are wrong!!! Those were the days of the past. As these days certain mutant strains prevail-

* 50 percent front benchers are actually the backbenchers called to the front row by the teachers when caught talking or sleeping (proving thereby that, to sit on the front bench is no less than a punishment)

* 10 percent are lazy and sluggish who make an entry in the class and collapse on the very first seat they see vacant, saving their precious calories.

* 10 percent are myopics who have left their spectacles at their hostels or still not able to see with their spectacles on (especially people like me)

* 10 percent are people with sensoryneural deafness with no other choice but to sit in front.yes yes!! These are those people who if by chance happened to sit at back bench will be saying that people talk too much and make statements like I could not make out a single word spoken in this lecture.

* 10 percent are firm believers of the philosophy that its always the backbenchers who are questioned

* 5 percent think that to be in their  fantasy world is easier to sit on the front bench rather than at the back

* Remaining 5 percent are “jack of all trades and master of none”, who have this problem of “Gyaan hai par aata kuch Nahi”, the sufferers of the psychological disorder called “kitabophilia”. Love and support is the treatment …

So … think before you sit on the front bench next time !!! :P

- Mansi Sharma (2010 Batch) 

&

Sweta Agrawal (2008 Batch)

Roommate ko ‘tang ‘ karne ke tareeke

(Statutory warning –All the actions written below should be performed at one’s own risk :P)

• Wipe your wet dripping hands on your roommate’s clothes instead of your towel.
• Boil some eggs .eat them sitting in front of your roommate. Offer him /her too. And if he /she agree, serve it unboiled. And watch with a grin as they crack it open
• Take out that small electronic chip from a musical greeting card and place it beneath his/her pillow. So whenever he /she will try to fetch some peaceful sleep... the pillow will sing
• Mix some edible colour in their liquid hand wash .so when they try to wash their hands. The land up messier than before and you merrier than before.
• Every day shift your roommate’s stuff some feet away. In about 2 weeks his/her furniture will almost be out of the room making him/her think that the world shifting!!!

• Take a foul smelling substance and hide it beneath roommate’s bed. They will then tear their room apart looking for the smell. watch them go crazy but arrange a good room freshener too
• Take your roommate’s shoes and glue them to the floor and watch them being stuck up 
• Replace your roommate’s deodorant with cream icing bottle’s contents. The next time they try to  get fresh, they will get a cheesy cream surprise
• Pour some baby powder on ceiling fan and when your roommate turns it on. The powder would be everywhere. Then watch him/her clean the mess
• Coat your roommate’s soap bar with a transparent nail polish and let it dry .your roommate will go nuts trying to get lather out of it.Pour some glue over your roommate’s cell phone and when it rings he/she will receive the call in the most stickiest way possible
• Empty your roommate’s shampoo bottle and fill it with baby oil. The next time they want to have a head bath, they will come out in the oily wet look .don’t laugh, it can happen to you too.
• Set four a.m.  wake up alarm in your roommate’s cell phone/clock and hide it somewhere near him/her and be ready to bear the brunt if caught
• If your roommate likes to listen to songs loudly ,then learn the lyrics of his/her favourite song and next time when he /she plays it .sing on the top of your voice like you have never sung before to ruin his/her pleasure
• Switch off the chargers when your roommate is not noticing.. And the time when your roommate goes bonkers by seeing the low battery symbol on his /her device... It is the time to be environmentalist. That’s when he/she asks for an explanation. Just say innocently that you were saving energy. But yes be ready to run after that. Otherwise the consequences can be dangerous 

...There are lots more ..these are just a few of them .. just let that naughty part of your grey matter take over the charge and see the ideas flow.

-Compiled by students residing in the hostels of DMIMS

Fictional Diseases

Platytrichia

Also known as Straight Hair Syndrome. Occurs exclusively in females.

Etiology: the etiology of the disease is mainly psychological, but is modified by several external (environmental) factors. The psychological factors include an increased desire to be noticed combined with assumptions that straight hair looks better than normal. External factors include increased exposure to visual contact with males, GFC celebrations, weddings and other occasions. The disease may also be idiopathic, occurring without any reason, giving it the title ‘idiot’pathic platytrichia.

Pathogenesis: visit to the beauty parlour with or without gang of friends, followed by exchange of monetary exudates from purse of patient into the palmar aspect of hands of hair stylist.

Clinical features: Flat curtains of hair hanging down from scalp, excessive swinging of head, repeated checking in mirror when available, continuously enquiring any and every observer/bystander’s opinion about hair.

Diagnosis: Mainly on the basis of history. Usual positive response is given to the question “Wow! Did you straighten your hair?”

Treatment: Conservative treatment involves the inversion of a bucket full of pure distilled water over the external aspect of patient’s cranium. Multiple cycles of conservative therapy may be necessary to achieve the desired results. Surgical treatment involves shaving of the head of the patient. It is rarely performed, although it is instantaneous, cheap and long lasting. Side effects of surgical therapy include long term major psychological disturbances in the patient.

Massbunkiasis

A highly communicable disease “presenting” exclusively among college going  students.

Despite being consistently present in all parts of the country with high levels of prevalence, there is surprisingly very little data available with officials studying this disease. Frequent attempts by several researchers to discover the nature and mechanisms of this disease have all gone in vain. Massbunkiasis has reached almost epidemic levels. However, the introduction of recent breakthrough advances into prophylactic techniques against this disease have yielded some success. Such techniques include levying of fines, disciplinary actions, notification of parents and loss of internal assessment marks.

Gym Jaao Syndrome

Increased interest in and frequency of going to gym.

Etiology: usually caused by apparent weight gain during exams, or close friend going to gym.

Pathogenesis: Unexplained urges to utilize skeletal muscles strenuously by lifting weights of various shapes and sizes in different ways.

Clinical features: Muscular pain, repetitive checking weight and/or waist size to find any differences, intermittent episodes of guilt over skipping a few days of gym and also unnecessary arguments with friends over when to go to gym and with whom.

Diagnosis: On the basis of history, and asking leading questions like “how many times a week do you work out in the gym?”

Treatment: only necessary if patient has any inconvenience. The clinical features usually subside or disappear completely when exams are approaching and are going on.

Schizoproxia

A form of mental disease in which the patient instantaneously assumes the personality of another person only during lectures specifically while attendance is going on.

Etiology: Prearrangement of proxying schedule, sudden message from friend in hostel or restaurant, general welfare of absentees.

Pathogenesis: person prepares himself psychologically and physically to answer the attendance of another person in order to ensure high levels of the absent persons attendance.

Clinical features: Attacks of schizoproxia last for a few seconds only, but in severe cases there may be multiple attacks per lecture depending on whether the lecturer has noticed or not. There are subtle changes in voice and physical appearance, like the addition of glasses or the shifting of one’s seat to another.

Diagnosis: Majority cases are not detected clinically and are left undiagnosed. Careful observation requiring several years of skilled practice are required on the part of lecturer to diagnose student as having shizoproxia. For confirmation of suspected cases, individual crosschecking of all students present in the class can be done.

Treatment: Once a case has been successfully diagnosed by the lecturer, treatment usually involves marking ‘Absent’ for the patient in that lecture, along with careful observation of the patient in all subsequent lectures to check for recurrence. For advanced cases, drastic treatment involves instantaneuosly marking the patient ‘Absent’ in several future classes, apart from “referring” the patient to superspecialists like the HOD or Dean

Zombie syndrome 

A chronic condition in which the victims have an excessive attachment to their bed and even the slightest thought of separating them from it would make them undergo a state of depression. Studies show that this is the most common disease which the Sawangi’ites suffer from with an incidence of 90 % . It is mostly precipitated by mornings and Mondays .It is a contagious and communicable disease mainly due to room-mates and neighbours.

Instant noodle mania

A condition which is characterised by repetitive cooking of noodles striking mostly during night times (especially before exams !!) .There are various etiologies but Maggi and Top raman seem to top the charts from many years .The incidence of this disease  is equal in both the sexes and can be predominantly seen in the hostelites.  Noodles  also serves as a back up plan on Sundays where ‘KHICHDI’ fails to induce hunger or fill tummies .

Obsessive dress change disorder

Disorder mostly affecting the female population of Sawangi in which, the patients shows  symptom of repeated change of clothes atleast  5-6 times before a party or a planned event .The classical sign is that the patient is  generally  late for such an event in which she mostly ends up wearing the one which they tried first  . Party freaks and committed girls are at  a higher risk .

Flabs vs abs fever

Sufferers of this disease are mostly the males in which their main aim is to have Six pack abs . Geographical distribution of such victims is mainly confined to the Gym or the health club area mainly in the evening hours . The Fever may also show a latent phase where the patient is affected by it but shows the symptoms of Gymming later. It characteristically becomes an epidemic after a Salman Khan movie release .Fever shows classical symptoms of Body cramps and Easy Fatiguability in the beginning phase resulting in increased resting time and low attendance .

 

Pratyusha Akkaraju , 2008 Batch

Zakiuddin Mohammed,2007 Batch

A Mixed Bag

‘A Mixed Bag’ that’s what one would term the group of people who live around us. Some of them are tiresomely bubbly & talkative while on the flip side; others sit so quietly that it seems as if they had just been confronted by a cobra or Count Dracula himself & lost their power of speech. And then, there are those who tend to be tediously didactic & preachy. The most annoying being the grouchy types. To think of it, life would become boring without them. Let me make you familiar with some peculiar groups of people.

GROUP 1

  Branded as ‘ cynical critics’,they believe in ‘Everything that goes up

 has to come down’ rather than ‘has to be pulled down!’ No, I’m not referring to Newton’s Law of Gravitation or any other physical law. They are people who will rejoice in pulling down their neighbour’s wall even if their own bull died in the process. They can be a real problem at times because they are the discouraging, debilitating & demoralising lot. So be wary of them!

GROUP 2

Commonly known as the ‘ know-it-alls’, they constantly blow their own trumpets, lecturing about the Fourth state of matter or commenting on Justin Timberlake’s latest chart topping single. One can’t blame them because they themselves are not aware that they can be such pains especially on rainy days.

GROUP 3

This group falls into the so-called ‘dazed ones’. The other day I met my batch-mate who was walking in the corridor with a rather puzzled expression on her face. When I enquired if everything was alright, she reported that her ‘horror’-scope read that this week she would be sailing in the sea of uncertainity & that she was trying to find out what could possibly confuse her! Members of this group are quite jovial & possibly the least irksome of all (as they manage to get a smile on your face).

I would like to go on & on with my ‘psycho-analytic’, but I think I better stop here. Got to get back before sunset or else I won’t be able to see clearly. It’s not because I suffer from night-blindness but because I’m wearing sunglasses.

A Clean Act

“Aaaaahhhh…..!! there’s been a burglary here…help!!Police!!”

That was my mom, when she set foot in my room. The room was in shambles; she thought someone had burgled the place. I had this allergy towards clean rooms. I just could not stand them & my room used to be a living example! T-shirts, books….from all my grades….trousers, all scattered around. In fact my room itself looked like a wardrobe! I had one plus point though; I kept everything exactly at the same place I found them. Suppose I would discover my socks hanging over the piano, after using it I would make sure I throw them back….exactly on the piano.

The moment I would reach home, I would fling my socks to one side, toss my shoes to the other & my mom would be busy trying to catch them. In fact, that had become her exercise routine! Finally my school bag would land on my bed, on top of the previous day’s clothes. But she always told me, “Anu, you better start learning to clean your room atleast, what will you do in college otherwise, you’ll be in big trouble one of these days”

So finally, after years of living unkempt, I devised a simple but effective way to have a clean room. I call them “Anu’s tips to a happy mom”.

A simple way to organise a room is by cleaning it up yourself. You shouldn’t put off or ask someone else like maid or your mother to do it for you. Then each time you take your clothes from the cupboard, you will want to stack them neatly again….because you don’t want your hard work, time & effort to go waste.

Every month, be your own master & appraise your progress, buy yourself an ice-cream or something you like (this can also be your excuse to buy one!). And when it is clean three months in a row, cleaning up becomes a habit.

Every 4 months, get rid of stuff that you have not used over the past four months. We are in a habit of accumulating junk thinking we will be able to use it in the next seven years. Dump them! It has a therapeutic effect. It clears your mind of junk as well. Besides you get to buy more stuff…..!!

This concept can be extended to our intellect also. Recently read an article about Rapid Comprehensive Review Technique, where the students can learn an entire year’s syllabus in a matter of forty days. Can you imagine how powerful our generation is? This technique has mainly to do with cleaning up of the mind & compartmentalising your information & retrieving it as & when required, organised, systematic & efficient. If you were like me, clean up your act today, clean up the world you live in, that will clean up the garbage in your minds……after all what you are depends on how you are!

Anusha 2009

Teachers on facebook

Hindi Soap Operas

Where do I start? I believe that there are 2 types of Indians, those who love watching Hindi soap operas & those who love criticizing them; but watch them all the same. I fall into the second category as I am very sure that nowhere else in the world will you find serials soo long winded, confusing &dramatic as our very own ones.

For instance, every time the heroine has an accident & is about to die, there is always a plastic surgeon around who changes her face & saves her life; Reality Check: Plastic surgeons can definitely change the way you look but they absolutely cannot save a dying person from the grips  of death.  And exactly  how much money do they have that they get plastic surgery done every few months!

Talking about money, how come in these serials people always go to bed also extravagantly dressed in full make – up & jewellery. I mean there is a height to being glamorous.

Then there is villainess. She’s the easiest to spot….gaudy sari, weird hairstyle, excess jewellery & eye make-up that could scare the wits of Voldemort . There’s also those cockroach shaped bindis & personal theme music. Yup, that’s the bad person.

Of course, there’s also a long winded story-line, to keep track of which, you need intelligence par a rocket scientist. For example, there was this show ‘Kayamath’ in which the central characters were Prachi, Neev, Milind & Ayesha; The story line : Neev loves Prachi, Prachi loves Neev but he gets married to her sister, Ayesha, who loves Milind, who gets married to Prachi in order to make Ayesha jealous, which makes Neev jealous as well, who is confused about his feelings for Prachi, who starts caring for Milind, who starts caring for Prachi, but then realizes he’s supposed to be in love with Ayesha. Got it?!

Well folks! It’s time to GET REAL…..

Anusha 2009

Catch them RED handed

Generally most people don’t mean what they say .You are not at all wrong when you think so.

 It has been proved in a survey that 55% of what a person says is depicted by the body language .body language is simply the outward reflection of a person’s mental and emotional condition. The body doesn’t know how to lie. So, if we learn to read the body language we can assess that how much a person actually means of what he is saying.

Here are some common gestures and their interpretations.

Read and apply... but remember never interpret a single gesture without taking other gestures and circumstances into consideration.

•Open palms denote truth ,openness, faithfulness and compliance

•Handshakes -palm faced upwards  means submission ,palm facing downwards means dominance

•Glove handshake arouses suspicion if two people are not well known to each other

•Dead fish handshake denotes disinterest

•Rubbing palms together depicts positive expectations and interest towards a thing

•Hands clenched together can be a symbol of frustration hostility and negative attitude

•One palm gripping the other  hand behind back shows confidence

nose touch is done in process of hiding deceit

• ear rub denotes disinterest in listening

•Chin on hand shows boredom

•Rubbing the back of neck denotes lying 

•Eye rub shows the person is trying to lie

Sideways glance with smile depicts interest

•Sideways glance with frown shows hostility

•Thumb supporting the chin while index finger points vertically up the cheek represents negative thoughts

•Crossed arms and legs denotes displeasure and denotes that the person is uncomfortable or scared

• Eye contact if direct shows confidence and truthfulness

•Collar pull is done when the persons suspects that he has been caught out

•Two people standing in such a way that if a third person is standing means that they want someone else to join

•Two people standing and on the entry of the third they merely turn their head and not bodies shows disinterest 

•Pointing foot towards a particular person while standing in a group denotes interest.

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead... Chose your subjects and read their minds…

Wake up Sid!!!

                       – An owl, a day before the exam

                   Our Suggestions                    ExpectEffect

THE RAINS & YOU

Bang !! Tsh......” Now, you’d think it’s a bomb wouldn’t you; well it’s not it’s the splattering tones of the rain n booming thunder; a night time storm. And the so the monsoon season is upon us. Rains generally signify a pleasant vicissitude. Standing in my balcony enjoying the shower , my mind is wandering till my eyes light up at the sight of the galleons of water going down the drain. Oh! you can almost see the bulb blinking over my head, well actually its just a matter of putting 2 and 2 together, we are having  shortage of clean fresh water why not harvest rainwater

We all know what rainwater harvesting is, we know that

waterharvesting potential = rainfall (in mm) * collection efficiency.

Yes, the technicalities have been embedded into us like a moth to a flame. But as I say “what is knowledge if we can’t put it into practical use” (if you heard this somewhere else be rest assured that they are copying my lines!).So, its time we apply our hard learnt facts in daily life. For instance

•Storage tanks covered to prevent mosquito breeding and reduce evaporation

•Maintenance and cleaning to keep the system hygienic

•Build subsurface dykes in aquifers to obstruct natural flow of groundwater

Four buckets of water all we need to clean a car , it is an economical and conservative way of using resources. Now we switch to a larger scale, for instance if we save a tank of approximately 50 galleons of rainwater then that’s all we need for a day’s household chores like washing, mopping etc. As we can see rainwater harvesting has become an almost quintessential necessity in these water restricted times. Besides this the advantages of rainwater harvesting are three fold:

•It provides quality water for household needs

•It is renewable (though that depends on the unpredictable rains)

•It ensures an independent water supply when we are short off water.

But then again these multi-fold advantages can only be visualised if we undertake rainwater harvesting .We can start small with a simple bucket to water plants and then move onto capturing rainwater from roof tops and local catchments or the seasonal flood waters from local streams , aquifers ,or the usual water shed management. As they say THINK BIG , FEEL BIGGER ( on the inside of-course).