VidYuth

Pushed against a wall, you opening your mouth to breathe in the vacuum. Your tears are swelling up in your eyes, but your eyes are dry. The energy to experience pain has been sucked out of you. And the laughter echoes in your head. You don’t know how to go on, where the next step is. “Hope” is a four letter word worse than anything else imaginable. It’s absolutely meaningless. The thought of “Death” is a comfort, but you’re too afraid to die, and still sane enough to not commit suicide. Even though the thought strikes you not once or twice but every day as you look down. Wondering why you’re too scared to jump!

You don’t Jump because you don’t need to! You have done Nothing Wrong; but you find this very notion absurd. If you have done nothing wrong, why is this happening to you? There are 149 other students in the batch, but you are the only one. Why have they handpicked You? It’s easy to blame yourself when you think you are Alone. Truth is you are not. It’s just that it’s too difficult to see what’s not clear to you. You can’t see when you are blinded by the pain.

Bullying has taken lives. But its still not dealt as a crime. People have committed suicides, and have got beaten and bullied till they have succumbed to injuries. But when something is undefined, it seems to lack importance. And that’s the mindset we and you have to change. We need to highlight the issue, and make sure it gets dealt with. There are many who have not died, but are dying on the inside. Away from the eyes of the people around them. Something dies within them each day, till they have the strength to deal with it. And this causes and creates people to do things that are unnatural for them. Sometimes they turn to violence in the name of “revenge” and people treat them like the criminals! If we don’t do something about this now, we are going to watch the society around us be forced to succumb to the consequences. And these can prove disastrous for everyone concerned.

How do we define these acts, and who should define them? Its clearer than people think, but because they call it by different names, they think the way of dealing with them should be different. People react differently. Just like people have different fears, tastes and personalities; people react differently. They get hurt by different things, some are able to switch off when they hear certain comments made at them, some experience only physical pain and don’t let themselves get taunted by others, some deal with it in silence and others lash back. But some cant deal with it. They get upset, some withdraw into their own shells and don’t show it, and some allow their emotions to get the better of them. And react through anger and tears.

Bullying, Teasing, and Ragging are only words. Words which effectively have the same meaning.. They mean a person, the victim in question, is being made to feel inferior. That person is being humiliated, abused and feels powerless; unable to defend themselves under the circumstances. These words apply to a situation in which a person is being treated in an unacceptable manner, for the simple reason that nobody has the right to make anyone else feel like a lesser person! This may sound like a very simplistic and almost idealistic approach. But in fact that’s exactly what it is. And if we can prevent people from having to feel that they are a lesser human being as compared to the people around them, then I think there is no greater accomplishment. We would be doing a task, that doesn’t take much of our own energy or time, but in making people feel that they are not alone and don’t need to suffer for something they have not done – it can only make us better human beings!

The Victims need to know that they are NOT ALONE & ARE NOT WRONG!

So how can you help?

Don’t be an innocent by stander. Reach out to the person, stand up to the people wronging him/her. Join hands in creating an anti – ragging/bullying body where people can help your friend. YOU could be responsible for SAVING A LIFE!

STAND UP AND MAKE A CHANGE TODAY!

Radhika Ghose

Scores of people were hungry and restless and tired. They wanted food and respect and liberty. Yet the French Queen did little but say “Why do people keep begging for bread and bread and bread? Why don’t they eat cake when they don’t have bread? “This apathy led to the French Revolution.

The authorities do little but think about the common man’s lifestyle.Today when we see around us so many people hungry,so many people dying of malnutrition and disease,so many people inconvinienced by the rush in the local trains,irritated by the bumpy rides and disgusted by waste on the streets. The list is quite long. Will building a statue off Marine Drive solve these issues? That too its not an ordinary statue. It will cost Mumbai Rs 350 Crores. On an artificial island off Marine Drive,mind you!(to attract foreign tourists)

I mean,guys,doesn’t the Government have better things to spend on to attract tourists?350 Crores is not a small amount. We can get decent infrastructure,cleaner pavements,cleaner beaches and even improve sanitation,promote better road sense,install scores of dustbins to keep the city clean in less than half of that much cash,don’t you think?

Just across the state farmers have been commiting suicide since a long time. Their needs haven’t been addressed or met and they feel helpless of the debt they are in. The drought like situation across the country is quite alarming. What if we don’t have food to eat? We won’t be able to eat nor feed our guests,let alone entertain them.

Building the statue won’t improve things. Sure,it has a catchline that its even taller than the statue of liberty. It will be a great thing.However, We have quite a lot of things to achieve before we consider feats like these. We have so many targets to meet and so many changes to be brought about.

The Statue to be built can wait.

Well it seems like we are standing beneath an orange sky. Miseries upon so many, so many. Miseries of different kinds. Pain of their own kind. And yet, apathy holds it ground. We forget that we are in pain ourselves. The momment comes, the momment puts a scar upon us and we move on. Yes, yet we move on. We are moving into an orange sky. A constitution of a new assembly can turn the orange sky from dusk to dawn. YOU

The Da Vinci Code spoke about a truth that was only metaphorically revealed out of fear of retribution. The truth in today’s age is no different. The missing link clearly is the strength of unity. Not only unity, but a united front that is channelised in the right direction in a balanced manner is what is quintessential. If its voice is to reach receptive ears, we need to build an institution that creates faith among the youth by successful initiatives.

The national economic statistics of 1950 versus 2008 suggest fantastic progress amongst the youth but these could have been vastly better. It is the proverbial half full, half empty cup.The lead indicator for a nation’s future is the mindset of its young people, especially in India where 55% of the population is under 25.

Indian youth have a huge amount of dissatisfaction, hopefully a divine discontent, and they can change things around. They have three strengths: first, persistence, second, innovation, and third, happiness. These are distinctive and are rooted in our history and genes.

Living in India is like running an obstacle race. One is overcoming obstacles, every day and all the time - poor schools, crowded cities, corrupt officials , unhelpful agents of governance. Indians have the freedom of democracy but not the liberty that is supposed to accompany democracy. Only when common people can get ordinary, day-to-day things done without a hassle can we say that Indians have the liberty of democracy. “In India, democracy is flourishing, liberty is not,” to borrow from Fareed Zakaria’s comment (The Future of Freedom ). Therefore, this strong need for my project. I would like to conclude with JRD Tata’s words, “I do not want India to be an economic super-power . I want India to be happy.”