Life of an Indian engineering student

 Fake influencers: The agents of manufactured reality How many public figures do you follow on various social media platforms? It’s great to be up-to-date with what’s going on in their life, isn’t it? Maybe you’re a big fan of his/her work or post feed. Their presence on social media ensures that they stay relevant to the culture and give their followers a chance to get a peek into their lives. A good amount of following can be used to create awareness, raise money for a cause and create a strong community. On the flip-side, it can also be used to push products/courses that benefit only the ones who sell them, and imbibe ideologies that are biased and serve no good to society. Many of such influencers sell us manufactured reality time and time again. It can severely affect our well-being as being the consumers of the same. There’s a lot of political tension in the world. People divide themselves based on countries, beliefs, races, genders, and ideologies. Most of them are ...

The Real Superhero... You meet a lot of people in your life and most people will be forgotten with time. But, some people always have some influence over you even though you've lost the touch with them. Some people just take you back in time to remind you of the lessons you learned from them. Maybe you don't know everything about them, but something about them just tells that he/she is a kind person than he/she appears to be. This post is about one such person whom my parents don't even know about, he's no more but he has inspired me a lot during my childhood. This is a story of a man, who lived by his own rules, This is the story of an engineer, who was full of compassion but still lived a lonely life, This is a story of an introvert, who shared a great bond with kids, This story is about Uncle Dinesh. Uncle Dinesh was an engineer and in his late 60's when I first met him. His apartment was a level below mine. I never knew he existed even though I...

How did the professors adapt to online lectures? Now that most of the colleges have started conducting lectures online, our monotonous lives have become even more monotonous. Waking up, attending lectures, completing the work assigned to us by the professors, and having some time for ourselves at the end of the day has become the new normal. The online education platforms have been a challenge for all of us that we have adapted to quite successfully. But we’re Gen Z! Most of us touch their phone first even before they touch their toothbrush in the morning. We have made technology a vital part of our lives. What about the ones who haven’t? What about the professors? Well, the online lectures were started right after the lockdown in the last academic year. It was like the resort to completing the syllabus and not the exact substitute for classroom lectures. But as it wasn’t safe to reopen the institutes while students’ academic year was seemingly going to waste, the online l...

The Big Decision (Exams Cancelled) It's a known fact that the COVID-19 has brought the world to a halt. Everyone was trying their best to make the most of their time. Some people were renovating their houses; some were trying out new recipes and some were studying for the exams. The majority of the students were treating this quarantine period as their summer vacation. Perhaps a vacation where you could do anything you want inside your house (Under the supervision of your parents which makes it not very cool). Please don't get me wrong, being able to spend time with your parents is a blessing. The phone usage of students rose significantly resulting in parents telling students how our generation is addicted to the technology. Every generation has pros and cons though. Social media, web series, animes became the part of every student's life. But deep down, every student knew that this was just an escape to forget the fact that exams can be conducted by the universi...

The Pickpocket Mumbai, a city of dreams, has excellent facilities available to all its citizens. It's a crowded city and an inexperienced guy like me can get into a problem or tense situation while traveling. So, this is another BTS (Bizarre Travelling Story). I had heard about pickpockets and but never saw pickpocketing in person. This incident happened in the first week of March and it's something I'll never forget and would like to share with you guys. Today I'll introduce you to another friend of mine. Monsieur Unpredictable… I would offer anyone 100 bucks who can predict Monsieur Unpredictable. It seemed like I can observe people and make recognize the behavioral patterns until I met him. You'd insult him and he'll still feel nothing about it. He may get offended sometimes even if you say something with good intentions. He's a lazy guy and walks like a sloth even in a state of urgency. But the same guy reveals his relentless energy...

A month of Quarantine… 2020 So far, it was a tough year for all of us. The tense situation between Iran and the USA that created the fears of another war among nations, the wildfires in Australia that destroyed hundreds of families and killed millions of animals, the Indonesian flood... The world was pretty much messed up already! Never had the people thought that this can become much worse. The world had faced a lot of pandemics till now, this was something different! Something we weren't ready for as humans... I started my junior college with both options open to engineering and medical fields. Later, I realized that the only thing that made me enjoy biology was just the study part of it. I didn't have any interest in being a doctor or any type of medical practitioner. Maybe it was my disgust towards the blood or the fear of playing a decisive role in someone's life; I soon realized that it was not my thing. But in those two years,...

A Sports festival with joy and sorrow Just like every year, our college organized the annual sports festival! Everyone was happy and busy preparing for the festival. Students were selecting the teams for the different sports. Football, Cricket, Basketball, Relay races, and various indoor games were to be played in the college playground. The ground was leveled, the turf was cleaned and everything was set. 3 days at the sports festival gave us a chance to refresh our minds and a reason to bunk the lectures. Every college organizes such a festival. And if you look for yourself, all the names given to these sports festivals are weird sounding like the era of WW2. I’m pretty much impressed that such names manage to attract sponsors. Anyway, this event is pretty much fun. Some colleges allow participation from other colleges. This increases the competition, the crowd and the sponsors (Wink Wink). In our college, classes from all the branches and years form te...