We'll give M.F Hussain a run for his money

The whole semester has passed by so fast that even the holidays are unplanned for. But it has been a productive semester so far , productive in every sense of the word.

It started with resuming the Prerna classes. Then came the Blood Donation Camp which became a great success followed by the surveys for pilot of a big project called 'SEED- Stimulating Education and Enhancing Development' which is sponsored by PAN IIT alumni and then implementation of the paper bags project - Polythene Free Campus. 

Well , after so much activity we decided, to have a break. To do something which would refresh our minds and prepare us for another semester. Finally we came up with an idea of conducting an Art mela.

We booked the open air theatre for the morning. Sahith ,secy of the Fine Arts section and Jaya Khanna, winner of all three prizes in Fine Arts Section during Shrishti'08 of the Hobbies club, were the judges of the event. To our surprise even the nocturnal IITians along with school cildren from near by villages turned up at the venue on time. Open air theatre was the set for our 3 hrs of fun and frolic with the colors. Some of us painted landscapes, some painted events and others followed up with abstract art. Sahith and Jaya Khanna had a few words of appreciation for the amateur artists .

The meet ended on a high note with prizes distributed to children. While distributing prizes I felt great in seeing happiness in the winners eyes.But at the same time when I saw the big crowd with sad faces for not getting prizes I felt a small pinch in my heart, which gave me a silly thought 'why we are distributing prizes to only some, why not to all'. All of us posed for photographs .

Many of us held crayons for the first time were now confident that drawing could be done even without a scale. Well Hussain saab Bach ke rehnaa, hum aa gaye hain .

NSS at your doorstep

A biographer once asked Napoleon about the secret behind his success. Then came his famous quote "I don't wait for the opportunities to come knocking on my door. I create opportunities".

NSS at IIT Roorkee is trying to ban plastic bags inside the campus. We learnt that a similar project implemented in Haridwar encountered a lot of opposition from the vendors. So, first we approached the main sources of plastic bags, the fruit chatwallahs and the canteen. We learnt that they had an usage of about 500 bags per day. 500 bags per day! This was no mean task. We had to provide for so much newspaper each day. 

Now, I don't know what Napoleon would have done about this but we launched a drive to collect newspaper from the students. Volunteers were allotted to the hostels where they knocked at the doors of each and every resident of the hostel. The timing was perfect, the nocturnal IITians wake up at noon to have their lunch and there was a volunteer at his door.

We collected newspaper that would suffice the production of paperbags for 2 months and then there would be another drive. We would remain indebted to all the students who took part in this great cause either as a volunteer who took all the trouble to go to each and every room in the campus or as a donor.