"Everything is hostile. The whole place is now a cage, a zoo.
Now this move by the authority is more psychological."

"Where do you see the "technical excellence" that we are supposed to be
receiving here."

"If Smokey gets a fleeting glance at it or has a gut instinct that
something’s not right about your chaddie, you are obliged to strip and
prove your innocence/crime."

Before you glance at the above lines condescendingly, brace yourself.

*Mild-Drumroll*

There’s a hot new blogger in the block. Or rather, on the prowl. He (uh, I can’t conclusively say if it’s a ‘he’, but for sake of convenience, I allow myself to be sued by womens’ lib groups) blogs from an undisclosed location, apparently within the environs of a certain ‘Model Engineering College’ at Kochi (one of the best engineering colleges in the state, for that matter). And there’s a hell lot of caged emotion and angst involved, seemingly for valid reasons.

*Exalted Drumroll*

Behold, ladies an gentlemen, make way for FakeMECian – a home grown blogger from the bustling ‘metro’ of Cochin, Kerala. And he’s no mean deal; he’s a razor sharp tongue and a style that’d even put Adiga to shame. And he’s the guts to put out some gross injustices going on in his educational institution, under an anonymous garb, nonetheless.

*Drumroll concludes*.

Visit the FakeMECian at – http://fakemecian.blogspot.com/

Ostensibly, FakeMECian has taken inspiration from this celebrity counterpart – FakeIPLPlayer. His blog talks about the numerous flaws and foibles going around in his college, which he tries to uncover in a light hearted manner. So, we have exquisite (and insanely-funny) narrations about a (supposedly) unruly Principal of the institution whose hobby is to confiscate mobile phones and laptops and make students live in hell. He reads messages from confiscated phones, and causes immense problems to the students, who are towards the end of it, screwed. Plus, many student-unfriendly and academically discouraging policies are being dissed in a lighter vein.

Having bogged down by these and many such instances, a strict gag-order in-place within the campus, FakeMECian decided to take the law unto his arms and harnessed the power of the Internet to protest against the atrocities.

And he’s hit jackpot.

His blog posts average 30 comments within a couple of days’ of publishing. The first and the most famous post – “Laptop Ban” – has around 122 comments (when this post was being written), and that too within a week of being published. The blog already has 84 followers. And if the comments are to be believed, many of the incidents narrated by the MECian are true. Students, alumni and faculty have posted there comments in the blog posts – most supportive of the MECian, and others pledging concrete action.

Apparently, the Principal found about the blog and conducted an en-masse raid in the Men’s hostel of the college – but in vein. MECian is still continuing his covert operations in full form. And his gang of supporters is growing.

There’s a possiblity that MECian is just another miscreant hell-bent on creating a ruckus: but there’s every reason to believe that the possiblity is baseless. There’s an entire community of students and alumni vouching for the FakeMECian, who’s now being vocally praised as a champion within the college campus. If the allegations raised by the MECian are true, the success of his plan of action is quite guaranteed – the world will come to know of  what’s happening within the college premises and hopefully, corrective action will be taken soon.

Allow me to conclude with a quote by the blogger – and don’t forget to visit the blog and feast yourself with all the juicy details!

“Vendetta?? No way. We are either too lazy or too busy to take action against such atrocities even if it questioned our own Privacy. We got assignments and home works to do. So lets get back to our “busy” life and do nothing about it.”

A.M.D.G.

It’s been 13 days, and Tata Jagriti Yatra is only getting better by the day, or more euphemistically, by the hour. But no, it wasn’t all hunky dory. And, the yatra is not exactly a joyride. 350 of us wake up each day to the myriad challenges of yatra, with a mind-boggling challenge cropping up each day to greet us. Time, (and poor internet connectivity) prevents me from blogging elaborately about all thirteen days, as I’d promised in the previous post. Allow me to provide you with a glimpse of what actually transpires each day.

• The train – it’s something in itself. Adapting a train as a residence for 400-odd young people is one daunting exercise in logistics, if you didn’t know. There are separate male and female compartments with two AC chair cars for conference sessions. There are even separate bathrooms (bogies have been converted to bathrooms through some very innovative methods which are beyond the purview of this blog post ).
• We’ve the most unique morning alarm system to wake us all up each day. It’s the ‘Tata jagriti geet’ – an endearing song penned by Prasoon Joshi, which doubles up as the anthem of the yatra. The song is played as loudly as possible in the makeshift speakers, and we reluctantly open up, sleep still lingering in our eyes from the late night discussions (ahem!).
• Each day is about visits and/or interactions. We’ve already covered some 4000 kilometers into the country, and the journey is hardly half way through. We’d go visiting ‘role models’ (people/enterprises) who’re entrepreneurs themselves and have made a difference among the people around them, uplifting and empowering them.
• Too much baggage, too little space, and you’re bound to lose something. Being a habitually-careless person, it was a daily affair for me. Losing stuff that is. Something or other belonging to me would go missing each day. It was unnerving, so to speak. When you badly need an item, you wouldn’t be able to place it. Else, it’d be lying around exactly in front of your eyes.
• For a long long time, I was living with the misconception that I was good at networking. A couple of days into the yatra and I realized how wrong I actually was.  Day 13, and I still have more than half the yatris to acquaint with!
• Self realization was the biggest merit of this yatra. This realization was a blitzkrieg of sorts, it stung into my psyche, and made a striking impact in my mind and soul, the level of impact increasing progressively by the day. Today I stand transformed, a new soul, a recharged mind.

That will do for today.