STELLAEIDOSCOPE

A disaster is known to be a catastrophic event, one resulting in major loss of property and/or life, doing a massive amount of damage and leaving trauma and destruction in its wake. Not exactly rainbows and sunshine, is it? So why disaster, you might ask. There are two ways to understand where we were coming from when we decided on this topic. Disaster, as a concept, is one that we often use metaphorically or as a hyperbole. It's easy to look at a bad day or an event gone wrong or something mildly upsetting and say, "Well, that was a disaster." Disaster has come to signify, at least in informal contexts, chaos. At the same time, it's undeniable that we live in a world that's fraught with uncertainty—we have no way of predicting what can happen to us and what can render us vulnerable. Whether it's the socio-political unrest of today or the tsunami of 2004, there's always something bigger than us that can upset the stability of our lives. Disaster situa...

by Yukta Smiruthi, III B.A. English With the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (now Act) and the way in which the government has dealt the people’s response to it seems to suggest that they’re losing sight of the core values of a democracy - equality, and the power of the citizens to voice their dissent. 

by Rebecca, II B.S.W. Rebecca’s vivid artwork is an expression of how it is to feel like a disaster.

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) need no introduction. The new Citizenship Act coupled with the promised implementation of NRC across India, have been the reason for peaceful, peaceful-turned-violent and violent protests going on in the country for over a week. As much as our ruling government would like to assure us that ‘citizens will not be harmed’ due to any of these new rules, there is still an overwhelming feeling that these assurances are meant to mask the ugliness of what is to come. In order to understand and decode these two Acts of Parliament and their alleged link, I thought it best to talk to students currently pursuing law and ask them the questions instead of resorting to news companies whose only job is to act as mouthpieces for best friends Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. Are the CAA and NRC linked? No, they are not technically linked but a huge question is what would happen if the two are put ...

Samyuktha Shivachandran, III year B.A.English Image Credits Krishna J. Nair, III year B.A.English Priya Aunty, Canteen Staff The one thing I’ve learnt and mastered through this job is how to be patient. I wake up in the morning and get ready to work knowing that I have to carry myself in a certain manner. The fact that I have this job requires me to understand what it entails. So I know that patience is something I can’t fall short on, for if I do, I’ll fail to do my job. But honestly I can’t even crib because such is the work environment here. The students are extremely understanding and supportive. I’ve noticed that even when they’re in a hurry, extremely hungry, or quite obviously worried about something else, they understand and don’t mind waiting when I request them to do so. They recognize that we’re humans too and we can only do one thing at a time. They’re all such young, spirited girls but their actions prove that they understand the virtue of kindness and the...

by Riya Nagendra, III B.A. English I've always thought that courage was, like all those witty fictional characters say, a kind way of describing a sort of stupidity. I thought so too, for a long time. When I was reading Harry Potter, I thought that Gryffindors were overrated, that their bravery was not something to aspire to. Why weren’t people appreciating the wisdom of Ravenclaws more, why were they shaming someone like Hermione for being a nerd? I don’t think I'm very wrong about mindless bravery being pointless. You need to think about what you're doing before doing it; you need to get your facts right; understand why you're taking action before acting. I have, however, changed my mind about bravery in general. At some point very recently, I realised that having courage meant more than just blindly leaping into dangerous situations. On some level bravery means having compassion—it means you care enough about someone else to do something about their problems, to...