Jab they met them

Is Privilege Truly The Easiest Commodity To Take For Granted

Rhea Suri, AIS MV, XI

This is the story of a privileged land – a land where everyone had a lot to be happy about, but they were still always gloomy, until one fine day, when they had an encounter with the underprivileged.  Sneha is sitting at the breakfast table, staring at what she has to eat for breakfast: bread and butter. “I don’t like this, mom. Why can’t you ever make something else?” she snaps at her mother. Sneha just sits there with a pout and crossed arms, until she has to leave for school. The food goes waste.

Manik sits in his tent, listening to his growling stomach.
He has 4 brothers and sisters, and they have to share everything because it’s never enough for all. He’s grateful for the little bread that he has.
As Sneha met Manik, she realised that her bread butter was a luxury, some dreamt of everyday.
***
Arnav is 9 years old, and he absolutely detests school.
He doesn’t like the environment in the school, he says. He cries every morning that he doesn’t want to go, and yet his parents drag him out of their house and into the school bus. He loathes the building, doesn’t like the teachers, and hates wearing the blue coloured uniform.

On the roadside, there sits a 9 year old boy named Raju.
He looks at the school going children every morning, and wishes to be one of them. He’d give anything to wear the uniform, carry a bag and just be able to study. He looks at the building he admires, one last time, before disappearing into the shadows.
As Arnav met Raju, he realised that life inside the building that he had never liked was much better than the one on the road.
***
Ananya was the victim of a tragedy: the wi-fi at her home wasn’t working.
How would she communicate with her friends now? How would she scroll through Instagram, and post selfies and get likes? She feels as if she is deprived of all the happiness, and asks her father to make sure that the internet connection is restored at the earliest.

Sudha is the daughter of a maid and lives in a tiny home.
She learns about the internet at school. She gets a username and a password for something called a website on which all her study notes will be available. She’s thrilled, but is immediately disheartened when she learns that this requires an internet connection, which she doesn’t have and can’t afford. She goes home and cries.
As Ananya met Sudha, she realised that deprivation wasn’t exactly what she had expected.
***
Someone wise once said, “Appreciate what you have before it turns into what you had.” Are you listening?

Winning mantra

Satyam Sikarwar, MD, SAPInfra Technologies, On Mantras To Success

Nandika Mogha, AIS Noida, XII J

Starting from a meagre savings of 20,000 INR to creating a company with an annual turnover of 40 crore, Satyam Sikarwar, MD, SAPInfra Technologies, has come a long way. An alumnus of Amity University, Uttar Pradesh (AUUP), he was recently felicitated with “Entrepreneurial Excellence Award – ICT Sector”  at International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Leadership (ICEL) 2018 held in the campus of Amity University, Noida. The winning entrepreneur shares his success mantras in an exclusive interview.

Mantra 1: Follow your dreams
Entrepreneurship is nothing, but following your dreams and fulfilling your passions. Whichever career path you choose to follow, there are definitely going to be many unforeseen hindrances on the way to your destination. The point is to view each hindrance as an opportunity to grow, to learn, and to become stronger.

Mantra 2: Clear vision – a must
When I graduated from Amity University, it was clear to me that I wanted to start my own business. I had no thoughts about any other stream of choice. I think the biggest key to success is a sort of clear-vision perspective. Couple that with a positive and affirmative attitude towards your goal and there’s no stopping you.
Mantra 3: Find the innate entrepreneur
The ability to recognise one’s talent, competence, and the audacity to follow their dreams are the core virtues of any successful businessman or businesswoman. I believe that every individual has something incredibly unique to offer to the world, and that there really is an entrepreneur in each one of us. You just need to unearth the one inside you. 

Mantra 4: Amity – The ultimate path to success
Being an Amitian myself, I think I can vouch for the immensely productive environment that is offered here, which I myself witnessed. You have the opportunity to study in a great institution such as this, so all that is left to do is to harness those golden opportunities, and to ride your chariot of success into the sun. Go ahead and make the most of it!

Little pearls of wisdom

The lesson of an echo

Advay Raghav, AIS Gur 46, VI

This is the story of Amij, a young boy who lived in the hills of Shimla. One day, when he was playing, his mother scolded him for not finishing his homework first. He got really angry at his mother and ran out of the house, shouting, “I hate you.” He ran and ran till he reached the valley. He was still angry and shouted again, “I hate you.” The sound echoed in the mountains and he heard another, “I hate you.”
Amij had no idea what an echo was, and was, thus, scared. He rushed back home and told his mother about the bad boy in the valley who shouted, “I hate you” at him. Amij wondered why the boy he had never even met hated him. On hearing Amij’s story, his mother realised what had happened. She asked Amij to go back to the valley, but this time shout “I love you”. Amij did the same. This time the valley resonated with “I love you”. He was astonished and repeated it several times.
The moment he got back home he asked his mother, “Why did that boy hate me when I hated him and love me when I loved him?” To this, the mother replied calmly, “It wasn’t a boy but an echo, where what we say comes back. Our life too is like an echo. We get back what we give. So, remember to be good to everyone, if you expect them to be good to you.”

Pain & Gain

Today, I will tell you a story.
Once there was a sculptor who saw a stone lying on a path and decided to carve it. No sooner did he start chiseling and hammering the stone, that it started crying and bawling with pain. The sculptor tried to console the stone, but it kept weeping. Finally, he decided to give up and moved on. After walking for some distance, he saw another stone and decided to carve that one.  He started chiseling and hammering it. The second stone too felt the pain but kept bearing it and let the sculptor do his job. The sculptor carved a beautiful statue out of it. Satisfied with his work, he left the statue and moved on.
Soon, he reached a temple, where he found a lot of people worried about not being able to find a Goddess statue for their temple. The sculptor told them about the one he had just made. The villagers picked up that statue and also the stone that was lying uncarved. They placed the statue inside their temple, and the uncarved stone at the entrance. Soon people started offering prayers to the carved statue while the uncarved stone lay abandoned at the entrance.
One night, the abandoned stone complained about how they both were essentially a stone, but now one was getting all the attention, while no one looked at him. To this, the carved stone replied, “Unlike you, I am here because I decided to bear the pain inflicted by the sculptor to become something more beautiful.”
Why I tell you this story is because, life is like that too. For us to achieve something big in life,  we must be tolerant towards the travails and challenges in life that come each day.

EmojiXpress

A picture can speak a thousand words and so can expressions…irrespective of whether it is through a facial smile or  just an emoji .
There are many occasions when you must have observed her/him open the WhatsApp message in the midst of a conversation, then just ‘smile’ and close it once again. Well s/he just received an  emoji that made his/her day. One little face, messaged over phone, can go a long way in making relationships, conveying hidden emotions, and more.
Evolution of emoji is indeed, one very interesting development that has taken place in 21st century, changing the way we communicate. As technology has accelerated, our communications have become more expressive; all thanks to these emojis. Happy , sad, amazed, laughing out aloud,curious,,bored ..you name it and you have an emoji for that expression. Created just as a small picture message, these yellow, red, purple, green faces are now ruling our lives, literally. So much so that a new phrase ‘Emojis speak louder than words’ is now the order of the day. And yet one needs to be careful while using emojis whose meaning may change many a times (Read page 1) with change in the geographical and cultural  boundaries.
A facial expression says a lot about heart, mind and soul and this is the reason that emojis have become so famous and highly useful for present generation which doesn’t communicate much  verbally. If a mere smile can speak a thousand words, one can only imagine the plethora of emotions thousand emojis express daily. So, this world emoji day, keep expressing, keep communicating, keep relationships alive!