An Independent Student Newspaper

FREEDOM OF

EXPRESSION

5) Appreciate the architecture of the classroom

4) Try to touch your nose with your tongue

3) Count how many times the class nerd nods her/his head

2) Play tic-tac-toe with your partner

1) Put on your sunglasses and go off to sleep

things to do during really boring lectures

Top 5

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A cute little pug or a friendly lab, an intimidating Doberman or an adorable mongrel, dogs can just make anyone’s day. Nothing beats the affection they harbor for you. Their evident joy upon seeing you return home after a long day chases away all your tiredness and frustration. Owning a dog is complete bliss, so why doesn’t everyone in the world hurry to the nearby pet shop to get one of these delightful furry companions for themselves?The answer is simple. It’s because they know bet-ter than to believe everything a dog adoption pam-phlet says. Let me clear up all confusions on this issue. Owning a dog is nothing but WORK. They need constant care, are the most shameless at-tention seekers, and consider any moment of your time not spent doing a hundred and one things for them as wasted. Their ‘potty train-ing’ can last from months to years, and they will still adorn your house with their oh so e n d e a r i n g faeces ev- ery once in a while for the express p u r p o s e of keep-ing you on your toes. Dirtying the h o u s e ’ s front entrance just when you are about to en-tertain special gue s t s happens to be t h e i r fo r t e . The n u m -ber o f

med-

icines they need to be fed outnumber those had by the whole family put together, and each visit to the vet is fraught with peril for anyone in the vicin-ity. They happen to be the most ungrateful crea-tures on the planet, giving you the dirtiest of looks every time you force a pill down their throats or make them take a bath- ruining your own clothes in the process. You take great pains to teach them a clever trick but when you take them around to show off to your friends they mysteriously forget all that they had learned, leaving you looking con-siderably sillier than before. You have to brush their coat, file their nails, groom their skin, use particu-lar shampoos, conditioners and perfumes until your bathroom cupboard gets completely filled with your dog’s cosmetic necessities leaving you no space for your small bar of soap. The family budget is clearly defined the moment you get a dog. Half the income must be reserved for your dog’s expenses and the other half can be used for less pressing needs such as the rent and the groceries and the college fees. Our flea-bitten, tick-ridden lords and masters need us humble servants to do all in our power to keep them happy and contented. We must scratch their ears for long hours irrespective of our aching arms. If they demand to go out for a walk we must drop all other things at hand and rush to take them. Our beds, pillows and blankets are there for their ex-press use, even if it means shoving us of the bed to use them. They must not be expected to sleep in their own separate corner. They can and will take the best couch in the living room.Yes, owning a dog means all of these hardships and much much more. So why are we so ready to em-brace a life of servitude when we decide to adopt a dog? Are all dog-owners masochists to revel in such a life? Why do my eyes well with tears at the thought of losing my dog? You see, there is one thing that atones for all of this suffering, one irrational habit we develop which makes us look upon these de-mons through rose tinted glasses. Because...believe it or not folks...We LOVE ’em!

Y URBEAT Your

Opinio

ns

17th February, 2009 - 23rd February, 2009

Word on the

Street

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Smart SohoMomo Street, Kamla Nagar, North Campus

To begin with, this is not just another momo joint review. This time I took a detour and tried the non-momo offerings at the quintessential momo street in north campus.Smart Soho, with the curiously unusual name, has an equally interesting platter. Their offerings are quite varied, with dishes like Pan-Fried Noodles, the Soho Special Noodles and the Chicken Yammein claiming immense popularity. Apart from these, the momos are a sure hit amongst the students as well as older patrons. There is a wide variety of dumplings available here, starting from the regular steamed or fried vegetable and chicken momos to ‘suimai’-open momos and ‘kotae’-pan fried cum steamed momos. Foodies describe this place to be “just like any other restaurant”, but swear by the succulent and juicy pork momos. We tried the customary chilly potatoes, which is my yardstick for measuring the quality of any Chinese eatery, and discovered that they were simply mouth-watering. However next came the Pan Fried noodles. It had been my idea to attempt the less prominent menu items; an idea which failed miserably for the plate of noodles was a big dampener at the very outset. Pan fried means lightly fried, however what they offered could hardly have been cooked at all! Instead we took gastronomic succor from our humble plate of chilly potatoes. We then ordered the chicken yammein which was quite as good as it sounded- yummy! It’s an innovative dumpling of sorts, which looks rather like our very own traditional “gujiya”. With tender, mouthwatering chicken stuffing, this one did wonders for curing us of our previous bad experience. With a regular ambience and the usual half hearted service, this eatery translates as just average. My Rating: 2.5/5

Noodles et al in North Campus!

-Rachita Murali

Just before I enter col-lege in the morning, I give my outfit and makeup one last scan, pulling up my short skirt even higher so that at no point may it defy its de-scription-mini. I ruffle my hair again so it doesn’t get tidier and sub-sequently out of vogue. I give my lips the final touch of gloss and di-rect a glance at my nails to make sure they shine the brightest red. I hold my breath and then, as un-noticed as hundreds of my fashion clones, try to saunter through the college gate.Yet I don’t regret my spent ef-fort, or rather I don’t want to re-gret it. I don’t regret wearing the sexy skirt which not only helps little in hiding my extra flab but also stresses the fact that I am overweight. I don’t regret the shoddy yet snappy hairstyle even if it reduced my visibility to zero and causes me to bang into ev-ery second person like a zany, nor do I regret the bright nail paint which only makes my untrimmed nails more prominent. Most of all I never regret undermining the word ‘individualism’ when I walk through my college corridors with a hundred look alikes, at least not as long as everything I wear is in fashion or at least ‘seems’ to be in fashion.My aim is not to deter you from

being fash-i o n a b l e but only to redefine f a s h i o n . Fashion is not about f o l l ow ing trends so that you could be a part of the crowd but about cre-ating ways so that you could stand out in the

crowd. It is not about feeling op-pressed and inferior for not wear-ing a muffler which every other guy is sporting, but about feeling good and comfortable in what you like wearing! I would prefer to go to college without feeling the need to take a gander at every second person’s outfit or without having to recourse to skipping meals at the canteen in order to afford new pairs of shoes or more piercings.So the next time you watch the various ‘keep it stylish’ pro-grammes on the innumerable fashion conscious channels, keep your adrenalin low when your look is being featured as the ‘in vogue’ look and think of maybe altering your style statement so we could see it on celluloid and know that it is time to change. We are the youth and we are in the vanguard of change and social progress, where the way we dress, and not the way John Abraham or Karee-na Kapoor does, defines our own character and voices our chal-lenge to the world.

Mad about dogs!!!

-Pragya Mukherjee

Fashion is pointless

- Tanya Agrawal

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Q What do you call five birds eating paan?A Paan-davs.

Q What do you call a convicted

tractor?A CON-Tractor

Q What do you call happy obese people?A Fat-content

"Tell a man that there are 400 billion

stars and he'll believe you.

Tell him a bench has wet paint and he

has to touch it."

-unknown

Funny Quote

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