An Indian in Lahore
For a rational and sane Indian, a debate
surely can’t classify as a reason good
enough to breach the travel advisory
issued by the Ministry of External Affairs for
its citizens against travelling to Pakistan,
as a part of our government’s diplomatic
offensive against our neighbours with an
aim to make the latter act on terror which
we believe is being harboured there.
Call me stupid, call me fearless, call me
anything you want but I decided to make
the trip to Delhi’s twin- Lahore. And guess
what, “it was a grand success!!”
Whilst on the Delhi-Lahore bus service,
I met numerous individuals from various
parts of India who have families living across
the border. Even today Hindus, Muslims
and Sikhs in India marry their children into
families living across the border. The tears
that I witnessed rolling down the cheeks of
my fellow “brave heart passengers” when
they met their relatives are very hard to
classify. They are tears of happiness but
still full of the grief that stems from the
difficulties that they’ve had to face because
of this line that has now become a barrier.During my stay at University College Lahore, hospitality at
par with our own Atithi Devo Bhava was offered to me. Every
Pakistani at the event went out of his/her way to make me
feel at home. “Koi Masla to nahin hai naa??” – A question that
I answered maybe a hundred times a day. How can I possibly
forget that glowing smile that I received each time I went past
somebody, simply because I belonged to India?Despite today’s tumultuous times that are
characterised by venomous statements
that politicians of both countries make
against each other, Indians continue to
receive a red carpet treatment in Pakistan
(and vice-versa). So is it justified for the
Indian state to brand “every Pakistani as
a terrorist and as a sworn enemy of India”
as has been exemplified by the actions
of Raj Thackeray’s MNS in Maharashtra
and the restrictive VISA policy of the
Indian state towards ordinary Pakistanis.
The converse applies to Pakistan also.
Clearly the problem is concentrated at
the political level but politicians transcend
its effect onto the level of the common
man. We must realise that interest
groups have emerged in both countries
whose sustenance is dependent solely
on the continued conflict between the
two countries and must not be seen as
representatives of the people at large.
We might not be able to erase the line
that exists between us, but we must take
steps to ensure that the line ceases to
remain the barrier it has now become.
Ajay Goyal, CE Final Year
Symbols Do SPEAK!!!!!!!!
A symbol is an arbitrary assignment of meaning to form and one of the few things that truly distinguishes humans from other creatures. It can also be said that symbols are a form of communication. But this form of communication is multi-leveled and there is no equal one-on-one exchange. That is what makes them fascinating and difficult, or sometimes, confusing.
Some Commonly Used Symbols and Their origin and significance:
Vodafone standsfor voice data phone.
The symbol ‘inverted comma begin’ indicate that we can talk forever on this service without any problems in the network. Thus only commas begin and do not end.
The word ‘Nike’ has been taken from the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.
This symbol is commonly called as swoosh. The symbol is interpreted as depicting the wings of the goddess Nike.
The exclamation mark is one of the most common of modern ideograms. The
vertical line, ‘I’ denotes something that is absolute and powerful. The dot or point
represents a beginning, an end, or the focus of something. Taken together they
mean in typography that whatever is denoted by the signs immediately before the
mark of exclamation is incredible, strange, very important, or unusual.
The three strips at the top represent the national flag of Italy. Horse
is used as a symbol of good luck as was earlier used in World War-1
by a very famous Italian pilot. The colour black symbolized the logo
on a plane used when that pilot died. The background canary yellow
is used by the founder because it is the colour of his city,
MODENA considered by many as the world’s ‘supercar capital’.
With the square placed diagonally it becomes an Indian yantra structure.
Yantras are visual structures linked to subconscious psychological
complexes. Meditating over a yantra is considered to help when one is
trying to reach higher levels of consciousness.
Thus, it is probably psychological considerations and not aesthetics or chance that
made Germany’s (and Europe’s) biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, adopt the yantra
structure as its logo.
The logo is one of the most recognized brand symbols in the world, identifies all apple products (the name apple is usually not even present). Apple with a bite taken out of it is the tribute to Issac Newton’s discovery of the gravity (APPLE). Some urban legend has it that a bitten apple is homage to Alan Turing, who died of eating an apple laced with cyanide. Alan is regarded as the father of computer.
The symbol is used to epict the five inhabited continents of
this planet. The five colours chosen are such that at least one
of these colours is found on every flag of a nation in this world.
Some argue that this is a astrological symbol for planet Venus.
Also Venus returns to its original position in every four years,
thus games are held at every four years.
Prateek Gupta, ECE 2nd Yr