There was a time when thinkers set out to form ideas to change our perspectives on life and the universe. Curiosity, though, was a sin but those who unerringly pursued it turned that prolonged existence between birth and death into something far more meaningful and worthwhile.

However, we live in a time when the PlayStation 4 is considered a revolutionary step for human beings. We’ve moved on from looking for answers within ourselves to looking for them outside; the ‘why’ has turned into ‘what’. Yet, even today, the human race has this persistent little obsession to change the world and its perceptions.

A few months ago, when a bomb exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, a few civilians (who probably spent far too many nights watching reruns of Sherlock) on crowd-sourced website Reddit not only convinced themselves, but large news channels, prominent celebrities and subsequently, more or less the entire planet that they had nailed the one guilty of planting the explosive device. Before the authorities could confirm the validity of this serious accusation, the Internet and its users were already being hailed as the future of the justice system, as the change all justice systems required.

Closer to home, news was out claiming that a certain candidate campaigning for a certain post had single-handedly rescued 15,000 pilgrims from the floods that devastated Kedarnath, thereby answering any doubts surrounding the existence of Hercules, and the urgent requirement for his ascension. News channels pasted it in their customary flashing headlines and the papers in their big, bold letters. Shockingly, neither of these claims were true.

Misinformation is the human tendency to prove to the world that what you believe in is righter than any other’s belief and as a result, you set out to change all perspectives to fit your own. We all want to inherently change things, but the problem lies in the fact that we all have different ways of changing them.

We live in an Information Age. The world is twisting and shuffling in different directions to make the average citizen of the world a more well-informed being. In a car, you have the radio; at home, there’s the television and the Internet, and almost every one of us owns a handheld gadget where all three are available at the touch of a screen. We’re bombarded with a vast array of sources and opinions, all veiled with agendas and prejudices. The empowered being today has the choice of picking the one which suits their interests best. However ironic it may sound, the truth is that there is no truth, but we have our own versions of it. Misinformation isn’t a problem; it’s a myth. The ‘truth’ doesn’t exist because regardless of the ‘facts’ put out for you, there’s another person shoving in a new set of facts into your purview. And to further confuse, there’s a host of opinions all pertaining to different facts of the same event. We, the citizens of the world, have the immense power to choose what we want to believe in.

But let’s stand back for a minute and take a look at whatever has been written above – who’s to say any of it is true?

right to misinformationby prthvir solanki

News anchors yell hour after hour, farmers take up arms against the government, urban citizens take to the streets. Everyone’s fighting to get their voice heard. I turned down the volume, put away the newspapers and drew the curtains. Negativity isn’t something I wanted to surround myself with. Living in my own bubble of 50% off sales and fairy dust suited me just fine, thank you. Try as I might though, the unrest continued to stir. There’s no turning down the volume of those voices, the voices that want to see change.

After much deliberation as to whether or not an editorial was needed for this edition of the Raga, it has been decided that it was. You, lovely reader, should know why we chose to voice our opinions on the issues we have explored. In an age where you can be put behind bars for voicing your opinion on social networking sites, a platform to voice ideas appears to be one to cling to with all your might. That is what we did while ideating for this Conclave edition of the Raga. We wanted to express our opinions, puncture that which is taken for granted, and question the obvious; all while adding to your Malhar Conclave 2013 experience.

Apathetic tendencies are most tempting to adopt but the unrest will keep you moving. Rise against fear. Use your words wisely. We’d like to think we did.

editorialby fabiola monteiro

Editor-in-ChiefFabiola Monteiro

EditorsAbisha Fernandes

Alaric MorasCynthia LewisFawzia Khan

Prthvir SolankiTerence Fernandes

WritersAhat SharmaAlefyah Potia

Arpit GillChinmayi Pilgaonkar

Derrek XavierDonovan NazarethJanhavi Nadkarni

Kriti KrishanMegha Mehta

Meghna JoshiNamrata Sheth

Natasha ChatterjeeNayanika Ghosh

Nia CarnelioSaahil Nair

Salonie PowarSandhya Shyamsundar

Soumya Khedkar

the raga team

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by abisha fernandes & prthvir solanki

crippled because it is so dependent on corporate money and advertising money. Editors are not really free to do what they should be doing. Let me give you an example — Tehelka would cost around `250 to produce every issue, and a consumer is paying `20-25 for it. Media is the only business in the world where you lose money for every copy that you sell. In the print business, the more copies you sell, the more money you lose so when you really come down to it, people have to be willing. You are willing to pay `250-500 for chips and coffee at a movie but you’re not willing to pay that much for a newspaper or a quality magazine and that is why news cannot be what it should be.

How then do we change the people’s perception of the news? Right now, people tend to border on the cynical; they aren’t interested and they are definitely not optimistic about anything anymore.

I can’t change their attitude. Our country is so vast and it is vanity to imagine you can ever change things with a magic wand. I think the important idea is that every individual must do what they set out to do. It’s important to keep vitalism alive in our society, and unfortunately youngsters too quickly want money and too quickly give up on the idea that something must be done well predominantly. I’ll give you an example — Steve Jobs always speaks about the time he built a cabinet with his father. His father made him work on the back of the cabinet and made sure it was absolutely perfect, and Steve said “Why are you making me do that? Nobody is going to see that side of the cabinet.” And he said, “That’s for you. You have to feel the

pride. That’s a job done by me and it’s absolutely perfect.” When we create individual islands of excellence, it’s contagious.

You mentioned earlier about the youth being selfish. Playing devil’s advocate, why shouldn’t the youth be slightly selfish?

I absolutely can’t understand why they should be. What’s the merit in being selfish? If this is a common world, if you seek change, if you’re complaining about others, then the agency for change needs to start from yourself. And if you don’t even have idealism, if you’re not upset, if you don’t have a view about how things should be, then you’ll never be able to fix how things are because you have no positive model in your head.

It’s a great sense of entitlement to think that the world is going to be fixed for you by others. I’m just appalled at how many people want to leave the country and go abroad the moment they finish college. Back in 1947, we were much poorer; we could hardly afford to feed anybody. We were colonised and an extremely fractured country. You look up the history of America or England or any of these — they didn’t get the right to vote overnight. They did not become a mature democracy overnight.

Raga got in touch with Shoma Chaudhury, managing editor of Tehelka, one of India’s only honest, hard-hitting news magazines to talk about the state of the media today and the future of the youth of this nation.

Do you think the mainstream media is relevant today?It surprises me that with over 300 channels, only five things are

happening in any one day in the country. Everybody is covering the same news in exactly the same way. That narrow perception of what news is and the hierarchy of attention that editors give stories is worrying. Last year, around 50-60,000 tribal people rallied to bring attention to their inability to get land that had been promised to them. This is an issue that impacts many things like the Maoist crisis, social unrest and social inequity in our country, but nobody thought it fit to cover that. Ultimately, the hierarchy of attention lies in not being interested in stories of 80 per cent of India because you feel you must only do the stories which will get you the TRPs or interest a certain audience.

What’s the difference between watching a movie today and watching the news on television?

There is a great degree of sensationalizing stories with the news. When you watch television, you feel that the nation is in crisis all the time. There isn’t any perspective and priority over what is portrayed as breaking news. That being said, the media does draw attention to certain stories and it does amplify voices in a more responsible manner than the social media does.

If the right news is not being given enough priority, how does the average citizen get the ‘right’ news? How can the average citizen be expected to participate in the democratic process if they are not given the right information?

Unfortunately the reason our policies are so skewed — partly why the middle class is so narrow minded and partly why the liberal genius of this country is dying out — is because of the absence of information. I don’t know which average Bombay college student would know that literally lakhs of people die of diarrhoea, malaria and malnutrition in our country at a time when all of this is curable and avoidable. We obsess only over deaths by terror attacks or Maoist attacks. In Maoist attacks over the entire year, the country might lose about 3000 people. We lose lakhs of babies every day, and every third child is malnourished. This is not anyone’s priority. So how can one get this news? There are a few pockets, if you are socially interested, where you can get information. I feel that even social media or friends sharing stories or just people putting up images you’ve taken on your iPhone cannot substitute mainstream journalism because ultimately, you do need an editor that will take responsibility for a story that is put out. The issue of credibility is very important. The truth right now is, unfortunately, that you are not getting this news. The only way you will get it is when readers in India start paying for the news. Very often, we complain about the media but the fact is that the media is completely

“When we create individual islands of

excellence, it’s contagious. Everyone is looking for someone else to fix the

problem rather than just doing it in your own small way. I think that has to be

changed.”

in conversation with shoma chaudhury

Raga, Day One

What is Malhar Conclave? Initiated in 2009, Malhar Conclave has already played host to names as big as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul

Kalam, P. Sainath, Lord Meghnad Desai, Mani Shankar Aiyar, and Dr. Binayak Sen. Scheduled for the first day of Malhar (the 15th of August, 2013), it is a platform for discussion on issues of social relevance and topics of cultural interest.

keynote addressdr ramachandra guha

the indian democracy's midlife crises

A sociologist by education, a historian by profession and a cricket-lover by choice, there is no subject safe from Dr. Guha’s mighty intellect. Aside from his scholarly work, Dr. Guha writes regularly on social and political issues and has authored the books ‘India After Gandhi’ and ‘Patriots and Partisans’, among others. A recipient of the R. K. Narayan Prize and a Padma Bhushan awardee, he was referred to by the Time Magazine as ‘Indian democracy’s preeminent chronicler’.

Time: 1.00-2.30pm Venue: Hall

interactive sessiondevdutt pattanaik

from mythology to management

What do these themes have in common? People. No longer is mythology confined to a world of superstition and your grandmother’s lap, it has declared its relevance even in today’s fast moving modern managerial circuits. Connecting these two parallel worlds, we have Mr. Pattanaik, the Chief Belief Officer of Future Group. He brings the wisdom of Indian mythology into Indian business, especially in human resource management. He is also an author.

Time: 3-4pm Venue: MMR

interactive sessionanil srinivasan

music beyond boundaries

Music rejoices, it heals, it vents, it cradles. To express the strength of the art, Mr. Anil Srinivasan will be accompanied by a baby grand piano, thereby conveying the power of music to transcend barriers. Mr. Srinivasan is a classical pianist born in Chennai and educated in America. Thus, his experience and range of knowledge spans across Indian as well as Western classical music. He is collaborating with the Agastya Foundation to take music to children across villages in rural AP, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Time: 11.15-12.15pm Venue: Hall

for the motion:paranjoy guha thakurta

A veteran of the system but working independently, Thakurta has made his mark in print, radio, television and documentary cinema. In 2010, he wrote a 71-page report entitled ‘Paid News: How Corruption in the Indian Media Undermines Democracy’. He has authored the book ‘Media Ethics: Truth, Fairness and Objectivity’.

Raga, Day One

debate forumon the contrary – the indian media needs restriction beyond self-regulation

Has the increasing competition in journalism led to a decrease in journalistic standards of integrity? Doubts are on the rise, prompting a debate on whether the Indian media needs restriction that goes beyond the self regulation it has today. Time: 4.30-6pm Venue: Hall

moderator:rudrangshu mukherjee

Rudrangshu Mukherjee is a historian, author and the Opinions Editor for The Telegraph newspaper, Kolkata. He has authored many books, including ‘Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero?’, ‘India: Then and Now’ and ‘Spectre of Violence: The Massacres in Kanpur in 1857’.

panel discussionthe rise of radicalism – a 21st century perspective

On our comfortable couches flicking through news channels, we may begin to believe that radicalism is confined to military coups and riotous revolts. Or we may see the seeds of rebellion in every story analyzed to shreds in the pursuit of truth. Is radicalism the foundation of a democracy or is it hampering the smooth running of the state? Bring your questions to our distinguished panel comprising:

Time: 9.30-11am Venue: Hall

chair: saba naqviSaba Naqvi is the political editor of Outlook, one of India’s leading news magazines, and writes on politics,

governance and current affairs. Beyond her role as a political reporter and analyst, she follows issues of identity and culture. She is the author of the book ‘In Good Faith: A Journey In Search of An Unknown India’.

dipankar guptaOne of India’s most revered intellectuals, Mr. Gupta taught for nearly three decades in the Department of

Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and has written and edited books such as ‘The Caged Phoenix: Can India Fly’, ‘Justice before Reconciliation: Negotiating a ‘New Normal’ in Post-riot Mumbai and Ahmedabad’ and ‘Revolution From Above: India’s Future and the Citizen Elite’.

vinod k. joseCollecting degrees like you would stamps, Mr. Jose comes to this session with a solid foundation in

Journalism, Communication, English and Sociology. The executive editor of ‘The Caravan’, he won the Asia Society Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia Award (2013) for his exhaustive profile of Gujarat’s Chief Minister which was titled, ‘The Emperor Uncrowned: The Rise of Narendra Modi’ and published in The Caravan.

siddharth varadarajanMr. Varadarajan is the first professional Editor of The Hindu, which is trusted for its comprehensive

coverage of political issues. A trained economist, he taught at New York University for several years before returning to India to work as a journalist. He is the author of a book on the 2002 Gujarat riots titled ‘Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy’.

sumantra boseDr. Bose brings his expert opinion to the table, with a specialized study of ethnic and national conflicts

and their management, with a particular focus on the Indian subcontinent and the former Yugoslavia. He is a Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

debate forumon the contrary – the indian media needs restriction beyond self-regulation

Has the increasing competition in journalism led to a decrease in journalistic standards of integrity? Doubts are on the rise, prompting a debate on whether the Indian media needs restriction that goes beyond the self regulation it has today. Time: 4.30-6pm Venue: Hall

moderator:rudrangshu mukherjee

Rudrangshu Mukherjee is a historian, author and the Opinions Editor for The Telegraph newspaper, Kolkata. He has authored many books, including ‘Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero?’, ‘India: Then and Now’ and ‘Spectre of Violence: The Massacres in Kanpur in 1857’.

against the motion:bhupendra chaubey

Bhupendra Chaubey is the National Affairs Editor at CNN-IBN. Mr. Chaubey is among the finest political journalists of his generation and has won several awards for his work. He often hosts the popular award-winning news show ‘India @ 9’ on CNN-IBN.

Raga, Day One

Any evil mastermind looking to take advantage of India’s famous scope for corruption should be afraid. Very afraid. If news channels, tea advertisements and a certain dimpled political heir apparent are to be believed, the youth of India are rising – taking to the streets to defend their rights (and reservations), filing PILs, raking in community service hours, founding NGOs and occasionally burning sofas. They are watching and they are judging. The wool is officially out of their eyes.

According to these reports, it is the liberated, progressive, middle-class students that form the bulk of this unrest. I personally fall into at least two of those three categories, but I seem to have missed the revolutionary memo. Although I am willing to acknowledge my unfortunate lack of unbiased omniscience, I do worry at the startling lack of such revolutionaries in my peer group. On an average day, I share my college campus with thousands of well informed and well connected citizens, all with knowledge of grievance redressal. Yet, maybe eight of them actually spearhead charitable projects or write scathing political commentaries online, or at least use the proper channels to report suspicious activity. There is a significantly larger group who engage in lengthy debates on the army’s handling of internal security until their chai cools down, or scour newspapers for political faux pas to use as party jokes later. And then there are those that still firmly believe that Mahatma Gandhi is Sonia Gandhi’s father.

The youth of today are not a united force. We do not share the same concerns, resources or social context. For a social movement to have impact, it must not simply have numbers, it must have sustained numbers. For this you need organization, you need empathy, commitment, awareness. I do not wish to deny the presence of the dissenting souls among us, I commend them. In the face of parents to please, lifestyle choices to make, educational decisions to take and Mentos to buy, it’s hard to be a rebel. A good excuse for complacency is that once the battle is won, we need an educated, trained population to step into the filthy, filthy system and start a new chapter. Another is that if we keep our heads down and noses clean now, we can clean it up from the inside once we enter the workforce ourselves. Is that enough? Is it time to question our priorities? Is it really such a bad thing to simply want to get through college and then worry about bigger problems? After all, we will be better equipped, more experienced and — hopefully — have greater resources at our disposal.

A generation ago, my parents were taught that education was the only way forward and they gleefully hammered this point into my head as well. So while the youth rise, I am writing assignments. As they tear down corruption, I grab desperately at any internship that will build my resume. As they rebuild society, I rush through my morning chores in time for TV and processed food. And as the morcha passes my window, I draw my curtains so I can focus on writing this article.

This is my world, these are my people. I am answerable to them all and I am answerable to myself as well. I once believed that it is those in power who are accountable for their actions, for their wrongdoing and for their mistakes but I know now that that is not true.

I awoke one morning and I felt sick. I knew that this world was dying and it needed medicine, it needed to be saved but I knew not what I could do. I was weak, far too weak to save myself, let alone the world, and so I locked myself in and shut out the world. I believed that if I were to stay in for long enough, then the world would simply fix itself and then I wouldn’t feel as bad. Nobody knew who I was and I would have liked it to remain that way. I could not bear to even look at myself and so I covered all the mirrors and every other reflective surface I could find in my house and I slept. I slept for a long time. When I finally awoke I did not know how much time had passed, but I picked up the newspapers that had piled up at my front door and fished out the most recent one hoping for the best. It was then that I realized that my notion of anonymity was shattered. Everyone knew who I was, everyone had always known who I was. There was me, splashed all over the front page, page two, three and further on. There was death, decay and unrest simmering in the typeface of the headlines, in the by-lines of the pictures and it was all me. I never was anonymous, this was always me. I needed no mirror to show me who I was, to show me what the face of madness was; I only needed the morning newspaper. I have never been anonymous; I have always been the catalyst. This world is sick and I was the disease – my words, actions and thoughts.

It is never the people in power who are accountable. We always look up to find the way, to ask for answers and also to pin the blame. I now know that that is incorrect. Instead of looking up, now I look down. I keep my head down, pick up my feet and I work now. I do not raise my voice, I do not mobilize my opinion. I simply live. I vote for the right candidate, I am part of the right discourse. I have a long life of sin to atone for and I start here, I start now. I start with taking my face off the headlines and into the shadows. If this world is sick by my disease then I will retreat and evolve. I will mutate in the shadows and fester on the walls. I will fight the infection with my newborn virus of change and I will infect this world again.

There will be no need for matches or fires, sticks or stones. If all goes according to plan then eventually the shadows will be full and we will have to spill over into the light and that will be the day. That will be the day when I will have won. That will be the day when the mirrors will be uncovered and I will see myself again. That will be a good day.

By cynthia lewis

the youth are busy, would you like to leave a message?

by terence fernandes

i am anonymous,i am the radical

Raga, Day One

For some reason, I’d like to believe that music emerged before language did (and I’m hoping my limited anthropological knowledge doesn’t betray me in this respect). If one were to define or describe music, how would they? Because honestly, I see myself running out of adjectives. Perhaps music is an entity whose hypnotic qualities can’t be captured by language, thus limiting it to just a few notes strung together.

As difficult as it is to illustrate the concept of music, do we encounter similar difficulty when it comes to the concept of superficial boundaries? One would only be a fool to agree; language could never fail us here. What are these superficial boundaries? They could be geographical, religious, ethnic, financial or even gender-based. But could music transcend these boundaries that we have drawn around ourselves? Has music already transcended these boundaries? I’d certainly like to believe that it has.

I am, of course, most grateful to the technological changes that have let music from various regions of the world seep into and by extension, inspire the lives of so many. I count myself amongst those fortunate folk. This material world – which we happen to be residents of – is undeniably filled with several forms of inequality ranging from those of race and gender, to those concerning your bank balance and the opportunities you have access to. Reinforcing this materialism is criterion which decides the kind of status you share in society and the category of rights that you are entitled to. Music exhibits a complete disregard for such material beliefs. Whatever section of society you are from, music is one luxury you will always be entitled and have access to. Music of all kinds, music from every part of the world.

Doesn’t music also give us the liberty to look beyond the horizons of our own culture and appreciate certain aspects of a culture we do not necessarily know? I do not have the slightest clue about Swedish culture and yet Opeth has left its impact on me (what better than Closure on a starry night). I want to visit Scandinavia simply because I find the music produced there to be nothing short of fascinating. I may have my qualms as far as the US is concerned – cultural and otherwise – and yet that doesn’t stop me from idolizing Kurt Cobain. The patriot in you may still despise the British, but even that wouldn’t stop you from being in awe of Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree, or The Arctic Monkeys.

Music has indeed transcended these artificially created boundaries between us. Boundaries created by history of war and conflict, by supposedly ‘natural’ differences, by economic aspects and by our very advanced minds. And hence music is much, much more than just a few notes strung together. Beyond material concepts. Beyond man-made shackles. Beyond our limitations. Uniting us everywhere.

by nayanika ghosh

not just those few notes strung together

Sixty-six years ago, when India awoke to freedom, we promised ourselves never to fall prey to the imperialistic divide and rule policies that had wounded us for eons. Our founding fathers had a vision of democracy that promised to restore us to the eclectic blend of cultures that we once were.

Time has passed, and still we stand divided. We are still fighting wars – within and outside of ourselves – of religion, caste, class, gender, race, creed, politics and more. We have never stopped to question the reasons for these wars, why we fight them, and whether some things are really worth the harm we cause in obtaining them We are liberal in our externalities, but cling tight to our internalized chauvinisms. We teach people what to think, and not how to think.

The elite classes have lived safe since well before the invasion, and long after our independence. The poor have suffered untold miseries under every possible regime, seldom receiving any kind of recompense. The real growth story of the world is one of inequality giving rise to a bitter conflict between these two groups. The elite classes, classified either by severe apathy stemming from ignorance or by a vested personal agenda, seek to suppress marginalized voices to the point of desperation. What ensues is a struggle for power between two essentially violent organizations – the only difference between them is the side of the law on which they coincidentally fall. Caught in the crossfire between brutal insurgents and state-sanctioned terrorists lie the rest of us, trapped in a violent world with knowledge of it and yet with a happiness in our silence.

India has also suffered the brunt of communal disharmony. Feisty orators and shrewd demagogues blind people from messages of peace and incite a viciousness of religious sentimentality. Armed radicals from both sides feel no remorse in their crimes for the sake of a deity. Caught in the crossfire between radical religious and ethnic groups lie the rest of us, trapped in a violent world with knowledge of it and yet with a happiness in our silence.

Our governments know our problems, but choose to pacify minorities rather than unite us as a diverse whole. Their interests lie in vote banks, and dividing people is a means of maintaining their own positions. Parties take turns playing the same game of false promises and deceitful altruism. We no longer have our freedom, but a choice: corruption or intolerance, incompetence or ruthlessness. Caught in the crossfire between sophisticated rhetoricians and selfish politicos lie the rest of us, trapped in a violent world with knowledge of it and yet with a happiness in our silence.

We are, and remain, what R.K. Laxman envisioned when he drew The Common Man – “[A Symbol of] the mute millions of India, or perhaps the whole world… silent spectator[s] of marching time.” At this stage, Indian democracy is facing a midlife crisis: A crisis of choices, of actions and of interventions. Which side will you take?

by pranav kuttaiah

caught in the crossfire:a civilian's lament

Raga, Day One

Though the relation between Indian myhtology and management is impressive, it seems even more extraordinary to think of these very Gods roaming around in a familiar environment… our very own college, maybe.

What if your canteen was truly Olympus? What if you started seeing things in a different light, nay, as the source of light, the skies itself? What if the Gods roam among us and all you have ever needed to do is open your eyes a little wider?

Don’t tell me you haven’t seen Zeus, broad-chested and green eyed, strutting around your canteen with a gaggle of adoring fans following in his every footstep, nothing capable of stealing his thunder? Surely we’ve all spotted Eris, the clumsy one gleefully knocking over everything in sight and pretending it was an accident, fabricating slander and instigating cat fights while feigning innocence. Don’t forget Venus, winner of Fresh Face with her makeup and blow-dried hair and magic allure. Who’s Cupid? The chaiwallah, naturally, with his brew mixed with a little bit of something special that sparks dreamy-eyed gazes over a grimy counter.

Athena sits quietly in her corner, her hand ready to shoot up, the second the question leaves the professor’s lips, all her pencils perfectly sharpened, rarely noticed by anyone until prom when she morphs into beautiful Cinderella for the night and finds her Prince Charming. Meanwhile, her brother Apollo sulks in a corner, shooting paper balls into the punch, dreaming of his success one day as a doctor. What’s Hermes, the tiniest in the class up to? No one knows, really; who’s ever even seen him? He’s busy ferrying messages between teachers who are fighting over extra lectures, befuddling them all in the process.

Ares is always around; the sublimating practical joker placing banana peels and his feet across narrow passages and grinning maniacally when people fall, trip and occasionally die. His other hobbies include stomping on ants to satisfy his bloodlust and laughing when you are thrown out of lectures. Naturally his only friend is Hera, the perfect agony aunt who sits and listens to all his problems while secretly hoping for a little attention from the earlier mentioned God of Mighty Thunder.

Be warned, however, that none of these people will ever be made accessible unless you manage to get past the Moirai, the trio of security guards who decide your fate. Be warned; they will scrutinize your every asset, with a special focus on your ID card, before they let you pass. Once you make it past there, reception lady Circe’s baleful gaze might worry you, but you will not be turned into a pig for the fire unless she falls in love with you. Run while you still can.

Every character in the Pantheon is there among you; all you’ve got to do is look for them. May the Gods be forever in your favour!

by alaric moras

the gods are among us

Political Effects of India v/s PakS. Tendulkar* 99 (111)

Did you know?• Devdutt Pattanaik is a consultant to Star TV on

storytelling techniques and patterns.

• Paranjoy Guha Thakurta was one of the first journalists to write about the telecommunications spectrum scandal in November 2007 and was one of the petitioners in public-interest litigation petitions on the subject in the Supreme Court of India.

• At 23, Vinod K. Jose became the youngest editor-in-chief of any current affairs registered magazine in India when he started Free Press. Jose conducted an exclusive interview with Afzal Guru while the convict awaited his execution inside the Tihar Jail.

• Siddharth Varadarajan is the first professional editor of The Hindu in its 150 year history. Prior to his appointment, editors were drawn from the family of the company’s owners.

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Raga, Day One