Editorial

Theres a sTory behind everyThing. how a picTure goT on a wall. how a scar goT on your face. someTimes The sTories are simple, and someTimes They are hard and hearTbreaking. The story behind this attempt at a literary magazine is a little bit of both. simple because it has always been very personal, probably a little more than it should have been. The reason for that lies in the very conception of it. one afternoon, we sat here in the library deliberating over the name for it and today we let ourseleves believe that we can bring it out in print. yes, the story is hard too! Justice markandey katju addresses a bunch of students in california and says that india is passing through a transitional period, transition from a feudal agricultural society to a modern industrial society. The transition period is a very painful and agonising period in history. Tarun Tejpal here in goa at Think 2012 emphasises that this transition and the upheavel that it has brought about is everything that our forefathers would have dreamt of. much to the disappointment of mr. wilde, it is indeed true that there is very little useless information today. and as we stand here in the midst of a storm of ideas, carefully choosing the ones that appeal to our conscience and rubbishing others, maTriX presents to you, Touchstone. here is our bucketful of contribution to the sea of thoughts and ideas. be rational, be smart, be inquisitive or chuck all this and be like calvin and hobbes. enjoy reading!

~Aishwarya Tiwari

What about you? Where are you from? Now this was a question I was always proud to answer. Native of Rajasthan, born in Darjeeling, spent 9 years in Singapore, then 7 years in Bangalore, then 2 in Kota, halfa year in Chennai and am now in Goa. Home is presently Chennai., came the swift and perfected reply, in expectation of a surprised response. I have a similar history, though smaller. We lived for a few years in New York and am now studying in Chennai, while my parents live in Bangalore. I shouldnt be asking this, but you dont look like youre from New York. I know. Once again, Im sorry, but I really feel like asking; Any reason why? Its OK. There is a reason, most surely is. I can tell you, but a disclaimer in advance, it could really get boring. Go on. The train aint too interesting anyways. Fine then. Ill begin He waited for a few seconds, lost in his thoughts and then began.

Am I Worth It..
A fortunate seven years of my life were spent in Bishop Cottons, one of the most renowned schools of India. Being a catholic school, every morning was met with an assembly which involved, along with varied other activities some hymns. Among all the hymns sung, there is one that recently bubbled up from deep within my mind. Its titled Count Your Blessings and was written by Johnson Oatman, Jr. Here is how the trapped bubble found its way to the surface. On the arrival of the long awaited end of semester one, I was finally on my way back home. Was a bit grumpy that I wasnt flying; Dad said he wouldnt spend 15K on my trip back home. So here I was, berth 25, coach S3. Yup I was traveling by sleeper class, again not by choice. In a country proudly owning a sixth of the worlds population, a confirmed ticket is all one can hope for. The extreme congestion due to the excess of passengers over the number of seats, the ever prevalent dirt, the smell from the restroom and even the mega frequent rounds of the snacks dealers and beggars did not bother my mind; there were better worlds it had found. Having found a lonely corner, I sat in the train set to leave from the western coast for the eastern, relishing the thought of the future to come and the fun to be had. We were to leave for Denmark in a weeks time for a vacation there. My flow of thought was suddenly interrupted when I felt a bag on my foot. Sorry, he said, the owner of the bag. He had the seat in-front of me. He was thin and by his dressing style, appeared to come from, as was coined by Mrs. Sarabhai, a lower middle class family. Yet he had an air about him, attributed probably to his smart and confident personality and not to forget, the charmingly blissful smile that defined him. He looked no older than me but his face showed he had seen more. Hi. Im Ajay, he said, raising his hand after the few minutes it took him to accomplish the challenge of settling down as the last passenger in the coach. Im Anirudh, came the acknowledgment from my side. So do you live here. Nope. Studying at BITS Pilani Goa Campus. You? I study in Chennai; first year. Was here for a family function. Parents stay at Bangalore.

like India. Father decided not to get employed again, but instead explore some other field. Due to the turn of events, he settled down on real estate. After a few successful and profitable deals, his confidence rose as did that of his future partners. With time, ambitions and investments both grew culminating in a deal that changed all. Due to misplaced trust, we were cheated of a very large sum of money. The other investors, despite being friends and distant family started questioning. In an attempt to repay them, almost all was lost. There was a pause, and a slight expression of pain showed on his face. His voice had turned low with grief. There was a silence for around two minutes with me not knowing what to do. Finally, with his smile flashing back he spoke. Faith is a powerful tool. The only tool in-fact that we humans have. Another pause followed.

fact more than just necessities have been taken care of. When I look back at my life now, all I see is a pair of parents, who throughout kept their calm, and loved me so immensely while also teaching me the morals and values of life; a stage of life that taught me some valuable lessons including the fact that things are not always in our hands and a phase that rebuilt my faith on the long lost saying with some of my improvisation - Everything happens for your own good. Its left to you to figure out the good and if you cant, just wait. I have everything that I could want; the best parents in the world, a lovely family, a bunch of to cherish friends, some of lifes lessons and faith. There is nothing more I can ask of life. In fact analyzing all Ive been given leads me to the question, Am I worth it. Whenever I ask myself what might I have done to deserve all I have, I somehow never find an answer. And there rose, but yet again, that charmingly blissful smile. If youre worried and you cant sleep Just count your blessings instead of sheep - Irving Berlin

After that incident, father went back to employment but in these times of recession a rewarding job is a distant My father is an engineer. He dream. India doesnt recognize an engineering degree made quite a fortune back without a MBA for higher there in New York, working posts. Despite the financially in one of the multi nationtroubled times in our life, als there. Five years ago we shifted to Bangalore; parents there was never a time when our needs were not met, infelt that there is no place

Lakshay

Complex Number

I wake again, from my mournful slumber.. To realise i am, a complex number.. The odd one out, the weird soul.. The round peg, in the square hole.. Everyday, i just sit and cry, at my weird shape, x + iy. Only i know, how i really feel.. to not even be thought a number real! To be the matter of everyones laugh... to not fit in, to any graph... To be operated with a lot of pain.. to fit into a crude argand plane..

But one day, i met, my soul mate.. it was my complex conjugate! Like a dream, to say it were.. as we united to form, mod z square! As a real number, we saw the sun! No more root of minus one! So, all like me, please do take heart.. Because you have a perfect counterpart.. You just need to look and try.. And youll lose your sorrow, like i lost my i..! :) ~Moyukh Biswas

THE WINNERS
With the blazing images of Beijing 2008 still fresh in their minds, several thousand athletes representing nearly every single nation on the planet arrived in London with the hope of the Olympics bar being raised even higher. Little did they know that on arriving here the three-time hosts of the Olympics had more troubles in store for the visitors than overcast skies and a plethora of commuting problems. London isnt the first and would surely not be the last in the long list of cities that encountered monumental problems in organising the Games successfully. The euphoria surrounding the winning of the Olympic bid seems to invariably die down when the Games finally arrive. Londons victory in bringing the Games home in the year 2005 and the actual hosting of the games was a good seven years apart and in the meantime the economy went from boom to bust. There are several other challenges that a host city faces prior and after the actual date of hosting many of which extend well beyond the closure of the Games. In this regard, a good example would be Sydney 2000. The roughly $850mn that the hosts spent to build

the Games Village didnt yield much to the city as the Village remained no more than a White Elephant until 2005 when plans to open it to residential housing were finally undertaken. Another notable example is Beijings Birds Nest Stadium which opened to much fanfare but hosted no more than a commemorative opera a year down the line. The next problem faced by cities is that of cost overruns. Athenss more than doubled expenditure of $11bn left it miserably indebted while Montreal is notoriously infamous for not paying its Olympic debts until late 2005. Chinas elaborate coming of age party came at a hefty cost of over $43bn-an estimate by analysts as the Chinese refused to divulge the actual expenses incurred. Londons initial estimate of $3.8bn more than quadrupled to over $15.7bn by the time the Games actually arrived. The massive debt incurred by the host cities in the process of hosting the mega event clearly puts the fanfare surrounding this much awaited sports extravaganza into critical perspective. Looking beyond the Games, the huge venues and the sprawling Games Village ought to be utilized effectively to make up for the cost of their construction. However, as one can see, nearly always this just isnt

LOSS

the case. More than half of Athenss Olympic venues were victims of public neglect and lack of interest in the sporting fields they belonged to. Can the Games Village be declared open to public residence once it is vacated by the athletes? Can the large food courts and cafeterias be converted to restaurants once the Games close down? Can the Athletes Village for the Paralympics be made available as a shelter for the disabled and the elderly? The record in this regard hasnt been very impressive so far. Subsequently, these White Elephants haunt the hosts

for much longer than the conclusion of the Games only to be looked upon for renovations once public ire forces the authorities to take stock. Furthermore, in the post 9/11 world, security and surveillance occupy the top slot on the priorities list of any aspiring host city. Apart from its rich

heritage and varied history, Munich will always be remembered for the Munich Massacre in which members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September captured and killed 11 Israeli athletes in what is considered the darkest hour of modern sports. The security budget constitutes a major chunk of the total expenditure. Londons initial estimate of $361mn security budget ballooned to well over $1.6bn as the Games drew closer. As the number of visiting spectators rises, the increasing costs are only expected to add to the debt burden of these cities. Tourism may well be considered to be one of the boons of hosting an Olympics. Indeed, with hundreds and thousands of spectators arriving from every nook and corner of the world, the hospitality industry does get a fillip. But to what extent it would make up for the huge investments made

into the Games is a million dollar question that no one seems to ready to satisfactorily answer. A notable example is that of Barcelona that is credited with hosting one of the most successful Games of modern times by using them as an opportunity to redefine its tourism industry and provide itself a commuting system that was adjudged to be simply spectacular. This certainly contributed a lot to the positive legacy that the Games left behind. Whether or not will be a success is anyones guess but the real bets are on whether the Olympics will do any good to the city once its all over. Will New Delhi 2024 be acceptable to us? As to that, the jury is still out.

- Anmol Panda

that is not very different from verything in nature is the universe itself. And again consistent; you can draw as the brain evolves for millenparallels in any seemingly nia, creating tools and ideas unrelated fields. Anyone that were never before seen, who has seen an image of it creates an entity that again neuron put near an image of resembles so much with the the early universe would have basic structure of both the noticed in awe the similarity universe and the brain. This between the two. Similarities entity, the internet, doesnt and patterns are everywhere physically look like the other in the laws of physics, in the two, but a virtual representahuman body, in the world of tion of it does. economics and even in arts. This is not the single The shocking part mind-boggling piece of recuris not merely the existence of sive similarity found in the patterns. The fact that these universe. We have created the patterns are so flawlessly binary system and use it as a recursive is the one that stuns basis of information storage the psyche. and processing and therefore If you think about it, we humans understand it. the universe left alone for eons The binary system takes every to interact with itself, bounded single permutation of 1s and by certain laws, eventually 0s and associates it with some gives rise to life and then in entity. And its astounding the brain which is essentially how such a simple idea gives an outcome of those selfrise to such complexity that interactions of the universe, exists in the computer world. you see a pattern of neurons However, there is another and its axons and dendrites system that uses a similar idea.

Even the DNA, essentially, works on the same principle of permutations. The DNA or RNA simply represents the quaternary system for data storage and processing. And if you may, you can clearly see recursiveness again. So when I came across a post on the internet claiming that universe is actually a fractal. I found it interesting but rather believable because the idea of recursiveness found so frequently in the universe is the primary characteristic of a fractal. So maybe the universe is just a fractal in a quest of self-knowledge and we are all manifestations of that single conscious entity called the universe.

~Ruturaj Zadbuke

Love:

light, I counted the seconds till we met, And fretted the hours when out of sight. As my noon Sun, I gloried in your gaze, I followed your every word and vision, You became my habit, drug and craze. The came the afternoon, Your affections became dimmer, But I was blind as cracks appeared, And trouble began to simmer. In this fading evening love, I try to hold on, Grasping at crumbs and straws, But its too late; you are long gone. Im in the dark now, Hurt afraid unsure and alone,

I fell for you and you let me fall, Now Im fractured, heart and bone. You took my trust and broke it, Then used a piece to stab me, Now I wait this night healing my soul, Till a new dawn sets me free.

Dawn to Dusk
When we first met,

-Dipti Sengupta

As strangers at dawn, I pushed you away, But you kept coming back , thinking I was hard to get, Took my jabs, till I let you stay. Then you became my morning, Like an eagerly awaited first

The only noise that penetrated the uneasy silence around me was the monotonous sound of footsteps. So it was real. Every day I wake up, hoping all this is a mysterious dream. Every day Im reminded of the grim reality-that I dont deserve to be dreaming anymore. But today was not like all the other days. Today was my last chance-my last chance to hope. Whats the time? I ask. 3 a.m. comes a sleepy voice after a while.

When I woke up, it was still dark.

But a hired killer like me does not deserve sympathy, does not deserve another chance. When the wealthiest of the lot escapes, deserting even the ones who risked their lives for them, its the lower rung, which Im part of that gets caught and punished. Theres no escape now. When a person wants you dead, you can still hope to survive if youre good enough. But when the Government wants you dead, all doors are closed. Get up! roars a voice. My mind leaps back to reality. Whats the time? I ask again. 6 a.m. someone replies. Its time.

Three more hours for daybreak. Three more hours before Im hanged. The crazy streak in me takes me back to the time when life was still wonderful; when the world, it seemed, was a toy to me; when the craziest thoughts reared in me. If only everything could be repaired. If only everything were simple and capricious.

~Geethika

What if god was one of us..

Does GoD really exist? an age-old question that has plagued the minds of human beings, there is no unanimous answer. atheists claim that there is no proof, and hence no existence, of an all-knowing power with the ability to control the world. agnostics have no opinion, possibly utterly confused or otherwise indifferent to the topic. Believers argue that while there may not be any real physical proof, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Casting all personal opinions aside and assuming that God really does exist, it would be a great mental workout to ponder over another question. What if God was one of us? What if He was another human being, with a fixed identity, body, face and characteristics, but with divine qualities? it would be quite interesting to imagine a man or a woman with a regular appearance (or perhaps stunningly good-looking; the person is God, after all), but with all the divine abilities the Creator of the Universe is speculated to have. this speculation alone gives rise to a different train of thought what does divinity really mean? if this question is posed to a random audience, there are sure to be varied responses. some may say it is the ability to understand everyones thoughts, emotions and aspirations. others may feel it is the ability to control events in time the past, the present and the future. the perfection with which nature has sculpted the bodies and organs of liv-

ing beings and their various life processes could also be considered divine. Now, to consider the thought of a human being accomplishing all these feats it is indeed mind-boggling.

of course, there is a certain stratum of people which does indeed believe that God is among us. there are certain men and women, who most educated people believe to be frauds, but are widely popular amongst the illiterate this statement being completely general. to be more specific, an indian woman who refers to herself as radhe Ma is believed by many to be a goddess. on what basis do people make this conclusion? to them, the persons skill at curing ailing people by unique methods, communication with the dead, and many other such capabilities may urge them to believe that the person Maybe, God is not in fact concerned does indeed a supreme deity, or even have Godlike qualities. just one of us, but instead a power that resides within to some, the idea of God each of us, enabling us to

being a human being just like us may seem absurd, even hilarious. other firm believers may even take offense at such a thought. But as Dan Browns character robert langdon says in the Da Vinci Code in the context of Jesus Christs bloodline, maybe human is divine. Why couldnt Jesus have been capable of doing all the things he was claimed to have done, and yet been a regular human being with emotions, characteristics, needs and moreover, a personal life? there is a possibility that Jesus was just an ordinary man, but one who did extraordinary things. in fact, religion is a personal choice. Different religions worship different forms of God, but if this really means there are such a large number of gods in existence, it would be a marvel.

have life. What makes us different from inanimate objects? Maybe the answer is God.

if you give food to a person, you feed him for a day; you teach a person to earn food, you feed him for life.
Charity! The word which encompasses the feelings of our first moral values lessons and inspires compassion and empathy in our feelings! It is often quoted that, If you want to touch the past, touch a rock; if you want to touch the present, touch the flower; if you want to touch the future, touch a life. Rightly so, since only the magnanimous and altruistic demeanor survive the transitory nature of life to attain immortality and imperishability. It is, of course, expected from individual to do something for the world he owes his existence to. As said by Winston Churchill in his speech in Dundee, 1908, What is the use of living, if it is not to strive for noble cause and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we were gone? We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

It must be remembered that the sole purpose of a human being is not selfish comportment, but to imbibe the concepts of love, sympathy and benevolence in our quotidian existence. We must see the face of God in every creation of his and our extra resources must be utilized for the betterment of those in need. According to Indian mythologies and traditions, charity is not an option; it is a way of life. It is vitally imperative to be empathetic towards the needs of others, to attain a substantial improvement in the society; which shall ultimately lead to better living standards for our own selves. The highest use of capital is not to make more money but to make money do more for the betterment of life by Henry Ford highlights the need for charity. Especially in a country like ours, where the disparity between rich and poor knows no bounds, it is obligatory to make the citizens realize the need for voluntary charity, for all round progress of our nation. But it is also mandatory to realize that charity without proper planning cannot hold a perenni-

ally persistent solution to any of our problems. C.S Lewis once said, The proper aim of giving is to put the recipients in a state, where they no longer need our gifts. Thoughtless charity is not the answer to myriad problems we face in todays scenario. It is high time that the question regarding long term sustainability is asked, and answered as well. Donations of clothes, food and other necessities may fulfill the needs for a limited period of time, but what after that? Should we make the poor dependent on the whims of rich, or should we allow the transformation of the poor to become rich themselves? Of course, the poor and needy ought to be made capable to fend for themselves. It is essential not only for achieving better lifestyle for them plus socio-economic development of the nation, but also to instill in them a habit of hard work leading to independence. The system should allow for provision of charity which enhances the earning skills of the individual to improve his living standards. Such a system would have threefold benefits- personal

benefits, social benefits and economic benefits. Firstly, when a person is educated and his professional work skills are enhanced, he learns to earn for himself and becomes independent. Education and providing a pathway to a person to the fullest capacity is the best possible charity. Secondly, the educated person evolves as a personality and makes his presence socially relevant. His awareness level increases and he grows sensitive to the needs of society around him. The sidelined and marginalized sections have the opportunity to be intricately integrated in the society. This charity is actually helpful in earning him respect and faith in the system. Thirdly, he identifies himself as a productive individual, effectively contributing to the progress of his nation in a fruitful manner. When the infinite work potential in our country is tapped through charity in an effective manner, there is bound to be an exponential increase in the GDP of our

country. Consequently, the vast country like India with its populous citizens can touch the zenith success with a few heartfelt charitable works. This ultimate aim of charity can be summed up in words of Benjamin Duraeli: The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.

~Ipsita Samal