editorial

issue#25

2005-08-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

It's sad to see that the plague of comment spamming has struck our magazine too. Well, there is one solution offered by blogger.com that might overcome part of the problem ( when the spam originates from an automated script and not some real user ) - that is to have an extra word-verification step ( like the ones you get when registering for most websites) before allowing anyone to comment.

However, as it is the flow of comments in our magazine is measly (i guess the readers get spellbound by the articles :-) ) so this additional step will all but stop even genuine people from commenting.

So, dear readers please voice your opinions about whether we should enable this for our magazine. Looking forward to your comments.

-editor

In reference to the lateness of this issue let us just say our dear editor Suman asked for a change of location and landed up in internet-less office somewhere in the smog and depths of Calcutta with a roommate who “has memorized every piece of dialogue that BigB has ever uttered in his movies…”, leaving the reins of this magazine in our greedy li’l paws.

So we’ve got the somnambulist, a short story, a movie review, another entry for Mayday! by Suraj and a new recipe in the victuals section.

Take heart Suman, and you will soon see a way (out). Keep your spirits up (do yoga, make babies, feed fishes, take this time to connect with your inner child). We love you, hang in there.

More jibes about Suman elsewhere in this issue.

Regards,
Rhea and Suraj

issue #24

2005-07-23T02:37:00.000-07:00

There are two things in our lives that we have absolutely no way of choosing for ourselves- our parents (+ grandparents, siblings...) and our roommates in college/school boarding. And yet, most of us will agree, the years spent with them are some of the best we will ever have. On the other hand, times when we did exercise our choice (jobs, girlfriends...) have often gone awry and left us thoroughly dissatisfied.

So, it comes to pass that 'choice' is not such a great thing after all. Yet we never fail to make a huge issue out of it- often complaining that we didn't have enough of it. In fact we are so engrossed with 'choosing the best' things that we often fail to 'make the best of' what we already have.

New technologies are opening up giant baskets of choices, every other day. You can log onto the web and choose friends to your exact liking, from across the world - they needn't be restricted to the neighbourhood anymore. Now you can evade your 'desplicable' neighbours by spending time in online chatrooms, and yet when you are down with crippling fever, alone in your apartment, don't you wish you had a friend in the person next door?

"You cannot see beyond a choice you do not understand", said the Oracle (The Matrix trilogies). Given the immense complexity of factors that affect human life, it's almost certain that you will never fully understand your choice and hence your future. So without dwelling too much on your options just take a headlong dive into your life and give it the best you have got.

-sumandatta
(editor)

PS:
this week on v!be- don't miss!

shorts | images | mayday | the somnambulist (back!) | critique

issue #23

2005-07-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

ok, so after a few weeks(more than that is it?) inadvertant delay, v!be has managed to put it's act together finally. Actually the last month has been quite hectic for all contributors to this magazine, in several different ways - from getting a new job to getting married to taking time out with friends and family.

Or maybe it was those long cherished memories of summer vacations back in school that unconsciously drove us to take a break! Add to that the laid back melancholy of the monsoon and it becomes a huge feat to do anything else but doze and eat pakodas.

Anyways, we are sorry for leaving our favourite readers high and dry(though I guess they were having their share of fun in the rains too!). So here we are with a double treat! The vibetravel column debuts with a aditya's hilarious account of a trip to Matheran; and we have a new column Mayday..., ripe with humour dripping from suraj kamath's words. And to top it all off we have the magnificent second part of rhea's Coffee Shop Thing and images from Brooklyn by Jack Galmitz.

Enjoy!

issue #22

2005-06-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

I have always been a student of science and have had my dose of theories on evolution, natural selection and stuff; and all that while, I have also been brought up in a deeply religious environment ( though my prayers to God were mostly limited to exam hours :-) ). So when it comes to believing in God, I am a bit ambivalent; in fact, I try not to think about the contradictions at all because that confuzzles my mind.

For it's difficult to believe in God (who created humans) and "also" believe in the evolution of man from the amoeba. Yet, children all over the world come back from school laden with scientific theories of creation and then pray to God, their creator, before going to bed; and no one comes forward to clarify this confusion. Further, both Creationism and Evolution have large loopholes, contradictions in them which doesn't help either.

For sometime now, some researchers have been proposing the theory of Intelligent Design(ID) as a middle ground between religious Creationism and scientific Evolution. They basically believe that evolution did have a part to play in the development of organisms but not everything can be explained by it; formation of complex structures like the eye, and man himself, have been possible due to deliberate external intervention by some intelligent force.

The problem with this theory is that there are several variants of it, and the ID community is split several ways, each often ridiculing the others, and all drawing flak from both Creationists and Evolutionists.

So did God create man on the 6th day? Or was it Evolution? Was it a mixture of both? Or some radically different explanation exists? Whatever it is, it's time we shed our passive acceptance of two ridiculously opposite theories and took a stand.

-sumandatta
(editor)

PS: Our comment-hungry author rhea has written up a wonderful story this time in shorts but has only posted half of it blackmailing us for comments before she posts the other half! The first part is so yummy, I have to relent to the blackmailing and pray to all the readers to put in some comments plzzz.... I really wanna know what happens next to the couple!

issue #21

2005-05-31T20:58:00.000-07:00

India. June 1st, 2005 A.D. Freedom of expression goes up in "smokes"!

As if dealing with all those scissor wielding champions of culture from the censor board wasn't enough, Indian filmmakers will now have to contend with one more dark force. The Indian health ministry has issued an order to ban characters from smoking on screen ( read the news here). As for already released movies, prominent anti-smoking messages will be displayed on screen during "smoking" scenes!

Well, leaving aside the standard arguments regarding freedom of expression and importance of the tobacco industry in Indian economy, let us look at this from a perspective of pure aesthetics. I don't know if this law will apply to foreign movies being screened in India. So lets instead say we have a bollywood remake of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. What would be shown instead of his trademark smoking pipe? Him chewing carrots?(remember telly's Karamchand jasoos?). Or will there be that ubiquitous blurred patch of censorship right on top of his mouth?

If it's about smoking tobacco now, it will inevitably be about all other public hazards soon. Take safe driving for example. Soon, no one will be allowed to drive two wheelers on-screen without suitable headgear. Imagine `sholay`'s veeru and jai in their famous "yeh dosti" song, faces masked with helmets( ISI marked! ). Reader's can easily extend their imaginations to more outrageous secenes. (Waiting for Farhan Akhtar for his remake of Amitabh's "Don". Let's see what he does with the tobacco thing. Btw, do you expect a ganglord to suck lollipop instead of smoke cigarettes? )

So it's a wait and watch for us audiences. Please feel free to add your comments on this growing censorship menace.

(Check out this archived article. on cigarettes)

yours
sumandatta
(editor)

issue #20

2005-05-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

The mass demolition of slums in a bid to clean up Mumbai’s eyesore might just turn around to become a bigger problem than it ever was.

What is it about bad news that makes you thank your lucky stars it’s not happening to you? Well not until it hits your own backyard. I always wondered when I saw people washing themselves in sewers, how Mumbai managed to hold itself together despite the fact that it was bursting at the seams. You’ve got people paying rent to live in tin shanties, in a city which has the second most expensive real estate in the world. How bad do people want to live there?

Obviously, really bad.

It’s not the first attempt in history to sweep an unwanted part of humanity under the carpet, despite the vague promises of rehabilitation for those who came before 1995. The scenery might temporarily be saved, but the consequences of such an act is yet to be seen, and they may not be pleasant.

- rhea daniel
(editor)

in this issue:
shorts | poetry | critique | images

issue #19

2005-04-29T02:17:00.000-07:00

In his book "India Unbound", Gurcharan Das rants about an "emerging", financially strong India; yet ironically all the financial figures in his book are in dollars (converted from the rupee). While a hundred reasons can be argued for it, this shows that we are still a slave to the dollar.

It is really a shame for us all that development and progress has become synonymous with blindly aping the west. Having "missed" the industrial revolution, we desperately jumped onto the IT/BPO bandwagon in a hurry, without a thought to the future.

We have stopped all enquiry into the fundamental sciences and engineering and are happy to be cyber-coolies at the mercy of rich outsourcing nations. What when India starts losing out to other Asian(South-East) countries on this front and finds that she has also lost out on her industrial/academic competencies?

In tune with this mad gold-rush, our core competencies of spirituality, philosophy, art and cultural heritage have all gone for a toss. Regional literature, drama forms, concerts have all been replaced by late night clubbing and Hollywood SFX.

All that remains of newspapers today are Page 3 and Job postings- the rest is trashed. With every third person an IT professional and every sixth one an MBA (not to mention every single person's dream of becoming one of these), the time is near when we will be teaching our children Perl or C# as their primary language in school!

While there's nothing wrong with "living for the moment", it leaves us a whole lot vulnerable to the future and while everyone cannot be expected to ponder on this, I really hope we have at least a few thinkers to save the day when the time of reckoning finally arrives.

-sumandatta
(editor)

issue #18

2005-04-12T04:30:00.000-07:00

Indian advertising is going through a sea-change these days. Ads have always
been ahead of the race in terms of creativity, quality of content and execution
with respect to the film and television industry and have in fact shaped the
nature of movies and serials. Still, in the past few months, Indian ads have
turned sleekier, whackier (Pepsi's Oye bubbly's singing navels) and more bold
(the recent Kwality Walls ad) than ever before!

Of course add to that the new avenues that companies are taking to advertise
their products. Pepsi has come out with a whole album with its ad jingle and the
'song' even features in a countdown show! ( Speaking of countdown shows, it was
a welcome change to find the theme music from the movie Black listed along with
regular bollywood numbers...the times are really a'changing. )

Jumping onto the bandwagon, tv soaps are also featuring their theme songs on
music channels as singles and albums which are climbing the charts! Further on,
the movie Kaal has tied up with a nature channel to broadcast a special show on
it's theme - the jungle; a wonderful way of riding on each other's popularity.(A
year back whoever would have thought of a Bollywood movie being featured on a
nature channel?).

To top it all up, talks are on for a new tv channel devoted to just ads!
Wonder what they will feature during the breaks!

All in all the Indian ad world is a happening place right now.

-sumandatta
(editor)

PS: This week on vibe- shorts | rags2riches | victuals | critique

issue #17 (celebrations!)

2005-04-05T05:23:00.000-07:00

Very few of us have noticed that VIBE has turned sweet sixteen with last week's
issue. That surely calls for a celebration! (I mean who can ever forget their heady sixteenth year?!)

So we at vibe plan to come out with a "best of vibe" downloadable pdf - a collection of vibe articles,poems and stories as selected by you, our readers- with added graphics and articles.

Please help us in selecting THE BEST by putting in your comments on which
articles,stories etc. from previous issues you would like included in this special pdf issue.

You have this whole week to savour the Vibe experience in a flashback and voice your choice.
We also hope to include your comments on the magazine.

Do write in at vibeindia[at]yahoo[dot]com

Thanks a lot for being with us.

PS: check out the movie review (The Ring 2) for this week at critique.

regards
ed
(sumandatta)

issue #16 (long overdue!)

2005-03-28T23:17:00.000-08:00

Last week I was asked to co-judge a poster competition at an all-india science conference. Now, I have always been at the receiving end of judgements- at home, at school, in college, from my teachers, parents and peers- on my character, my work and what not. And sure enough I have come to hate them all. All along I have borne a grudge against these "judges" and "jurors" who are incapable of understanding my "true" worth and I have questioned their decisions(of course the ones unfavourable to me) as being ad-hoc or biased or plain downright incompetent.

Now here I was, part of a team of three responsible to select a winning poster, all geared up to do the "right" thing. We were handed out sheets of paper and there were columns pertaining to attributes like "content","verbal presentation","display" etc. and we were supposed to mark them on a scale of 20- all so very nice and proper. I generally assumed that finally we would sum up all our scores for all the contestants and then rank them and so went around the exhibition with a lot of zeal, giving scores as I felt "right". A total of 14 exhibits and half and hour later, the three of us gathered together with the coordinator to deicide upon the winners. One of the judges handed over his marksheet and went off on an important call. So there we were, 2 judges, a coordinator, 3 sheets of paper and a total of 14(participants) x 5(attributes) x 3(sheets) "handwritten"(no "ms-excel" magic to add them up) numbers!

So we came up with what in the scientific community they call "heuristics" - a process that is fast, approximate, devoid of any reason but works!(hopefully). We did a quick mental addition of marks (and none of us were good at that so god knows how many errors we made) and listed the top 3 contestants from each of the 3 sheets. Now, the first problem arose. It seems the judge who had left had given 20 out of 20 in each attribute to a participant and he had even voiced how impressed he was with that guy "and", most importantly, that judge was an important professor! So, even though that particular participant was nowhere in our lists of top three, we "had" to include him. Now we had two more to choose (we had decided to declare 3 joint winners). So the two of us tallied our rankings and there was noone in common! So we went back to our original score sheet and did a real mess of finding out near-common rankings and by the time everything was done, the two names that we finally came up with was nowhere in my "real" list of top three (or top five for that matter!).

I finally came out of this frustrating experience with a new perspective to contests and judgements, and now I can say that it's true judgements are seldom right but it's not the judges' fault! So here are my sincere apologies to all those who I have mentally cursed for having done me wrong in all the judgements I have endured.

-sumandatta
(ed.)

issue #15

2005-03-14T01:51:00.000-08:00

Moms are a curious lot, and mine is no different. For all those dumbing soaps that she watches on the telly, her mind is as razor sharp as ever; her reasoning just too perfect. I have never won an argument against her; I guess no son ever has.

As usual I called up home last week and at the end of our conversations she was chanting her usual list of "take care of"s -

"...and take care when you go up and down the stairs..."

"mom, I shifted my place yesterday, and its now on the ground floor of the same apartment. So you can rest assured, no problems with climbing stairs!", I said, relieved that I had finally put my mom's mind to rest, only to find out how wrong I was!

"The ground floor did you say? Take care not to keep the doors and windows open all the time...what with insects and snakes and stuff!..." and on and on it went :-)

And then one day she tells me "It must be dull living all alone in the city...try going out and making friends...It pains us to know our son is lonely, you should interact more with people...".

So I call her up yesterday to tell her how the bunch of guys who have recently moved in to the apartment next to mine had invited me over for lunch and I had a great time; and I am thinking that NOW she must end all her worries about my loneliness, and pat comes the reply-

"New guys?...Where do they work? Do you know them well?...How do you know they are "good" company? Take care of yourself from the people around you son, the times are really bad ....". You absolutely can't beat her, can you? :-).

And for all of that, I simply LOVE my mom!

-sumandatta
(editor)

in today's issue:
rags2riches | victuals | poetry | shorts | critique

issue #14

2005-03-07T02:03:00.000-08:00

India is still riding high on the BPO wave and it has brought about a sense of well-being among a sizable population. However, though "outsourcing" is a relatively new term for us, Indians are not knew to the "concept", which has been prevalent in several quarters of our society in different guises, and not always with benfecial results.

The first thing that comes to mind is the "outsourcing" prevalent among teachers in government sponsored schools in rural areas. For a long time now, many of these teachers are in the practise of recruiting local youth (of questionable educational background) to take charge of the school lessons for a small fraction of the money that they are paid by the government, while they live a dual life in the city and own flourishing businesses. That is one outsourcing that has cost our education system dearly.

And then, there is my housemaid! For months I have wondered why is it that she piles up my clothes dumped to be washed for a whole week (citing one excuse or the other- and I don't even understand her language enough to retort) and then, over the weekend the clothpile simple vanishes, and on Monday there are my clothes neatly laid out on the rack- not only cleaned but also ironed (of course she charges extra for that!). And then I managed to find out the truth- she outsources her work to the local dhobi(washerman) and manages to make a decent profit out of it!

On hearing this, my friend tells me that he's seen such incidents among municipal workers in his locality too! At B-Schools they say "delegation of work" is the key to management. I guess we Indians know that only too well.

-sumandatta
(editor)

PS1: thought you all should know, rags2riches predicted the FM's rehaul of all tax exemption sections, much before the budget proposal (in the new year resolutions article)! kudos to jksherdiwala.

PS2: please please please... comment on the works you read- even if it be a simple "good work" or "crap".... all of us here simple wait with bated breath for every single comment. thank you for helping us write better.

in today's issue:

shorts | rags2riches | critique | victuals

issue #13

2005-02-28T02:07:00.000-08:00

Now that this year's American Academy of Motion Pictures Oscar© awards are over, lets take a trip down memory lane in search of India at the Oscars. Though it is fair and true that our films do not require American "appreciation" to be judged as excellent cinema and that India has always had her ample share of awards at Cannes and other ceremonies, clinching an award at the Oscars doesn't harm oneself does it?

awards:

So lets begin with the winners-

1982 saw Bhanu Athaiya (along with John Mollo) win the award for Costume Design for GANDHI. She's also designed costumes for Lagaan and Swades among others.

It's 1991 and India's most respected filmmaker, Satyajit Ray is honoured with a special "Oscar" in recognition of his "rare mastery of the art of motion pictures, and of his profound humanitarian outlook, which have had an indelible influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world." Past recipients of this most prestigious award include Walt Disney, Orson Welles,Bob Hope, Charlie Chaplin, Fred Astaire, Cecil B. deMilles, Douglas Fairbanks and Sophia Loren.

nominations:

Now from winners to worthy candidates.

Three Indian films have had the distinction of making it to the nominations for Best Foreign Film category - Mehboob's Mother India(1957), Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay(1988) and Ashutosh Gowarikar's Lagaan(2001).

An Encounter With Faces, by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, was India's first nomination in 1979 for the Documentary(Short Subjects) category at the Oscars. Vinod Chopra's documentary about Bombay street children received acclaim for the technique of the film: direct, unwavering conversations with children, neither patronizing nor pitying.

After a quarter century, The Little Terrorist, from director Ashvin Kumar, is the second Indian film to be nominated for an Oscar(2005) in the live action short film category.

As luck would have it, none of them emerged winners, but they did manage to garner international admiration and made all of us proud.

and more...

And then of course there has been no dearth of Indian born people laying a claim to the coveted prize. The biggest name among them is of course Ismail Merchant. Born in Bombay, educated at St. Xavier's University (Bombay) his films have created a whole new Merchant-Ivory aura and been nominated several times:

Nominated for Short Subjects (Live Action Subjects) 1960: THE CREATION OF WOMAN - Producer (w. Charles F. Schwep)
Nominated for Best Picture 1986: A ROOM WITH A VIEW - Producer at Merchant-Ivory
Nominated for Best Picture of the Year 1992: HOWARDS END - Producer at Merchant-Ivory
Nominated for Best Picture of the Year 1993: THE REMAINS OF THE DAY - Producer at Merchant-Ivory (w. John Calley & Mike Nichols)

Then our very own Mr. India, Shekhar Kapur wowed the world with his film Elizabeth which received 7 nominations (including best picture) in 1998 and landed a best actress award for Kate Blanchett.

Not to forget the whooping success of movies with India/Indians as themes like Sir Richard Attenborough's 1982 multiple-Oscar winner (including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Ben Kingsley) GANDHI and David Lean's A Passage To India (with 11 nominations and the best original score and best supporting actress awards)

All in all we have had quite a good track record at the Oscars; of course that proves/disproves nothing, we love our films and that's all that matters. Still it's good to see how "cinematic excellence" can cross borders and impress people from all over the world with their universal themes.

-sumandatta
(editor)

This week:

critique | relativity | rags2riches | poetry | victuals

issue# 12

2005-02-19T02:11:00.000-08:00

Just a month or so back I was discussing with my friends on the omnipotence of google; the power it has over our lives. I had commented on the way we no longer directly type in web URL s, but prefer google to lead us to them, even for frequently visited websites - we make no effort to remember the URL, and in fact often fail to even bookmark them, trusting google to bail us out each time.

As a specific example I had cited the Indian Railways reservation enquiry website, which I found most of us always went to by searching "indian railways" in the google search bar; and lo! and behold the google popular queries January 2005 from India ( http://www.google.com/press/intl-zeitgeist.html#in ) - "indian railways" ranks second to "tsunami"!

This deliberate forgetfulness and dependence on external entities for basic information ( rather than keeping them in your head ) has spread like a social alzheimer. Most of us do not remember the phone numbers, contact addresses of even those most important to us beacuse we can always bank on storage provided by our mobile phones or PDAs. If you stop to think for a while you will find innumerable such examples; and that raises such questions as "What if google goes paid?", "What if I lose my mobile and PDA, would I be able to remember even my home number?" and the most ominous question - "What if all this technology came crashing down?"

At one time, I was a strong advocate against cramming up data in your head- what are books and computers and stuff for if not to store such information? Having a weak memory myself, I would mock avid quizzers asking them why anyone would want to memorize the name of the capital of Latvia when you could get that on a world map! But now, I sometimes wonder, have we gone too far in giving our brains a rest and relying on silicon chips?

-suman datta
(editor)

PS: Now you can comment on the articles, stories even if you do not have an account. Choose "other" when the comment box comes up and you can enter your name and comment. All of us here and this entire webzine thrives on your comments - so let the comments pour in!

issue #11

2005-02-14T04:38:00.000-08:00

Hi, and wish you a very happy valentine's day. What more to say on such a day but live and love and enjoy these quotes on love.

If you have it [love], you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have.
--Sir James M. Barrie

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
--Mother Teresa

Love: Two minds without a single thought.
--Philip Barry

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
--Saint-Exupery

He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
--Benjamin Franklin

Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.
--St. Augustine

Have fun.

-sumandatta
(editor)

issue# 10

2005-02-04T01:48:00.000-08:00

I was really amazed at some of my friends' reactions when I asked them if they would like to contribute poetry dedicated to their lovers. All of them have a good grip over the English language and are quite creative too, but the very word "poetry" seemed to strike a deep fear into their hearts. Of course I won't dispute that poetry is a difficult subject - with such grave things as forms,metre,rhyme schemes and what not- but, we are not actually trying to become a Keats or Shelley here, just trying to organize our thoughts into a form that's appealing to the ears and the eyes.

So here are some quick tips to get a poem written. Try them out and if you like the result, please do send it to us.

Rhythm not Rhyme:
That's the first thing to take care of. Most people fall into the trap of writing a series of sentences, all ending in rhyming words which strip the poem of its meaning. In fact, people concentrate so hard on finding that rhyming word that they forget the subject of the poem. So, to save yourself from falling into the trap, I would advise you to forget about rhyming. Rhythm, however, is very important and that can mostly be taken care of by punctuation and line breaks - basically see that your sentences have a uniformity and are not awkwardly long or short.

The Refrain:
This is the oldest trick in the book to make your poems come alive. A refrain is a regularly recurring phrase or verse especially at the end of each stanza or division of your poem. Generally if you have struck upon a theme for your poem, you can easily construct a phrase based on it, use it as a refrain, and construct your whole poem around it.

For example, if you want to write about how you still remember your childhood sweetheart you might create a line like "but i still remember those days we shared" as a refrain and use it like:
`i have loved and lost and loved again
been around the world and back
but i still remember those days we shared...

i have had my share of joy and sorrow
.......
but i still remember those days we shared...`

Inversion and line breaks:
Once you have written down the base of the poem it's time to recite it in your mind and try rearranging the words and sentences. One thing that comes in handy at such a time is sentence inversion. Change something like "my heart desires to see you once more" into "to see you once more, how my heart desires".

Another useful method is to insert line breaks at places in a sentence where it may not be logical but "sounds" good. For example instead of something like

"the sound of wind in the elm trees or the chirp of birds flying home for the night." split it into:

"the sound of wind in the elm trees
or the chirp of birds flying home for the night."

and then rearrange it to ignore the logical break up thus:

"the sound of wind in the elm trees or the chirp
of birds flying home for the night."

And there you are, replace some of the mundane words with flowery synonyms, throw in some splendid adjectives for the polish and you have your very own bouquet of words!

Check out www.rhymezone.com for quick access to synonyms, rhyming and related words

-suman datta
(editor)

in today's issue:

poetry | shorts | relativity | critique

issue #9

2005-01-21T01:41:00.000-08:00

The entire EU crying itself hoarse against a symbol that's been in use throughout history in Hindu and Buddhist rituals just because it happened to be adopted by the Nazi regime; protests against a Sikh play and then an English one; an outcry against certain words used in the Indian national anthem that supposedly "trespasses" the rights of another country - all this in the name of religious and social sentiments.

Sentiments my foot, these guys just need a reason to occupy their idle brains. If a religious guru is jailed- it's breach of human rights, if he gets a bail, it's religious bias; either way protesters will make a field day out of any event.

On the other end of the spectrum, crores of debt-ridden farmers, children who live on the streets and millions of daily wage earners, who have more than sufficient reasons to protest against their plight remain silent; they are so busy earning a living that they have neither the time nor the inclination to stage protests.

The only way to counter the wave of meaningless protests is public indifference (and people are already taking to it) which would drive the steam out of media-hungry protesters.

It's really time to stop worrying about concocted petty issues and start acting on things that really matter.

-editor

PS: Check out the vIbe vAlentine cElebration

issue #8

2005-01-08T05:53:00.000-08:00

The previous year had all of twelve months and yet when we look back it's difficult to look past the last month and the devastation that it brought upon mankind. If anything, the tsunami and its impact has once again taught us to reconsider mankind's much-touted superiority. We may be sending missions to Mars and boasting of our success at cloning, but when push comes to shove, nature has her own way of letting us know that we are but puny mortals.

Another fact that came to fore is that people all over the world are so very forthcoming with aid for the victims of an unfortunate natural disaster, but we never see such grand gestures for the millions of children who die of malnutrition all over, throughout the year - victims of a deliberate negligence perpetrated by man.

Here's hoping that just as the world has united today in the aftermath of the tsunami, it may stay united forever to support other worthy causes with as much zeal and fervour.

- sumandatta
(editor)

tsunami relief/aid

2004-12-31T01:32:00.000-08:00

Please visit the following pages:

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com

http://courageonline.blogspot.com

thanks
sumandatta

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

2004-12-23T01:22:00.000-08:00

The holiday season is upon us once more and here's wishing all our readers a very happy christmas and a wonderful new year to come.

So what are you doing staring at this stupid PC screen?!! Get partying folks!!

Meet you all on the other side of the year with a new issue of VIBEindia.

till then...

take care and have fun

sumandatta

issue #7

2004-12-09T23:50:00.000-08:00

this week:

The proverbial dilemma: Marriage-"Arranged or Love"
in relativity

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Move over star-bestsellers and hbo-features
Here comes the real short fiction:
"11/09/'04, 5.12pm" - Vijay Ch.

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Lina is in a mess...Tuhin in a fix.
VIBE's serial fiction continues...

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choco biscuits * intrinsic value * crossword

issue #6

2004-12-02T23:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was watching "For love or for money" on Star World, and it struck me as a really stupid game, but then on second thoughts, the game of life is played exactly that way!

Every decision that we take in our lives involves, in a broad sense, choosing between love and money. Giving up one's love for theatre/music/poetry for a better paying nine to five job... leaving your family and loved ones in one city for another to make money... declining lucrative job offers to stay on with your ailing parents... everyone of us have made such choices.

However, rather than branding money as a necessary evil or love as an impractical emotion, what we should try is to strike a balance between the two. The point to note is that the actual villain here is neither "love" nor "money" but the conjunction "or"; which we should strive to transform into a "and". With a bit of care and help from both the heart and the head, everyone of us can win "For love 'and' for money "!

Btw, do check out the new poetry section and the new serial fiction!

- sumandatta

issue #5

2004-11-25T02:37:00.000-08:00

Welcome to a reVIBEd version of our webzine. The hosting has been switched to blogger.com to make previous issues/archives more readily accessible and to allow posting of comments for all articles. We have also resolved to add a new feature every week. This week we have added FICTION, where you can read a selected book online, a chapter every alternate day. We will be adding original fiction, poems and more articles to our magazine.

A magazine is made as much by the readers as by the authors. We are presently looking to expanding the magazine with original content. We would like you all to submit your writings to vibeindia@yahoo.com to be featured in this magazine.

And last but absolutely not the least, thanks to all our readers and subscribers. Let us together make VIBE a rocking success!

-sumandatta

issue #4

2004-11-23T05:52:00.000-08:00

These days one cannot surf channels on the television without stumbling upon one talent hunt or the other. The way things are shaping up everyone will have a "super singer" or a "item bomb" or what-not, among their next-door neighbours!

In the name of scouting for hidden talent, the media is blurring the lines between the good, the bad and the downright ugly! Such celebration of mediocrity would be the dream of Elsworth Toohey (from Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead") and severely damages the worth of those who really deserve to stand apart with their achievements.

Surely answering a motley group of general knowledge questions doesn't make one a child "genius". Getting through auditions by a television channel and shooting to fame as "the next cine star" is a downright insult to the scores of drama schools graduates who painstakingly queue up in front of their favourite movie director's house, often for months on end, just to get noticed!

There will be a hundred voices which sing as well but none as famous as Lata Mangeshkar. It takes more to being an icon than mere talent which is aplenty. In fact the very allure of celebritydom lies in its scarcity. We should not be destroying that by churning out celebrities by the dozen!

And finally, though its everyone's dream to be "the actor" or "the writer", if everyone becomes an author who will be the discerning reader? A captive audience is more essential to a performance than the performer. For every poet who dreams there has to be people who translate that into reality.

sumandatta

issue #3

2004-11-23T05:51:00.001-08:00

Time and again you have one of those days when you just want to laze around doing absolutely nothing. Waking up late in the morning you decide to bask in the warmth of the winter sun trickling through the window onto your bed...day-dream some...call up office to say you are down with fever and then rejoice at having snatched the entire day for yourself!

Lie still and watch the world pass by you, pick up that book you had left off midway a month ago...and leave it off unfinished again, to rummage among your music collection and play that long forgotten track from your college-days.

Then try your hand at cooking up some exotic dish from recipes off the net and eat with utmost relish...and its time for a siesta (Oh and don't forget to call up your colleagues sweating it out at work and tell them of the wonderful time you are having...just to make them jealous you know...).

It's evening and time for a stroll at the market downtown and drown yourself in the uproarious crowd, and then have a wonderful meal at some little-known roadside "dhaba". A day well spent!

For all those days when your mind is weary with tough decisions- like what to wear to work ( and the even tougher decision of whether to go at all! ), like choosing the least repulsive dish from the canteen menu, like how much to tip the waiter after dinner and a lot of other minor decisions; for all that hard work you surely deserve a day to yourself!

So go on...take a break!

sumandatta

issue #2

2004-11-23T05:51:00.000-08:00

George Bernard Shaw once said , "The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them"; and he couldn't have been more right.

Not only do we foolishly cling to defunct static precepts regarding religion and social traditions, we obstinately stick to our notions regarding the people we associate with, irrespective of changing circumstances and character. I still tend to treat my brother as the kid he was ten years back disregarding the fact that he maybe better suited to take his own decisions now. You feel your best friend is not as warm and welcoming as before and you go on blaming him/her, without giving a passing thought of how things might have changed over the years, that they might have different priorities in their life now.

We all believe that change is the only permanent thing in this world and yet ew fail to acknowledge it. This is the 'only' reason for the incomprehensible bitterness that sometimes creep into our relationships. So the next time (and everytime ) you meet someone ( and everyone ), remember to 'measure' them anew in the light of passing time; all your grudges will disappear and new horizons will open up - who knows, you may even find your best friend in your bitterest foe of yesteryears!

sumandatta

issue #1

2004-11-23T05:44:00.000-08:00

Hi and welcome to the very first issue of VIBE - the online lifestyle magazine. Besides being a recursive acronym for Vibe Is the Best E-zine!, VIBE stands for the pulse throbs of our generation.

So without further ado, let me take you straight on a tour of this webzine. Basically this particular place on the net is all about food.

You will find new recipes to mess with in your kitchen and the dope on eateries in hyderabad in the Victuals section; Critique reviews movies and books you can fix your eyes on while gorging on popcorn and cola; The Somnambulist and Relativity provide you with food for thought on life,love and so forth while Rags2Riches gives you all the tips you need to fill your wallet so that you do not need to think twice before throwing a party at the Taj!

Now all this talk of food is definitely making me hungry so while i go and grab a bite you get ahead with the stuff here. Bon Apetit!

yours
sumandatta