The Securicult

How to make a perfect “localite” salad

Written By: Foram Fanasia Physics | M.Sc. III

Ingredients

1 cup of personal vehicle 1-1½ cups of friendly help ½ cup of FOMO 2 glasses of ghar ka khana 1½ tablespoons of Gujarati language (optional) A pinch of food recommendations

Recipe

Whisk the food recommendations till you satisfy your appetite. Mix it well with ghar ka khana when you feel homesick. Fry the FOMO till its colour changes to hostel inconveniences and add it to the personal vehicle. Stir everything with the cups of help constantly till you get familiar with the city. Add the Gujarati language if you want to learn something more than “Kem cho”. Serve it with 4 years of formal friendship during graduation.

The Securicult

Written By: Supal Padmashali Mech | B.Tech. II

Saptarishi Pandey Mech | B.Tech. IV

Welcome to my blog, dear child. You may not recognize me, but you know who I am. Every day, I see hundreds of you walk in and out of my gates in front of me. While you may fool your professors and wardens, you cannot fool me. Nothing in this institute is hidden from my eyes; I see all, I know all. I know about the times you snuck out of college for your night outs and even the times you tipped the food delivery man for some special oregano. From dusk till dawn, I sit here inside the gates as the proud protector of this institution. I did not want any part of this, but they named this place after me, after all. Fret not my child, for I’m on your side; your secrets are safe with me. These silly secrets are minuscule compared to the ominous happenings you know little of. It all began thirty years ago, before any of you were even born, when this institute decided to upgrade its security. Being of national importance meant we needed stronger safekeeping of what happened inside. A band of blue-clad men was recruited to be the protectors of students and professors alike (as if I wasn’t enough!). Something about them didn’t sit well with me; something was suspicious about them. Soon, the group started imposing bizarre rules on all of you. You could no longer walk through the main gates. Instead, there were special paths for you to go through. Then there was the silly rule that you couldn’t sit and relax anywhere you wanted; after 8 hours of lectures, a child couldn’t even unwind! All of these were supposed to be ‘security measures’ — to protect you from the world outside. But everything seemed to be complicated and unnecessary.

These new ‘guards’ did not allow students to stand around their own college gates. But what seemed most pointless was making the students enter their names in a register upon entering their own college. Everything was tracked through registers. Even during the dawn of technology, where online computer databases were taking over written records, there sat a ballpoint pen — flimsily cello-taped to a thread on a shabby register. The guards stood there day and night, without cellphones, watches, or any kind of entertainment, relentlessly making sure that the registers were maintained. It was almost as if they received some kind of sadistic

pleasure by doing this. These were men brought in to protect you, but they seemed to have intentions of malice. I found out later that these were people filled with hatred for the very essence of SVNIT — technology. Knowing that enthusiasts of technology often walked the roads of SVNIT, what better way to keep an eye on the happenings than to be inside the college itself? Oh no, these weren’t ordinary security guards.

As it seems, these Luddites hated technology. But why was that? Wasn’t technology here to help people? Not so for them, it seemed. Their leader, whose great-great-great-great-grandfather’s uncle was once a sorcerer in this town could predict the happenings before they even happened. For decades, he gathered the respect and trust of his folks and followers, until one fateful day arrived. On one stormy night, a man of science entered the town looking for refuge. The engineer slowly started teaching the ways of science to the commoners — the laws of gravity, basics of electricity, and even a bit of biology. The city grew, with a particular interest in textiles. As science unraveled itself to the people, they started seeing through the lies of the sorcerer. A year later, they banished him and his tribe of followers kilometers away from the Tapi river, calling him a charlatan and burning his house down. He didn’t take that very well; it was treason. He took a blood oath of striking down any work of science. Since then, the tribe went around breaking scientific paraphernalia, burning down

peer-reviewed journals. Through the years, the tribe spread to different parts of the world. Some of them later formed what is now known as the Flat Earth Society. But the bloodline stayed pure, and later, one of the disciples founded “The Securicult”. Decades later, the plan was finally starting to fall into place, when The Securicult was hired by this institute. It seemed inconspicuous to the administrative department (a rare sight), so they signed the contract to protect the college with the help of The Securicult.

Unbeknownst to the college, there was something much darker in the works. Not long after they were recruited, on a terrible rainy night, one of the members came running down the road with a drenched register in his hand. He rapped his hand on the college security office door frantically. A man in a blue robe stepped out. Suddenly, as if alive with new hope, the guards from all around the college started to gather around this man, who seemed to be their leader. Exactly at the witching hour, he said these words, which still ring in my ears as a dark omen, “Just a few more days, my brothers. Just a few more! Then it shall be our turn to prove ourselves to our lord and avenge our forefathers! In the name of our lord, we will strip this stupid excuse of a college away from all technology!” To do their evil bidding, they were ready to sell off the souls of the students of the college, beings like you. They planned to do this by some wicked ritual which required every single one of the college students to be present in the college. They planned on using their registers filled with details of the students as an offering for the ceremony. Little did they know, the information they sought was easily available on the college website, accessible through the technology they so vehemently despised. Once this rite was done, with the power they would gain, the cult planned on turning the institute into a vocational college — where the only vocation taught would be that of a security guard, brainwashing all its students. However, there was always one thing which came between them and the success of their evil plan; it was none other than my precious students, who always found reasons to stay out of the college at night. Because, as you see, the ritual which they sought to perform required all the students of the college to be present on the campus.

Not on a single night was each student present on the campus and with each passing day, the band of security guards grew evermore contemptuous. Some lost hope in the cause and ended up buying their first smartphones, while others stuck around in the hope of finally seeing our college get destroyed from within. To this day, the blue-robed man roams around at night, with hope in his heart and anger in his glowing red eyes, waiting for the night he can finally ascend to the Lord of Luddites. I see him walking around every night, cursing under his breath, but there’s little I can do to stop him, for I’m just a bust.