Renesa | July 2020

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EDITORIAL “Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.” - José Saramago The world is reeling through an unprecedented crisis. While the news bulletins get bleaker and unique troubles crop up every single day, Renesa hopes to bring to you a brief moment of respite through our issue for the current semester.

The theme this time, ‘perspective’, was influenced by the human urge to interpret and decipher the world we live in. While we use intellect to forge meaning out of the apparent chaos of reality, this meaning we derive is often very different for every one of us - and that is where the beauty of perspective lies. From interpreting a painting, to understanding human history, the fabric of reality is tinged a different shade based on how we choose to view it.

As you turn through the pages, you will embark on a journey of extremes: from anime reviews to capitalism, from interpretation of art to a master-plan of apocalypse, from the polarisation of history to the perception of suffering, you will find it all. In the highly probable event of a First Interpretation Report being filed against the team, it is our responsibility to remind the readers to approach the articles with an open mind and remind themselves of what Nietzsche had once said, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” We have also put up the outgoing batch’s departmental photos along with their drive links. Feel free to download them and pinch and zoom onto your faces only to realise that the almighty might not have done the most perfect job with you.

Saying goodbyes to your closest friends is never easy. But maybe in the present scenario, each one of us is willing to put everything at stake just to spend a day or two with the ones who made college life bearable. A senior once said in a conversation over iced-tea that more than the places, it’s the people that matter. As our graduation inches closer (hopefully), the weight of those words is especially striking. More than anything else, Renesa afforded a safe place to express our ideas; it gifted us the most adorable set of talented seniors we could look up to and a swarm of juniors to support us. So, we have decided to hold on to those beautiful memories, to the energetic and therapeutic meetings and to the amazing conversations we’ve had. You should too. Fare thee well, friends.

Mrityunjay Mohan Borah, Chief Editor Rhishabh Goswami, Chief Editor

CONTENTS 04

Erased............................................

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Cognitive Cloud Computing..........

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The Sinister Task............................

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Frame of Reference........................

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Dominant Perspective....................

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Biased Intelligence..........................

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Polarizing History.............................

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Equality or Capitalism.....................

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The Plan..........................................

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Departmental Photos......................

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The Team........................................

Erased (Boku dake ga inai machi) (Anime Review) Kevin James | Comps | B.Tech. 4

It is the year 2006, and the protagonist of this anime is Satoru Fujinuma, a 29-yearold who time travels. But this is not the usual time machine story. A supernatural phenomenon called ‘Revival’, resets him back in time. And this happens randomly at any time. Using ‘Revival’, he is put into situations where he can save people’s lives, which he eventually does. Usually 'Revival' happens in a short span of time – minutes and hours. However, in one scenario, he travels all the way back to 1988, as a 10-year-old school kid with the mind of a 29-year-old.

The show has made an interesting choice in making the scenes of Fujinuma’s past as cinematic widescreen and his present life as normal aspect ratio to differentiate between the time frames. The background music is so well made that you will be hooked onto the anime as the plot twists arise. Also, they have done a great job on character development as the story progresses. Erased has won an award in

the IGN Summer Movie Awards under “The Best Anime Series” in 2016.

Apparently, one of the voice actresses for dubbing in English in the same show admitted that she was really scared after watching it for the first time. This was because she was so engulfed in the intense story. This show is usually compared with 'Steins Gate' even though they have several differences. 'Steins Gate' completely focuses on the theory of time travelling but Erased deals with an inexplicable phenomenon. Some reviews found that the ending was too obvious

and were not happy with it. But I believe that they took enough time to build a satisfactory ending.

Erased is a psychological thriller that will surely excite a newbie who wants to experiment with anime or an anime lover willing to take up another classic. It is just 12 episodes long, making the show short and topical.

The Good Luck of Right Now (Book Review) Shivansh Shandilya | Civil | B.Tech. 2 “… I’m not about to share my pretending with anyone, because pretending often ends when you allow nonpretenders access to the better, safer worlds you create for yourself.”

‘The Good Luck of Right Now’ is a fiction

by Matthew Quick, who is most famously known as the bestselling author of the book – ‘The Silver Linings Playbook’ which was made into an Oscar-winning feature film. It is the story of Bartholomew Neil, thirty-eight, jobless and clueless about life, who is coming to terms with the death of his mother, when he finds a letter from Richard Gere, the famous movie star, addressed to his mother.

Bartholomew’s mother, an ardent Richard Gere fan, diagnosed with brain cancer, is shown to be heavily depended on her son in her later years, calling him Richard in her bouts of hallucination and diminished mental faculties. Neil, more than happily plays the part for his mother’s happiness.

Post her death, he decides to correspond with the movie star, hoping to get some answers. The novel is a chronological series of letters that Neil writes to Richard

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Gere. These letters explore wide-ranging topics – from philosophy, friendship, cats, Buddhism, grief counseling, China-Tibet relations, Jung’s Synchronicity, alienabductions and the mystery of women.

Matthew Quick does a fabulous job of assuming the role of Bartholomew – the simple-minded, child-like innocent, middle-aged man, who is grappling with all the newness around him with a sense of amusement and wonder. Just like a child might ask profound questions in moments of unfettered curiosity, Bartholomew too, ponders over his situation – lack of family and friends, the ‘need to find his flock’ and relationships and their complexities – with a dazzling mix of self-awareness and humility in easy-to-digest proportions. The story unfolds as a concoction of life after the death of a beloved parent-meets dilemmas of a teenager suddenly being pushed to responsibility/independencemeets midlife crisis. Quick’s narrative is easy to follow and does not make the reader feel like the author is pontificating.

Most of the philosophizing is sprinkled throughout the story as an almost absent-

minded, ignorant afterthought. That’s what makes the story easy to follow. The characters are fleshed out beautifully.

Their flaws, imperfections, gullibility, bipolarity and indecisiveness give the story a realistic feel.

‘The Good Luck of Right Now’ is quirky and strange and beautiful and wise and funny. Sometimes it’s sad, too. There are places where you will feel goosebumps at the life-affirming insights and thoughts of the narrator, who is not the cleverest of the lot but that is exactly what makes this story work. Any other narrator couldn’t have worked as well. It had to be Bartholomew Neil. Episodes of childhood bullying and deaths (yes, there are more than one deaths) are tear jerking but you still laugh at the narrator’s perspective (and feel guilty and question the kind of person you are). At the cost of sounding like the biggest cliché, ‘The Good Luck of Right Now’, at its core, is a simple story with a lot of heart.

Cognitive Cloud Computing Haider Sultan| ECE | B.Tech. 3

With the advancement in the technologies and ease of access to almost any form of digital entertainment, we are creating more than a zettabyte of data each year (equivalent to 250 billion DVDs!) with the production only increasing exponentially.

Most of the data that we produce is unstructured and unrefined and cannot be used for any real time application to aid the prominent industries or even individuals who are looking for personalized information 24 hours a day. We have AIs running algorithms on the data produced to find out patterns or similarities in them to be able to use them and harness their potential but with the general frightful concerns related to them, a more realistic way is needed for this.

Enter cognitive computing. Cognition is “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses”. Cognitive computing process uses a blend of artificial intelligence, neural networks, machine learning, natural language processing, sentiment analysis and contextual awareness to solve day-to-day problems just like humans. In simple terms, it’s a combination of best of humans and best of computers. They learn from the data and in effect continuously ‘re-program’ themselves. The tech giant IBM defines

cognitive computing as an advanced system that learns at scale. It reasons with purpose and interacts with humans in a natural form. Now that sounds familiar remember Friday from Ironman or TARS from Interstellar!

The literature we all converse in is full of flaws but humans are able to resolve the ambiguities with context, unlike a system which should be able to process them. Cognitive systems are capable of understanding the subtleties, idioms and the nuances of the human language.

Using deep natural language processing it’s able to examine co-occurrence and co-relations with context. They are used in decision making and root cause analysis and have the ability to transform insight to foresight.

Artificial intelligence is programmed to find out the most optimum solution to a given problem and uses pre-defined algorithms to avoid particular scenarios, meaning most of the time it cannot be rational. Cognitive computing will use human thinking to solve the problems giving us the power of fast and more accurate data analysis without having to worry about the wrong decisions taken by the machine learning systems. IBM’s Watson is used in multiple industries for assisting and managing with huge volumes of data. In healthcare it helps

with patient’s data along with assisting the doctors with latest evidence-based medicines and with surgery or operations.

Edge Up Sports assists to reduce sports injuries on the field by collecting and evaluating data of player movement through sensor-tracking cameras, and in turn giving insights to minimize injuries.

It’s also used by some to manage their Fantasy Football teams and make more informed decisions.

Integrating cognitive computing with cloud is an intelligent decision. Cloud allows developers to build Cognitive models, test solutions, and integrates with existing systems without needing physical infrastructure. It optimizes resource utilization as the cognitive cloud can be used as and when required and decommissioned when idle.

With more and more data being processed every minute we need the cognitive system to help categorize and organize it. The implementations of the technology are numerous but along with that come hurdles such as the security issues as well as the society’s willingness to adopt it. The tech still has a long way to go but at least now we can be reassured that we won’t be having an AI apocalypse.

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The Sinister Task Mrityunjay Mohan Borah | Mechanical | B.Tech. 4

In movies, creepy ghosts, dirty zombies and seductive witches run after your life in the dark, in loneliness and in eerie haunted houses.

Being afraid of the same, I kept my lights on even while sleeping. I also used my refined engineering and mathematical skills to align my bed in such a way that I was at the closest distance from the door, always.

Yes, from the introduction this seems like a funny story, a story of sarcasm, of underlying humour and wit. Dear readers, it isn’t one.

Even today when I close my eyes, I am haunted by that incident that took place within a month after I joined college. An incident, which neither took place in the abandoned road near the Gajjar Bhavan nor in the still silence of the broken road near the abandoned hostel. It took place right at the heart of the institution, in broad daylight and amongst a lot of people. Few people have encountered this incident. I am one of them, one amongst the unlucky few.

It was a usual morning at college.

Getting up, mentally preparing for the

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day, basic adequate hygiene practices and then sprinting towards the class for attendance. I was totally unaware that this day would prove to be one of the darkest days of my life; you don’t expect to be in such a scenario when you are with your friends. Similarly, naïve, I was unaware of the underlying dangers around me. It seemed like everyone was delighted and having fun.

Then one of my classmates, whom I considered my closest friend, turned his head towards me. He handed me some contents from his clandestine bag. The instructions were clear. I was supposed to deliver the contents and collect a package from a particular place. I had never indulged in these kinds of activities; my friends back in my hometown used to do these summoning activities as a part of the trend but they knew my fears, my insecurities. I can still see my friend’s menacing eyes and his sly grin every time I am at that place.

Terrified, I turned to my other batchmates, hoping one of them will go along the ghostly way to save me. I was wronged.

They compelled me, saying each one of them had paid their dues and that this was the only way to take possession of

the stuff that will make each one of us happy, satisfied and powerful.

I took the first step towards the assigned track. I experienced every single eye shadowing me, even the ones you can’t see in the real world. I felt the chill along my spine. But I had to do this, rejecting this would have consequences far more catastrophic and disastrous in my life, I thought. I might be abandoned for the rest of my life, I might have to suffer a gut-wrenching pain for the rest of the day, ordered by the dark forces. For this reason, I kept going, even with my heart thumping a million beats per minute, even with tears welling up in my eyes and even with the poker-faced demon at the end of the road staring right through my soul. He extended his hairy arms and claws at which point I was supposed to say the magical chants to safeguard myself. I tried but something was grabbing my neck, something powerful; my throat became dry and I was unable to speak. I was going through a mountain of emotions every passing minute. I was just about to collapse from exhaustion when I mustered up whatever energy I had left and directed it towards saying “Bhaiyya teen Mysore Dosa”.

A Peak inside murderous minds Supal Padmashali | Mechanical | B.Tech. 1

Serial killers or spree killers maybe monsters, as we call them, but they are not mindless. Results show that organized killers can have an average IQ as high as 99.2 on a scale of 100. This does explain how they are able to avoid getting arrested; but this killer IQ rate is also often accompanied by a genetic flaw and/or damage to the prefrontal cortex.

These anomalies shape their brains to live in a fantasy world where their actions are justified and consequent guilt does not exist. In their very own Riverdale, the pain of others is of no consequence as long as it fuels their sadistic pleasures. Since, sharing these fantasies is not an option, they choose to be away from people. This is where the IQ kicks in and helps them to pass off as ordinary men; just like the infamous Dennis Rader, also known as the BTK Killer, who was once the president at his church. When the boundaries of reality and illusion collide, the need for dominance, sexual conquest, and murder rises. The motive can range from lust to

thrill or to trying to be a vigilante.

To spice things up a little, why not follow a pattern? Patterns are methods which are very specific to the killers and are followed every time they kill someone.

Traumatic childhood experiences, hidden deep in the lives of the murderers usually provoke these patterns. The effects of such traumas first appear in their lives when they are just children. Things which would normally disgust young kids, like dead rats or birds, do not have the same effect on kids with troubled minds. It is more likely for them to derive pleasure from uneasy sights.Sometimes animals become their first victims and this is where they start forming their patterns, which they continue using later in lives.

Patterns become very personal to them and seem to fill a void created long ago.

So next time try not to mess with kids who had abusive parents. Things which trigger these people are very well hidden in their history and are ordinary things like blond hair or maybe a pendant that

their mother wore. Such triggers often become the method of choosing their victims.

These minds are not devoid of emotions, not if you count the ones you feel when you kill someone. Instead, what they feel are just different from ones we normally feel. No offense to any murderous minds reading this.

Is it really her choice?

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An Italian television series ‘Baby’ deals with romanticizing the delusions of power and control in prostitution. The real world deals with something far more dangerous and unnerving.

Netherlands was the first country to legalize prostitution in the year 2000. Two decades later, 77 have further legalized it with 11 other countries allowing limited prostitution. The consequences of legalizing such a profession can be threefold. One, now instead of being

an oppressed individual, you are just a regular person with a day job. Two, this legalizes the use of a woman’s body as a work place as long as a price is met without any regard to the individual whatsoever. Three, instead of pimps, whores and brothels, more professional terms like clients, employees and partners can be used, making something ugly and rotten sound so professional.

Deontology refers to a mode of ethical thinking in the western world. The concept is to universalize the rules of sexual consent. An importance to the rules rather than one’s actions is the primary focus in this principle. A brothel works with the same concept. Rules and regulations dictate the client-employee relationship and its boundaries. But there’s a catch, money.

The #MeToo was a movement that was designed to deliver justice to women who were oppressed due to assault and violence. Yet, when sex workers came forward with their stories, they were widely disregarded. After all, how can a

sex worker ever be sexually assaulted?

The money in the business complicates things. Prostitution, instead of being about sexual violence is just about sex.

A client feels like he deserves something out of the employee just because he paid for it, no matter what the woman’s opinion is. She has no option but to comply in these situations because she does not have another choice. It’s either to suffer quietly or lose the roof over your head.

Prostitution, whichever way you take it, is a dangerous concept in society. It justifies the carnal desires of a person and physically embodies it and allows them to pursue it. A woman suffers through emotional, mental and physical trauma doing this job. She gets degraded to an object, even robbing her of the basic right to the freedom of speech. She does not have a voice of her own and all she can do is just exist. So, every time someone justifies prostitution, our world takes a turn in the wrong direction, one step at a time.

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Frame of Reference Karthik Sunil | Mechanical | B.Tech. 1

Since the dawn of time, the biggest debate known to mankind has been whether the movie is better or the source material is. Even though it hurts the fans’ ego, they have to accept that movies make it easier to comprehend the story and do not take an eternity to complete.

Using the freedom of the extra dimension to their advantage, directors try their best to deliver the intended experience to us.

The director’s ability to present a plot in the best way possible is what makes him/her stand out. Looking at Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012) you realize it’s a flawed movie, but it was entertaining and quite a thrilling ride. Scott’s brilliant ability of using foreign colors among monochromatic backgrounds makes the viewers uneasy and reinforces the idea that the astronauts are where they are not meant to be.

On the other hand, a movie with an amazing plot can be ruined in the wrong perspective, leading to a mess

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which nobody wants to sit through. The critically acclaimed Les Misérables (2012) was fast paced which restricted viewers from getting in touch with the characters’ feelings.

Directors try their best to innovate modern approaches through which they can completely immerse the viewers.

Tarantino has made a name for himself with his signature “trunk shot”, where the audience is put in a low angle, lookingup POV shot. It intensifies the victim’s feelings, putting us in the mercy of the director. In Kill Bill Vol.1 (2003), Sofie Fatale’s pain is amplified when being tortured by Uma Thurman, thanks to this technique.

Apart from the camera angles and shots, even the editing can spark emotion.

The audience derives more meaning from two back to back shots than from a single shot, an effect observed by a Soviet filmmaker, Lev Kuleshov and

popularly known as the Kuleshov effect.

In the opening sequence of Jurassic Park (1993), as the shot cuts between the dinosaurs and the characters, you can see the shock and awe in the doctors’ eyes when they see the live dinosaurs for the first time.

The frame of reference in movies is as significant as it is in physics, it gives us the foundation from which you develop ideas from. We have all been there when we finish a question surprisingly quick only to find out we were light years from the answer because we took the wrong reference point. Being the heroes behind the camera, they need to make sure they avoid this so that an innocent movie like Toy Story doesn’t talk about a bunch of slaves locked in a dark room hoping their master will use them for pleasure.

Dominant Perspective Foram Fanasia | Physics | M.Sc. 2

What would change if one day you wake up and discover that some theorists came up with a concept that there are no electrons to start with? Nothing. The objects/bodies you see, the electricity that flows, the water you drink, nothing would change. The only thing that would change is the way you would see them scientifically.

If we take a look at the scientific world, everything works from the perspective of scientists and theorists. There is no doubt that all these facts have been somewhat proven, but consider a hypothetical situation where Rutherford never came up with his model of the atom. Every theory would be explained by Thomson’s atomic model, and we would definitely come up with theories supporting the plumpudding model. The fire you light would still be lit and the electricity would still be flowing, all with Thomson’s perspective.

In recent studies by physicists, it has been suggested that there is no dimension

as time. That’s right, time, as described

by Newton an absolute quantity, is not true. It has even been published in authorized papers. What time really is, is a mathematical quantity to measure which has no prime existence. But as we have already adapted to the idea of time as a quantity, it would be difficult for us to change our following theories and discoveries which are based on the fact that time is a dimension. Time being a quantity is a perspective, and we construct everything around us according to it. And as it has been authenticated, it becomes dominant. Even if we discovered this idea to be false, nothing about our physical quantities will change.

The things we see and feel will remain the same, no matter how we see it.

But our curious minds will never stop reasoning behind the cause. This isn’t limited to just science and technology.

This act of curiosity can be brought down to as simple and insignificant as cloud watching. Cloud watching is a relaxing

hobby, with no equipment and only imagination. This art is entirely based on one’s imagination and perspective.

Imagine you are standing under a clear sky with a friend, he notices a microphone-shaped cloud and asks you if you see the microphone too. Your first instinct would be to see a microphone in that randomly shaped cloud. Even if the cloud is remotely shaped like a microphone, you might conclude that it is a microphone-shaped cloud, even if it resembled more to a hand or a fist.

All in all, we can say that usually, our perspectives in every area of imagination are influenced by other perspectives.

And even if we have a perspective of our own, which can be off track from the truth, we tend to set everything that affects it to fall in the pit of our interpretation. We will always reason our way out to let a particular dominating perspective be satisfied.

Perception Of Suffering Yukta Malik | Chemical | B.Tech. 3 For Thaabo Moorsi, it was a nightmare.

His home in Bantustan, South Africa was destroyed and he was tortured and detained just because his skin was a darker shade. At the same time, Henry Kichka lost his family in a death camp in Auschwitz, Germany and had to escape just because he belonged to a different race. Both these men were totally unaware of each other’s suffering because they were too troubled in their own worlds.

An adversity becomes a suffering when the person experiencing it, perceives it as one. This perception constitutes of years of learning and experience and is indicated by one’s individualism. We tend to favor conversations that are directed towards our own sufferings and thus relate

more to the people who went through the same. In analogical terms Hitler was just another politician for Thaabo; but for Henry, he was the face of evil.

It is also natural for any information to corrupt while it travels through several people, or moreover, it is intentionally altered. A research on two different Syrian newspapers inferred that both presented completely different opinions on Syrian refugees. While one focused more on the humanitarian aspect and wrote about their tragedies, the latter was tilted towards political explanations and criticism of opposition. And the majority’s perspective was decided by the source that reached more number of audience.

The above paragraphs will make no sense if the reader himself is not interested in forming any opinion. We are indifferent to many hardships just because it is not being faced by anyone from our community or we are physically separated from them. On top of that many incidents don’t even get reported or documented enough to grab our attention.

Suffering never comes in a single form, even to a single individual, and as they say, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison”, it is all a matter of perception at the end.

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Biased Intelligence Aashka Trivedi | Comps | B.Tech. 4

made headlines when she claimed that the facial recognition software of a prominent company couldn’t identify her or any of her dark-skinned friends.

In 2016, it was found that LinkedIn’s search engine may be gender biased- if a woman’s name was searched, a similarlooking male name would pop up as a suggestion. None of these algorithms were specifically designed to be biased, they were merely emulating to the data given to them- data that was presented as ideal. This gives us something additional to think about. If human perception can unconsciously change the neutrality of algorithms so drastically, what would happen if algorithms were purposely written to mirror the skewed perceptions of a group of individuals?

Humans love being biased. No matter how “politically correct” or “socially woke” you are, you have your reservations about something. Maybe you don’t trust people who put ketchup in their Maggi, maybe you judge vegans, maybe you (not so) subtly dislike people who act/pray/ love in a way that is unfamiliar to you.

No matter which way you spin it, human perceptions are inherently biased. But is that a bad thing?

When left to their own devices, individual biases don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Every person has always been free to believe in whatever they want, and as long as they kept their opinions to themselves, all was well.

People who hate carrots simply didn’t eat carrots. Then came the Internet. The Internet offered a platform with a reach hitherto unheard of, giving it the ability to amplify one’s personal bias strongly enough to start affecting collective reasoning. This meant that not only could people profess their hatred of carrots, but a bunch of carrot-haters could come together and convince others about the perils of this vile orange root vegetable.

Moreover, for the most part, the Internet allows one to say whatever they want with almost no delay or forethought, and one may choose to do so anonymously.

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This lack of non-personal confrontation has made it easier to argue against and harder to empathize with different perspectives.

The simplicity through which a distorted view can be presented on a wide scale seems bad enough, but in reality, modern society faces a much bigger problem.

Almost all modern technologies depend massively on data, and now we are not only analyzing that data, but feeding it to Machine Learning systems to teach them how to make the “best” decision.

But where does this data come from?

From a place where data is freely and abundantly available- the Internet. While many Artificial Intelligence applications were built with the hope that they would prevent unfair human perspectives from assimilating into society on a wider scale, the data presented to AI systems is not without prejudice of its own, resulting in seemingly “biased” algorithms. The major difference here is the rate and scale at which an unfair algorithmic perspective can spread, and how catastrophically it can affect the public at large.

Recently, Amazon’s artificially intelligent hiring algorithm was found to be biased towards female candidates. A few years before that, an MIT researcher

Think of Google. When you search for something on the site, information is displayed to you according to relevance only; there is no apparent partiality with respect to what is shown or how results are ordered. This is because Google maintains (or, is supposed to maintain) what is known as Search Neutrality. Now imagine that whenever you searched for a certain orange politician, you only got negative news about him. No matter how staunchly you think you support the guy, it’s going to start getting tough to avoid at least a few internal conflicts. Unfortunately, applications like search engines or automated news providers don’t even need to be this blatantly partisan to change communal perceptions- even a few tweaks in their algorithm would be catastrophic enough.

This is because of the fact that people tend to draw different conclusions from information, depending on how it is presented to them.

This highlights a major problem. Biased algorithms have a huge effect on our personal perceptions. But now, because human biases are used to train these algorithms, our perceptions seem to have an effect on how unbiased an algorithm behaves. This Catch-22 situation leaves one to ponder about what is easierchanging our inherent perspectives, or remaining stoic to what is shown to us.

I’ll let you decide.

Avada Kedavra Abracadabra Sumant S. Dangi | Chemical | B.Tech. 2 For centuries, mankind has lived in awe of the unexplained — the field of hocus pocus, the world of magic. Magicians were treated as mystic creatures, possessing powers that no other mortals could ever understand, let alone acquire and wield.

While some made objects bend, float, or disappear, others played with fire, saws, and bunnies. One thing was guaranteed — the onlookers were left clueless, but amused enough to return for additional doses.

What we earthly creatures categorize as ‘supernatural’ is really just a result of our limited perspective and physical inability to comprehend the bigger picture. Almost all magic tricks hinge on a particular characteristic of the human brain. Our eyes constantly see so much happening in front of us that the brain filters out some of the visual information it receives. Whether it be in a magic trick or out in the streets, for the sake of maintaining some order, the eyes only focus on certain parts of the view before us. The rest is automatically ignored.

This loophole is what magicians (and sometimes politicians) exploit routinely.

Humans possess an innate desire to only believe what they see. Using canny sleight of hand techniques, skilled

magicians divert the audience’s attention to a misleading place, showing you only what they want you to see. For example, the onstage wizard displays an ordinary coin to the spectators — nothing fishy about it. He makes exaggerated gestures with his hands while chanting random spells and poof — the coin is gone.

When the magician dramatically transfers the coin from one hand to the other, the attention shifts to the movement of the coin. Misdirection is the key here and hence; onlookers never notice that the coin actually stayed in the original hand and are perplexed. This sleight of hand is mastered by practice and must look natural enough to bamboozle audiences without raising suspicions.

We don’t live in the medieval era of witchcraft, alchemy, and sorcery anymore. Nowadays, most unexplained phenomena that previously were quite conveniently shoved into the category of ‘magic’ have been demystified. The water in the ‘disappearing water trick’ never vanished; it changed into a gel after being absorbed by sodium polyacrylate.

The card set on fire emerged unscathed because it was already doused in a water-alcohol mixture. Even seemingly impossible natural occurrences are just

based on science and perspectives.

The scientists always spoil the fun, don’t they? It’s their job; don’t hold grudges.

The eyes play tricks on our brains that are sometimes unnoticeable. Ignorance is bliss and until you know the truth, your perception will continue to fool you, and so will others who exploit that limited perception. Although watching magicians exercise their mystical powers on stage may be quite enjoyable, remember that these tricks may be dangerous if you happen to be dealing with fork-tongued friends. So, next time you hear someone say the cliché line: “Pick a card, any card”, play along (you don’t want to hurt the wizard’s feelings).

Just sit there, beaming to yourself as you notice every crafty move, and bask in the glory of your genius.

Polarizing History Tanmay Dadhania | Comps | B.Tech. 1 How can one be sure that their opinions are of their own making?

Intricate viewpoints and thought processes are forged and refined over the course of one’s life. A person assuming that they are in full authority over their opinions, would only be half right. While we do have command over processing information, we forget that we can’t choose all the information that we receive.

The world is deadlocked in an intense ideological war right now. Young and impressionable minds are planted with seeds of propaganda, to make them the perfect puppets to partake in this massive war. For these reasons, governments and communities around the globe tweak history to suit their self-interests. By doing so, they can subtly alter the mindsets of

subsequent generations to come.

A notable example of this, is the outright denial by the Japanese of the war crimes they perpetrated. The contents of their history textbooks are profoundly influenced by the government to minimize the magnitude of the war crimes. The heinous events of the “Rape of Nanjing” have been boiled down to a single line in their history books. Outright denial isn’t necessarily the only way to go about it. Hiding and obscuring certain parts of history can also get the job done. A survey in the UK found that 43% of people thought that the British Empire was a good thing.

As our ignorance persists, bigotry catches up to us. Our point of view becomes dangerously linear and the past and the future start becoming eerily similar. The

simple mistakes that we can avoid as a society, get repeated all over again.

Embracing our history is ultimately a liberating experience. The reason why Germans today are largely apologetic for their Nazi-era crimes is because they are taught their history in its most factual narrative. This helped them come to terms with the past, and it instilled a sense of remorse in them.

Just like Thanos, history being warped is inevitable. Only in an idealistic world can we expect governments to always do the right thing. There exists some level of individualistic responsibility that lies within us. Rejecting everything being taught to us isn’t the smartest way of counteracting this. The occasional bout of self-introspection and dubiousness about new information, goes a long way in this grand scheme of things.

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How Interpretation is Art’s Biggest Scam Rhishabh Goswami | Chemical | B.Tech 4 Anya Trivedi | Comps | B.Tech 4 intellectual contemplation. But the fruit of such a contemplation is never theory, nor a cookie-cutter ‘commentary’ on the nature of the world. It’s not a quest for truth - after all, is art even amenable to an objective truth? Isn’t art more about questions than answers? Or rather, about the poverty of answers, about the duplicitous, ultimately-weird, ultimatelyuntranslatable fabric of reality? As such, Lolita is not about the “corruption of youth” or the “loss of innocence”. It’s about the power of language and the essential contradictions inherent in desire and morality that can never be reduced to ‘meaning’ or an answer.

And most certainly not to any ‘correct’ answer.

“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.”

-Susan Sontag Nietzsche boldly declared that there are no facts, only interpretations. His observation is best seen in the ‘elite’ world of art criticism, ranging from cinema to literature to obscure art pieces, where interpretation forms the focal point, if not the only point, of conversation. In the realm of criticism, works of art are often reduced to their ‘meaning’, to what they are trying to say. In this tradition, The Great Gatsby is about the “dangers of idealism”, Narnia is an allegory of Christianity, and Pride & Prejudice a “commentary” on wealth and class. This association of meaning even happens retroactively, with various groups ‘claiming’ the essential meaning of a work (trans women, for example, have recently claimed The Matrix as an allegory for gender transition).

Interpretations, either as a focal point or as an afterthought, may not be as harmless as they seem. By reducing a work to its meaning, we are basically making it more manageable- “one tames the work of art,” said Susan Sontag. Interpretation conforms art to the invisible boundaries that are dictated by society, which are rigid, fixed, and, forcibly, objective. And therein lies the problem.

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Most modern-day interpretations of art are forced upon its audience, violating the aspect of what makes art, well, art. Haughty art critics tell you exactly what that obscure Pollock painting is ‘supposed’ to make you feel. YouTube commentators force-feeding the ‘correct’ meaning of films to you often leaves a taste you can’t be sure you like. Nietzsche’s interpretations have, ironically, become facts.

The beauty of art doesn’t lie in the objective meanings that it must invoke.

It is in its subjective, and, in the case of great art, deeply personal, meanings. The rigid approach to interpretation masks the essence of art- that its meaning is curated by the individual experiences and emotions of each one of its audience. No two people view art entirely the same, and a person may not even view art the same way twice. Unfortunately, modernday interpretation has not only stripped art’s audience of the originality of their own opinions, but has also stripped art of its most unique trait- the liberty of its audience to derive from it no meaning at all.

Of course, this is not to say that art shouldn’t be viewed from an intellectual standpoint. Art can and should invite

Ultimately, rigid allegorical inspection (and its failure) is one of the most limiting ways to approach art, as such an inspection comes at the cost of one of the most fundamental aspects of art- appreciation. For most of us, what we take away from a book, a movie or a painting (digital or otherwise) is what it made us feel in the immediacy of the moment. What made Fight Club a cult classic among moviegoers was not its retrospective commentary on consumerism, but the immediate sense of nihilistic thrill that the music, dialogue and grainy cinematography combined to instill.

With (great) art, we are in suspended time, in silence, where the fractured nature of reality is made manifest to us.

It rarely provides clarity, and if it ever does, it doesn’t do so immediately. And maybe that’s okay. In an age where every action and commodity is optimized, where every endeavor is expected to yield immediate, clear results, maybe it’s okay to have a space where one is permitted to not have the answers. A space where simply appreciating that art makes us feel something is as accepted as knowing exactly what it makes us feel, or why we feel it.

At the end of the day, appreciation, devoid of the baggage of interpretation, is what separates good art from great artgood art can be victimized by pseudointellectuals, great art simply holds your attention.

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Equality or Capitalism?

Tharun Balaji | Electrical | B.Tech 4

Had COVID-19 not wreaked havoc, May 5 2020 was supposed to mark the beginning of the class action lawsuit, brought against the U.S. Soccer Federation by members of the Women’s National football team.

The lawsuit was concerning a problem faced by women everywhere, equal pay as their male compatriots. The 21st century has made people realize there is no room for sexism in any workplace. But is this case really about sexism or does it have a different aspect? Frankly, there are two parts to this.

The US Women’s football team (USWNT) is arguably, the best women’s team in the world. They have won the Women’s World Cup 4 times and the Olympic gold medal 4 times. On the other hand, the men’s team finished 3rd in the World Cup, way back in 1930. On paper, the USWNT deserves equal pay as the men’s

team, even though comparing men’s and women’s football isn’t straightforward.

A 2017 collective agreement increased both fixed pay and bonuses for the USWNT. The figures aren’t available to the general public, but the team was supposedly happy with the agreement.

The problem was with the collective bonuses, which is not only controlled by the U.S. Soccer, but also FIFA. This brings us to the larger pictureWomen’s football under FIFA. The total prize money on offer during the 2019 Women’s World cup was $30 million.

Meanwhile, the total prize money during the 2018 Men’s World Cup was around $400 million, with eventual winners France taking home $38 million. Seems unfair, doesn’t it? But look at it from an economic perspective. Sponsors will pour money in the tournament which has more eyes on it. Higher sponsorship leads to greater revenue, which in turn leads to higher compensation. The

overall viewership for the Women’s World Cup was just over a billion viewers. In comparison, the Men’s World Cup final between France and Croatia had over a billion viewers. Ponder over this question- is the issue really about sexism or market forces?

Only now, major football clubs are starting to set up a women’s team.

Manchester United, considered amongst one of Europe’s elite, started a women’s team in 2018. Change is slow and it takes time. The USWNT is an exceptional case, simply because they are world beaters.

They are compared to the Men’s team, who are a bunch of nobodies and couldn’t even qualify for the last World Cup. Still, the revenue generated by both teams is similar. Expecting FIFA to follow an exception seems unfair.

Society, as a whole, needs to accept women’s football. Until that happens, the argument for equal pay will always face a strong opposition.

Alone Garvit Saini | Comps | B.tech 2 For as long as the Internet is around, 20th September, 2019 will be remembered as the day of the Area 51 raid. After a ton of controversy, it did end up happening.

However, for an event hyped up with millions of RSVPs, memes, and FBI investigations, it turned out to be pretty anti-climactic. The raid-turned-EDMfestival-turned-desert-RV-gathering concluded without any alien sightings or anyone trying to break into the military facility (thankfully). Alas, we’ll never know if Naruto runners are impervious to bullets, or whether the US government houses top-secret alien tech in Area 51 and runs around obliviating anyone who happens to see any. But of course, we can always speculate.

Alien conspiracy theories have been around for centuries. Today, it’s widely believed by most of the world that aliens more or less exist; that somewhere out there in the vast expanse of the cosmos, there is intelligent life. Probability supports this theory. There are billions of planets in our galaxy alone that lie in the “Goldilocks zone” (neither too

hot nor too cold to sustain life) and there are trillions of galaxies like ours.

It is next to impossible that throughout their billions of years of existence, none of these planets developed life since ours (a relatively new planet) already has intelligent life capable of space exploration.

Concluding that somewhere at some time, intelligent life must have existed in our galaxy, it’s not a long shot to assume that they figured out interstellar travel.

In such a short span of existence, we humans have seen exponential trends in technological advancement. An intelligent, dominant species can quickly exhaust their natural resources and start colonizing the rest of the galaxy.

Witnessing the lack of such a galactic empire (that hopefully exists somewhere in a galaxy far far away), combined with the further lack of evidence of any extraterrestrial life ever visiting Earth, brings us to the question — where are the aliens? Why haven’t we heard from them?

This is the basic idea behind the Fermi paradox. Considering the overwhelming probability that intelligent alien life may exist, there must have been a civilization that had the means to, and therefore visited Earth. But no matter what Ancient Aliens says, there is no conclusive evidence of any extraterrestrial lifeforms ever visiting Earth.

There are a few possible explanations.

First comes to mind the scary thought that we are alone; that against the odds, there is no life anywhere in the universe except Earth. Another reason may be related to a belief amongst theorists that interstellar travel is impossible. The habitable planets are so far away from each other that contact is not achievable.

So, assuming we’re not living in the Matrix, it’s anybody’s call on whether or not aliens exist. Maybe our technology is too primitive to understand their communication, or maybe the human mind is too primitive to perceive their existence. Or maybe it is true: we are all alone.

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The Plan Saptarishi Pandey | Mechanical | B.Tech 3 Mrityunjay M. Borah | Mechanical | B.Tech 4 Tanisha Tambi | Comps | B.Tech 3 It was Tuesday and Ramesh, in his soiled boxers, headed to the washroom with his toiletries. Unbeknownst to him, 1.609 kilometers away, a drone meticulously kept track of his movements. This particular drone was being closely monitored and its data was being analyzed by the ML experts sitting in the bunker of Kavi Medical Store. The well-established data recognition system could detect the yearold shampoo bottle in Ramesh’s hand, almost empty.

On Friday, Ramesh mindlessly scrolled through his phone, contemplating the pros and cons of taking a second shower in the same week — which, while not unheard of, would certainly have been unusual. Just then, his phone beeped. It was a new message from KMS: “Plz check out new shampoo at KMS. 40% off for students & free delivery.”

To Ramesh, who had spent the better part of the last 2 years doing his level best to be as green as possible, the two incidents might have appeared disconnected.

But they were not.

Over the past 2 years, several small-scale businesses with progressive leaders had seeped gradually, without notice, into the minds of the nation’s finest engineering undergrads. Foremost amongst these businesses was KMS — the one-stop shop for every need. Using state-of-theart technology, free delivery, and their seemingly innocent sales clerks, KMS was now the first choice for students when it comes to general goods. This enabled it to bypass single-use plastic regulations and profit off the high demand of certain single-use plastics near Valentine’s Day. However, the road to profit had not been a walk in the park. KMS had to resort to what feeble minds might deem as unpalatable.

But, in reality, these were completely necessary steps for its golden future and that of its subsidiaries — Bavarchi Xerox and Bunny Dom Stationaries. There were tough decisions to be made, yes, but they were required. KMS, like any other business, needed to ensure the continuity of demand for its cash cows — Ludomos and Dissleri, which is why a special breed

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of Columbian mosquitoes carrying a nonlethal (well, mostly non-lethal) strain of Dengue just had to be released near the hostels. Granted that the marketing stunt with the fake video (which went viral on WhatsApp group chats) might have been taking it a touch too far, but it had the right intentions. In any case, the person in-charge of that fiasco had already been moved to another department and wouldn’t be involved in any further marketing efforts. Bribing the hostel staff with Manchurian Khakhra was easy; the challenge lay in convincing expert researchers to downgrade their teaching abilities in exchange for 10% of profits off the book sales at Bavarchi. They were also ‘convinced’ to teach the same subject from different books, forcing gullible students to purchase all the available books. The expansion from the small nook to the binary Bavarchi earlier in the academic year was a testament to their booming business.

These were the thoughts that flew through the mind of KMS’ owner as he sat, reading his red hardcover copy of Mein Kough, with a singular earphone in his right ear. He let out a sigh of relief, safe in his knowledge of being the kingpin. As he pondered upon his moves for the next quarter, his playlist of death metal was interrupted by a shrill bang in his ear, followed by a muffled, ominous voice: “23:37, Murtea café. Bring the package.” These few words were enough to cause him to break out in a cold sweat.

With shivering hands and jumpy nerves, he set his book down and started going through his monthly sales report, but not before setting an alarm for 23:00.

Rajshekhar Bhai had a seemingly innocuous face. He rode a bicycle to work. No student was ever afraid while casually admitting that they forgot their money back in their rooms, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. After all, who could ever expect someone like

that to be the master puppeteer of the college? To be the one silently pulling the strings, hidden in plain sight.

It was 23:35 and Rajshekhar hummed as he walked down the stairs to enter Murtea Café, only to see a few of his henchmen already there. He sat, patiently sipping on his peach iced tea, waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive. Tonight, he would reveal his next grand plan — a plan that would make him the most powerful man in not just the college, but the entire city.

Finally, the last of his men, the owner of KMS arrived (a minute late). Rajshekhar made a mental note — “Strike two.”

The KMS owner began the meeting by informing Rajshekhar of the discoveries he made on his trip to the Chinese province of Wuhan last month. He then set his suitcase on the table and handed a pair of latex gloves and a safety mask to Rajshekhar, who opened the briefcase with a touch of reverence to reveal his prized possession, a souvenir from China — a dead bat.

“I d-did as you asked, but wh-what do you intend to d-do with this?” the owner of KMS stuttered.

“This, gentlemen, is the harbinger of a widespread disease-causing virus — the Kareena Virus,” Rajshekhar replied, grinning smugly.

“You won’t be affected; in fact, this shall bring in even more money for the likes of you. The only individuals who will be affected by this are the petty students, those stupid little souls who think they can get away by not paying me. The fact that my little virus will also result in the indefinite postponement of their measly excuse for a cultural event, Touch, is just the icing on what I am sure will prove to be a very delectable cake. They will never be able to escape from the Kareena Virus. No one will be Saif.”

The Art of Narration Anya Trivedi | Comps | B.Tech 4 Perspective is vital in appreciating any good narrative, and modern storytelling has redefined the art of narration.

Breaking free from solely depending on its protagonist’s perspective to form its essence, it now draws our attention to the manner in which the story itself has been told. The movie Arrival is a notable example, where the narration of the storyline itself progresses non-linearly, akin to the nature of the language of the ‘Arrived Aliens.’ But no genre has so ingeniously captured the coherence of both form and function in the art of cinema as animated films have.

The manner and medium in which a story is told often trumps the story itself and Netflix’s Love Death Robots has provided a fitting instance of the same. With episodes ranging from 6 to 17 minutes, this anthology provides not only a roller coaster of storylines but also explores a range of art styles as diverse as their subject matter. It is a love letter to nerds, art enthusiasts, and patrons of all genres.

And, in my opinion, it’s one of the few animated series where the story itself was

treated as an afterthought — which is, surprisingly, a good thing.

What makes Love Death Robots more than just a binge-able series is not its versatile (and sometimes borderline absurd) storylines; it is how every episode is accompanied by its own unique art style, which closely resembles the story it attempts to narrate. The unexpected yet intuitive coupling of art and storytelling forces us out of the comfortable milieu where cinema (or any form of narration) is wholly judged by its content. It shifts our perspective to notice how the way in which we receive thought-fodder is as important as what it is. Mannerism, in many cases, serves not to replace content but to compliment it.

Take, for instance, the most popular episode deemed by IMDb: The Witness, in which, having witnessed a brutal murder, a woman flees from the killer. The art style is dramatic and electric, winding through the streets of a surreal city, giving us the same whiplash that the storyline gives us. Zima Blue narrates the story of a reclusive artist and his obsession with a

particular shade of blue — an obsession which is ultimately shared by the viewer.

The story is narrated in a style that is both minimalistic, bold, and thoughtprovoking, much like the works of the protagonist. The unsteady marriage of industrialization and tradition is narrated beautifully in Good Hunting, using delicate Oriental scenic art, as well as with bulkily drawn industrial machines to prove a point.

Love Death Robots is one of the few animations that has successfully tied in unexpectedly detailed and diverse art with just as unexpectedly meaningful stories. Such narratives force us to change our perspective of cinema and to appreciate film beyond what it is attempting to explore. So maybe next time you decide to use binge-watching as a half-hearted distraction, it may be worthwhile to notice how the marriage of impressive ideas and visuals serve as a refreshing reminder of how sometimes cinema is, quite literally, art.

Perceptional Swing Kapil Dedhia | Mechanical | B.Tech 2

Every time I find my judgements contradicting my beliefs, I read David McRaney’s blog turned book ‘You are not so smart’. Not that it aids my decision making; it just makes me feel dumb and human. We all like the idea that our judgements and decisions are rational and logical, but, that is rarely true. We are constantly under the influence of cognitive biases, believing only what ascertains our perspective, despite there being stark evidence to suggest otherwise. One interesting study to explain this is how weather affects the swing of a cricket ball.

Anybody who watches test cricket must have surely heard commentators discussing that overcast and humid conditions are likely to aid swing bowling, or observed captains choosing to field first on a cloudy morning expecting to take early wickets. Many explain the rationale behind this to be that humid, heavy air creates turbulence on the rough side of the ball which generates a pressure difference causing the ball to move in the air or, in

cricketing terms, swing. This seems a pretty good explanation but in reality humid air is actually less dense than cold air. It is not a startling revelation, so why is almost the entire cricketing community conformed to this belief?

there is no scientific explanation to suggest the aid of weather in ball swing, statistical data does not adhere to the same. The average swing, in fact, is found to be more on overcast days. Why is that so?

One possible explanation of this is the repeated reinforcement of the belief that weather aids swing, often by the best swing bowlers and legends of the craft. It develops a confirmation bias that eventually leads to people recalling only those instances where the ball swung due to overcast weather and ignoring other instances where the same did not happen.

This discrepancy can be explained using confirmation bias. On an overcast day, fast bowlers would try to bowl in a manner that aids swing bowling – bowling with an upright seam, or a captain would pick more number of fast bowlers so as to capitalise on the conditions. Although weather does not mechanically affect the swing, it is the decisions that players make due to their bias and their beliefs that has led to an entire community of professional sportsmen ignoring scientific facts.

There are studies dating back to the 1950’s showing that there is no real connection between weather and swing bowling.

Dr. Rabi Mehta, aerodynamic expert and NASA scientist, has published numerous papers confirming the same, but the cricket community for some reason chooses to believe otherwise. Although

What do we make of this interesting case study then? Well, as Mark Manson would say, “It doesn’t matter whether a belief is true or not; what matters is whether it’s helpful”.

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DEPARTMENTAL PHOTOS Applied Chemistry Department

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15ly0wcc-kDMNDO-RANyy279dPNuPaJdX?usp=sharing Applied Mathematics and Humanities Department

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1p5FhfLjha1nkUCq_icV1w2C0oy_lThAu?usp=sharing

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Applied Physics Department

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fT6HmsWualIw0gwBA0wTkdJEuQjImO26?usp=sharing Chemical Engineering Department

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19ZZzLhyXebGEwpWAjIKSZTCy3L3wCwJJ?usp=sharing

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Computer Science and Engineering Department

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13DtgOkBPf1N3yByjmy0EEa6k9WcmO1m-?usp=sharing Electrical Engineering Department

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cc3NbfIqTC7ELMWhjsWsrjlP2ONrJoF4?usp=sharing

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Electronics Engineering Department

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QzXYwJet7zCBwviee0Mnh9S2UgOQdnbr?usp=sharing Mechanical Engineering Department

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XTmCUw88zIUDv_qCFeFZewcGwAPL8UC1?usp=sharing

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THE TEAM

Yukta Malik Chief Designer

Kevin James Editor

Mrityunjay M. Borah Rhishabh Goswami Chief Editor Chief Editor

Sahil Pathan Designer

Abhinav Designer

Aneesha Designer

Tharun Balaji Editor

Haider Sultan Editor

Sanskar Panda Editor

Saptarishi Pandey Editor

Kapil Dedhia Junior Editor

Shivansh Shandilya Junior Editor

Sumant Dangi Junior Editor

Garvit Saini Correspondent

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Aashka Trivedi Secretary

Shraddha Prasanth Designer

Foram Fanasia Junior Editor

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Mir Bhatia Editor-at-Large

Karthik Sunil Correspondent

Shreyansh Correspondent

Supal Padmashali Correspondent

Anya Trivedi Secretary

Tanisha Tambi Editor

Tanmay Dadhania Correspondent