NIT, Patna organised the event "Word-o-Mort" on 25.1.2019 in Patna

A techie dive into literature

On 25th of Jan'19 there was a different sort of hustle and bustle on the campus of NIT (National Institute of Technology), Patna. Some 30 undergraduate students of the institute were ready in the main auditorium of their cherished institute in a posture like bullets to be fired. Two judges namely Sunil Kumar (an officer in Patna High Court) and Hemant Das 'Him' (Executive editor of Bejod India blog) were also seen flipping over the pages of the English and Hindi passages over which they were supposed to ask questions. In fact their job was more difficult than the boys and girls who had fully girdled up their loins for the trial. 

Well, the passages were sort of abstract chunks of write-ups of the celebrity writers. Each students had got either one English or Hindi passage and judges were supposed to be omniscient. In Hindi, Dushyant Kumar, Gulzar and Nagarjun were among the writers of the pieces in the fray whereas the English pieces comprised of the whole catalog of global champions of politics, literature, sports and whatever you can imagine.  

Well, the bell rang and students were called over one by one on the dais. Every contestant first read out the passage allotted to him/her and then presented the extract in his/her own language. It was no surprise that almost each of them was excellent up to this level. But it was really befitting to the student of a premier educational institute that at least 24 out of approx. 30 were able to face the prodding queries of the judges with poise and actually proved their mettle in replying even the cross questions over their earlier replies. As all of them were from hardcore technology educational stream it was but natural that a few could not plunge much deeper in the literary passages specifically made for litterateurs still they were fully armored with their own explanations of the stuff which were irrefutable in their own stead.

And after the session was over the judges faced a real dilemma how to select only three where they felt almost 24 or so equally talented and expressive. Nevertheless the judges were obliged to pronounce their decision so the marks of both judges were added and the highest three scorers were declared winners. Pawanesh Kumar, Harshal Singh and Amit Kumar Pandey were the top three winners. But those whose names did not figure up in top three knew well that they were not the losers.

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Report by - Hemant Das 'Him' / Sunil Kumar

Photographs courtesy - Snehal, & Avalokan, NIT, Patna

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Some of the small passages of the event are given below:

"I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we arecreatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor underthe illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling,programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in facteverybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is denyour programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one lastmidnight - brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal."

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Get busy living or get busy dying. That's goddamn right. For the second time in my life, I'm guilty of committing a crime. Parole violation. Course, I doubt they're going to throw up any roadblocks for that. Not for an old crook like me. I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

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The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.

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“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

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"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end.

We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills;

we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

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“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

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“Burt jumped from the pulpit and ran down the centre aisle. He threw open the outer vestibule door, letting in hot sunshine, dazzling. Vicky was bolted upright behind the steering wheel, both hands plastered on the horn ring, her head swivelling wildly. From all around the children were coming. Some of them were laughing gaily. They held knives, hatchets, pipes, rocks, hammers. One girl, maybe eight, with beautiful long blonde hair, held a jack handle. Rural weapons. Not a gun among them.”

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"We believe that we can change the things around us in accordance with our desires—we believe it because otherwise, we can see no favourable outcome. We do not think of the outcome which generally comes to pass and is also favourable: we do not succeed in changing things in accordance with our desires, but gradually our desires change. The situation that we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes unimportant to us. We have failed to surmount the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us round it, led us beyond it, and then if we turn round to gaze into the distance of the past, we can barely see it, so imperceptible has it become.”

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“Atticus said to Jem one day, “I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. “Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird.”

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“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

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“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it?

The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it.

That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”

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"Education doesn't make you happy. And nor does freedom? We don't become happy just because we're free, if we are. Or because we've been educated, if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears. Tells us where delights are lurking. Convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever: that of the mind. And gives us the assurance, the confidence, to walk the path our mind, our educated mind, offers."

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"Now, those of you - I see the look in your eyes like, 'I would've walked differently.' Well, ask yourselves why you were clapping. Now, we all have a great need for acceptance. But you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go, 'That's baaaaad.' Robert Frost said, 'Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.'

Now, I want you to find your own walk right now. Your own way of striding, pacing. Any direction. Anything you want. Whether it's proud, whether it's silly, anything. Gentlemen, the courtyard is yours."

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"We are all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly. Human happiness does not seem to have been included in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more."

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तुम्हारी यह दन्तुरित मुस्कान (पूरी कविता)

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इस मोड़ से जाते हैं कुछ सुस्त कदम रस्ते कुछ तेज कदम राहें (पूरा गीत)

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