Indian Institute of Students

Well, the title seems a bit odd, doesn't it? I'm definitely not going to write a long and boring article on how to get a kite which is strangled in a faraway tree but rather I'm going to share a short experience from one of the days of my life, and will tell you how to use the concept in your lives. So here it starts: I just had my shower, and combed my hair, when a sudden urge inside me uprooted me from the sofa in my dining room to my terrace. A gust of chilly wind struck down on me. I turned to see another part of the horizon, when I noticed there was a kite hanging on the coconut tree beside our home. Well, I'd be frank, I love "stealing" abandoned kites and kites that got stuck somewhere. And to my surprise, the thread (called "Manja" or "Manjha" in India) passed over our homes (actually, who doesn't like freebies?). That was it. I ran to catch the thread, pulled. Nothing. I tried to pull harder, but my palms got reddish more...

At this age, we are all aware about rising unemployment statistics in our country, and we are worried for the future generation. What'll happen if by 2025 50% of the country's youth doesn't get a job, even though they are qualified, and have degrees accompanying them? This is a major thought to spend our times upon. You won't be earning money sitting in your home (unless you are a corrupted politician). You have to sit for the toughest entrance exams where 10 lakh compete and 10% of them succeed, you have to go hopping for interviews and you succeed at only 3 when you have given interviews at 11 companies. Did you know that CV Raman's parents termed him as a "useless" boy since he couldn't get a job in the first turn?  All these worries have a potential solution. Go for online earning. One can make a huge amount of money sitting home, only at the expense of a domain name (or no costs for domain name if you host your website on ...

Last week, I, Dipankan, observed a lot of strange Facebook activity. What is so strange? Dead people liking stuffs. What! Yes, it's true. One of my old friends of Facebook, who passed away a year ago, apparently "liked" a page about Opera Music. If the person is dead, who'll be operating his Facebook account? You guess it's no one. Facebook is. This is the reality. What's the actual mystery behind all this? Full disclosure: I’m an active Facebook user, and I really enjoy it. I use Facebook to stay in touch with my friends and family who are scattered across the country and world. I also use Facebook to promote this blog I publish, Indian Institute of Students.  The first sign I saw that something was not quite right was that after I’d spent a lot of time getting people to “like” the IIS India page, fewer and fewer people were seeing my posts. This does worry me. Also, I noticed another scam. What I liked earlier continued to show up on my friend's ne...

Being an author isn't a quite easy job. There are several barriers that can stop one from being an author. But that doesn't mean one who is capable of being an author cannot be an author. Being an author is not about fame. If someone writes to earn fame, he/she isn't a true writer. Often there are people who write to me asking that how he/she can be a writer. Whenever I get such a mail, I ask them when they wrote the last article, story, or (unpublished) book. Most reply with an attached article they wrote 6 months ago. This is not it. You cannot be a successful writer if you write once in 6 months or once in a year. You must embrace writing and reading habits. An author should write daily, even if his mood doesn't permit. Making writing a hobby is one of the best and easy ways to become a writer. Be open to criticism. Ask people whom you know to review your writing. Don't trust people who always remarks: "Good, well done!" but trust people...

A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point, he asked: "Are you writing a story about what we've done? Is it a story about me?" His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson: "I am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I am using. I hope you'll be like this pencil when you grow up" Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn't seem very special. 'But it's just like any other pencil I've seen!' 'That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities, which, if you can manage to hold onto them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world. 'First quality: You are capable of great things, but you must not forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call this hand God, and he always guides us according to his will. 'Second quality: now and then, I have to stop and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil ...

The following is an excerpt from my personal diary, 3rd January, 2013. How my daily life inspires me even though it seems to repeat itself, and how I observe daily things, even the minute, small details. Read on... I t's the 3rd of January, 2013. Serampore. It's 3 PM, according to the watch. The whole city has been under cloud cover till now. The daylight didn't even get a chance to peep from the clouds. Everything is still, everything is fine and normal. Except that the cats are mewing (to add to your surprise, we've added it as a part of our daily lives), our next-door neighbour of 7 years desperately trying to fly a kite in this windy and cloudy day, and a helicopter flying at such a low altitude- that it's noise will make you feel irritated. I walk out of my room and head straight to my terrace. I'm all alone in the terrace. Whenever I am in the terrace I feel peace pervade into my soul. I yawn. As I continue to stare at the open, vast sky, blank-f...

We live in a world where there is a constant demand for everything. Success then, is derived not from resourcefulness or doing something great, but showing up day in and day out. And being dedicated, persistent, it buys you a lot of progress either way. And although motivation for something and carrying a lot of knowledge under your sleeve helps a lot, we come to recognize discipline as the ultimate currency in whatever success that we talk about. Sure, these other things have definite merit for certain, but when observed closely we can see that discipline and persistence play a crucial role in many areas of life, and many complex systems in fact. Observe sports athletes… If it was judged no more past the initial talent and physical disposition, the picture would have been pretty much unilateral. But the fact remains that rigid discipline is what shapes the outcome; what builds gradual but certain progression. And not only does it accomplish results in the long run, but it leave...