Coffee House ’13 – Reminiscences – By Carlos Fernandez

Some of life’s experiences are short, but yet unforgettable and one of them to remember for life is “Coffee House ’13”. I always had a feeling that this was going to be a total fiasco, but it was not. I still hasn’t sunk into me that “Coffee House ’13” was, in my humble opinion quite a successful show. 

 We started with the usual meetings raving and ranting about the logo, the budget, the events and lots of other stuff. That was almost two months prior to Coffee House. Three weeks to coffee house and we were still raving and ranting. I was at loggerheads with myself. I had no idea what to do and where to start. Two weeks down to go and we haven’t even decided on the events and the invitations. All i had was an itsy bitsy teeny weeny amount of confidence that i could pull this off and with oodles of help from Dominic.

Two weeks on, Dominic and myself started bunking classes much to the chargin of a few of our staff. Well, that couldn’t be helped. But we did what we had to do. We pretty much drove around the whole city for almost two weeks.

We had no clue as to whom we should invite as the Chief Guest, after the person who was invited had turned it down on a very short notice. A few phone calls and some mad driving through the city got us a rather reluctant Chief Guest. The late nigh outs with Dhiresh designing the Certificates while he went on a rampage in my refrigerator smacking his lips and singing praises about the strawberry juice (He almost fell in love with it.). Ordering the trophies with Bro. Lourdu and Bro. Wilson, haggling with the guys in the shop and helping us to select a memento  the long drives with Dominic around the city to order the print for the invitations and the banners and the longest drive with Agni for handing out the invitations. We drove all the way from our college to Patrician College, few more colleges on the whole stretch of the OMR till the Hindustan College at Kelambakkam and again drive all the way to MCC, where we were given a warm welcome by the staff( We were given free coffee in the dept. :P). That almost added up to almost a 90 km in a day. Thinesh and Agni rounded up a few students from the hostel and took care of all the decorations in the hall. The design for the welcome sign was one of the best i’d ever. I don’t remember the name of the guy who’d designed it, but hats off to him.

The final few days were somehow a little funny. The drive to Medavakkam with Leo, Agni and Dominic at 11 in the night to get the snacks and the sweets for the fest were real fun, especially with Agni going around foraging for food in the bakery. End result: The bakery guy gave us free pakkodas, ladoos and samosas. The drive back was lot more funnier with Agni stealing ladoos from the huge box Dominic was carrying while i was driving. The funniest part yet is Leo trying to stuff the ladoos down his mouth with his helmet on while driving. I still have no idea how we transported both the boxes from Medavakkam to my house. It was around 12 30 by the time we reached and we were exhausted. It took another hour to gorge the stale food we had brought hours ago. I somehow curled myself up to sleep and before i knew my alarm started screeching at 4 00 in the morning. My eyes were all watery and burning and i looked like someone right out of a mental asylum. I somehow managed to kick Thinesh out of his sleep and drag him out. By the time i was taking out my bike, he stood on the driveway with a murderous look on his face. I was pretty sure he was swearing under his breath. We drove through the December chill at top speed with the both shivering like crazy towards the Koyambedu market. Too many flowers and we didn’t know which ones to buy. Heck! Just buy the ones which look good. Hopping through a few shops and purchasing whatever was appealing to the eye, we raced to the college and delivered the flowers.

By the time i went home, freshened up and got back to college, it was 8 30. There wasn’t much of a noticeable crowd, but yet there was a steady trickle. The inauguration started and judging by the number of students at the inaugural i was starting to believe that this was really going to become a fiasco. I didn’t believe my eyes when i saw that four teams had registered for Drama. The student turnout was a lot more than i had even expected. The event somehow turned to be a success

Winners – Stella maris College

(Except for the fact that most of the girls who were participating thought that i was a professor, which was mildly disheartening, everything just seemed to have fallen into place.)

A special thanks to Dominc, despite being ill, went out of the way to help me. I couldn’t have done this without you, ever. I really have to thank Leo for his unwavering support and encouragement. Thanks a lot Leo for bailing me out in the last minute. Agni, Thinesh, Cassion Anand, you guys have put in a lot and i couldn’t thank you enough. A special thanks to the organizers of all the events. I couldn’t have pulled off this fiasco without your co-ordination and co-operation. In case if i have failed to thank anybody, feel free to rant about it in the comments section.

 I had a really tough time organizing this event, but the memories of the final three weeks before “Coffee House ’13” will never fade away. I wish i could come back and stick around for another Coffee House. 😉

 P.S. This is just a teaser on what actually went into turning a fiasco into an overwhelming success!!

Click here to view all the photos of Coffee House 13:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151593154409199.605084.526319198&type=1

Tibetan Refugees in Chennai by Yangchen

Jai Ho Tibet !!!

For the past 50 years following our political and spiritual leader His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama, almost 1,50,000 Tibetan refugees have come to India, with the grace of  the then Indian President Jawaharlal Nehru. Settling all over the India and engaging ourselves in some petty business for their livelihoods. There a few Tibetans come to adapt themselves in Chennai during winter. And while their stay in Chennai they come to know about the schools and colleges opportunities here.

Tibetans students in Chennai colleges:

From 1989, having hailed from Tibet, we are fortunate to get admissions into great institutions in India like Loyola College, Women’s Christian College, Madras Christian College and so on.

 

TSAM (TIBETAN STUDENT’S ASSOCIATION MADRAS):

The Tibetan Student’s Association Madras is an independent, non-profit student’s body formed formerly in 1993, on the student’s own initiation. The achievement of the first batch of ten members has been the baby association, upon which we designed bigger plans in the succeeding years. Every year, by the end of the academic session, we formalize our plans and programs of the forthcoming years in accordance with which we mobilize our effort to materialize them. And at end of the academic session we are also publishing an annual magazine called “ONE” that showcases various activities accomplished by the association every year, admission information for various colleges in Chennai. We are publishing over 500 copies and freely distributed all over India including Exile Government, Schools, Monasteries, NGOs and etc.

At the embryonic stage, from a tiny group of ten students in 1993, TSAM has now developed into a full-fledged Students’ Association with over 200 members. Following the glorious legacy of our founders, TSAM has always been one of the most active Tibetan Students’ Association and we have our marks in Tibetan society at various level. TSAM is proud that many of our ex-members are serving our society and the Government by different means. To this day, TSAM still remains as an incubation camp from where many contributing members for our society are successfully dispatched every year.

Any Tibetan students whose admission affirmed in any college or any institution in Chennai is eligible to enroll himself or herself as a TSAM members and redeem the obligation and responsibilities that he or she is entrusted upon, but the member is not an obligatory.

Aims to Go On

Far from our nation, imbibing all our nation’s impeccable culture and nature, we, the Tibetans in Chennai, are voicing out our anguish to be back home with glory. Our chief voice is to retain our identity far away from our home country. Through stabilizing our identity in India, we create awareness among the Indians to a greater extent. We also make people aware of the violating policies of China. We help each and every one of our Tibetans through young and fellow Indian through this association. We go on anyway.

Being Grateful:

Being here in Chennai, we feel very grateful to all our friends, who have never shown any sting of indifference. All of our Indian friends here have been so lovable towards our culture and our nature. They do recognize us to a greater extent as their own brothers and sisters. We are very grateful to them.

 

Conclusion

We are waiting, waiting and waiting to be back home. And our voice from Chennai through TSAM has never and ever been left in the wilderness. Every move, we make. Every step, we take never to be remained useless. Moving inch by inch, we do start moving the mountain- Mountain of violating policies and harmful politics. In our every step we feel the progress and the result to so imminent.

American Dream- by Jezvin Little George

The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which simple freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. It is as owning their own home and having the mobility to get where they want to go; when they want to go there. In simple words, American Dream is an idea which suggests that all people can succeed through hard work, and that all people have the potential to live happy, successful lives.

The idea of an American Dream is older than the United States, dated back to the 1600s, when people began to come up with all sorts of hopes and aspirations for the new and largely unexplored continent. Many of these dreams focused on owning land and establishing prosperous businesses which would theoretically generate happiness, and some people also incorporated ideals of religious freedom into their American Dreams. The idealistic vision of the American Dream also assumes that people are not discriminated against on the basis of race, religion, gender and national origin, another thing which is unfortunately not true in United States. People with skeptical view of the American Dream sometimes say that the American Dream respects the possibility of living better than your parents did, and a desire among parents for their children to lead happy lives. This is especially true in the immigrant community, as many immigrants have come from extremely difficult circumstances. Fundamentally, the American Dream is about hope and potential to change.

As we go through the history, since its founding in 1776, the United States has regarded and promoted itself as an Empire of Liberty and prosperity. The meaning of the “American Dream” has changed over the course of history. Historically, the dream originated in the new world mystique regarding especially the availability of low-cost land for farm ownership. The ethos today simply indicates the ability, through participation in the society and economy, for everyone to achieve prosperity.

The term American Dream is used in popular discourse, and scholars have traced its use in American literature ranging from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin to Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleburry Finn (1884), Willa Cather’s My Antonia, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon(1977). Other writers who used the American Dream theme include Hunter S.Thompson, Edward Albee, and Langston Hughes. The American Dream is also presented through the American play Death of a Salesman by playwright Arthur Miller.

For a better understanding about this concept of American Dream in literature, a look into the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby can be made. The American dream is what drives the characters in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The American dream is the firmly held belief that everyone has the opportunity to achieve their goals and become rich and prosperous if they only work hard enough.

Jordan Baker, a character in “The Great Gatsby” is a famous golf player who is wealthy. But she is not happy with what she is. Jordan is not satisfied with her life because she is not honest. She knows what her success is fickle and that it can leave at any moment because it was not built on hard work towards the American dream.

In contrast Myrtle Wilson does not have many material items. She has a loyal husband, but she wants everything else. Myrtle looks at the east egg folks with envy and a little bit of animosity. She doesn’t understand why they get to live the American dream while she is stuck in the “Valley of Ashes” with her poor husband.

Another character who believes he deserve more power and influence is Tom Buchanan. Tom is already powerful, rich and has a beautiful wife and daughter. Tom is not satisfied with that the American dream to him means he deserves more. One woman is not enough for Tom, he wants two. He also feels that he gets more power because of his mistress Myrtle. But Myrtle depends on Tom to get her into a better society, closer to the American dream.

Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald shows how dreams are destroyed, no matter what the dreams consist of, money, material status, or simply to lie happy. Fitzgerald also portrays that to be happy, owning a perfect life is nothing but just an imagination. Hopes and dreams is all that is leading the characters throughout the novel. The American Dream is something every person works for throughout his or her life. Although the American Dream is admirable, it is impossible to achieve eternal satisfaction. The American Dream is just that, a dream.