The Lettered Boulevard

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when will the results be declared?

Most probably on the 8th of march

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Entry 7: Behind the Screen

“Good morning, Mr. Florin.”

Two girls smiled as a man carrying a folder and a few books,wished them a good morning, completely ignoring the janitor that pushed his cart of cleaning supplies. The sound of squeaky clean shoes on a freshly mopped floor faded out while the man continued to slowly push his cart down the hallway.

He stopped at a door, fumbled around for his keys and pushed the cart into the dark room beyond. The room was bare excepting for a chair, table and a tall shelf with more cleaning supplies, identical to those in the cart. A ruck sack hung from the back of his chair a sleeve of a denim jacket peeping out.He looked at his watch and counted the hours till the end of his day. Just 7 more hours before he could be home, comfortable and having abottle of beer.

A soft roar from his protruding belly, and he realized he was hungry. A few minutes of going through his rucksack and he found what he was looking for. A sandwich packed in some cling wrap. He was glad it was a ham and cheese sandwich. His wife made a lot of amazing things but her ham and cheese sandwiches were to die for.

He sat on the chair, put his feet up on the table and got comfortable as he bit into his sandwich. He switched his phone on, revealing a picture of two little girls in the most adorable polka dotted dresses, and began to scroll through his Facebook as he continued to eat. A little notification popped up saying, ‘Alisha Ferrero has messaged you’.

 It had beenthree hours since the school bell had rung loudly and the footsteps in the hallway fizzled out. He was home now. A bottle of beer in hand, he told his wife that he is going to work on some paper work and climbs up a set of stairs. Once upstairs, he closed the doors of his roomand sat down at a desk and computer. It was that time of the day again. A laptop screen came on and a Facebook home page is seen. A chat box opened and Alisha Ferrero has said “hi.” Keys on the keyboard are hit fast.

Hi babe. How was school?

It was great. We got our results today. I got an A+.

Congratulations. I’m so proud of you.

Thank you. Hey. I was wondering. Would you like to go put for a movie with me. Maybe tomorrow?

There was a pause as the man thought about what to say. More keyboard keys got hit.

I’m a little busy tomorrow babe. I have a paper to submit day after.

Okay then. It’s just bad timing. Maybe some other time.

Some other time it is.

He breathed a silent sigh of relief. Then typed the name “Ricardo Sanchez” in the search box. The home page of a 15 year old boy popped up. Seconds later, a picture of the fifteen year old on a fishing trip was downloaded and made into the profile picture of JeremyParker.

Another notification. Alisha Ferrero has messaged you.

Babe…that picture!!! You look so nice in it. I love how it brings out the color of your eyes.

Thanks sweetie.

The 55 year old janitor behind the laptop smiled as the words “ I love you” popped up on the screen before him. He loved the privacy of closed doors. Behind closed doors, he, a man that nobody noticed could be a 15 year old, in a relationship with a 13 year old. All he needed was a gullible, desperate girl to enchant.

 Shreya

Jyoti Nivas College

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Entry 6: Lost in Digital Translation

The perpetual alarm echoed in the scantily furnished room not a second later than when it was set to. In a lackadaisical flourish, he turned it off and automatically reached inside the balmy covers, grabbed hold of her and sluggishly opened his eyes and was face to face with her. She was the first thing to meet his eyes every morning and the last thing he’d see as he drifted into a placid sleep every night.

As every day, he gently caressed her to hear the humdrum voice say, “You have seven unread messages.”Four ads from companies he did not bother to contemplate. Delete. Fifth was his classmate saying a ritualistic “Good morning” succeeded with a smiley and peace hand sign. Ignore. Next. “Gm” and a radiant red heart. His weird best friend. She was in a sanguine mood today. He dwelled upon last night’s conversation that lasted till primordial hours of the morning. She was a whimpering mess. He could feel the poignancy through all those crying emojis she had used to embellish her messages. Today was different. Was she really jovial? He hoped so. His Japanese counterpart got the better of him as he replied “Ohaiyou gozaimasu!”  His fingers hovered over the wide collection of yellow faces(Calm it small eyes!) as he paused to think of what emote to send. She needed reassurance. Two smiling faces with a heart. “That should do it for digital translation” he thought. Send. The final message. It had been a while since he had spoken to this person. There was no formal greeting. No cute little smiling faces. It was her advertising an event. An invitation to participate in a creative writing contest. Unconcerned, he opened the image attached to glance through the topics. “Lost in digital translation.”A soft chuckle. Close. Forget. Or that’s what he thought.

His gaze shifted to the desktop running quietly on the far end of the dingy room. With a weary sigh, the skinny, pale 21 year old dragged himself from the bed and slopped onto the chair beside the gizmo. His half open eyes skimmed through the social networking site tab that was left open since last night. 70 new posts. Seemed like it had been a busy Saturday.

Approaching steps stopped beside his chair and carefully placed a hot mug of coffee beside him as the bangles jingled. Black. Bitter. Just the way he liked it. “Good morning”. Did she smile? Was she looking overworked? Seemed like it did not matter to him. He replied “Good morning, Amma” his eyes locked onto the screen. The footsteps retreated and faded and he did not even notice.

 A passing by post read “93% of conversation is conveyed through body language.” Another chuckle. He wondered if that post was still applicable to the contemporary world. The post was intriguing. He hovered over the like button until he could select the love icon. A feature recently introduced by the site for people to express more than just like towards a post. He chuckled again. Expressive emotes to explicit empty emotions. Scroll. Scroll. Scroll. Stop. Something caught his attention on the feed. He had seen that image before. Just minutes before. An invitation to a creative writing event. That topic stood out vividly than the last time he had seen it. “Lost in digital translation.” He turned to the clock on his bedside table. Only 10 minutes since the drab alarm rang. 10 minutes since he last saw that invitation.

One quick flurry of the mouse and the word editor was open in front of him, the cursor blinking non-stop waiting patiently to leave a trail of words. The clock ticked at its own pace and somewhere amidst the ticking, he had finished the painfully long piece of work. “One last glance” he said to himself. He began with “The perpetual alarm….” And by the moment he had reached the end, he realized how uncomfortable he would be to “talk” about the feelings and how his palms would get sweaty. His mind would start to race and he’d trip over his tongue several times if he had to express it. But if he had to put it on paper, he could easily spit out the words without feeling like being trapped in a pressure cooker with a lid too. The pen was his crutch, the electronic screen his shield. He let out one last chuckle.

The clock was still ticking but it did not matter what time it read. The mug was untouched, the phone was quiet and the room was motionless  except for the blinking cursor at the end of the page on the screen. And somewhere beyond the creaky doors, one could hear the cheerful laugh of a mother and son enjoying a lazy Sunday morning over an aromatic breakfast.

Nitin

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Entry 5: Closed doors.

Ankita hait

Oxford college of Arts

“This is the last time I am asking you for an answer”, she said with anger in her voice that choked with tears that she tried to withhold. He held his head down unable to revert back to the question that was asked to him for the 15th time. Flashbacks came soaring into his mind. He knew she deserved to know it all; he was bearing the cross for quite a long time now and now all he wanted to do was to unburden it from his shoulders. He stood up; ready to leave when her firm, undaunted voice was heard again “do you even want to marry me? If not why can’t you just say it on my face you coward and let me live my life?” “I am not a coward do you get that? You may leave now, I will call you later.” – He replied trying to sound strong and capable enough to tackle the fears that he kept within him.

Anger, disdain, pain, clouded over her as she swung back her chair and left the restaurant, unaware of the eyes that were staring at them since quite some time now. He was left alone in the table now; was he alone on the table or in the universe he didn’t know; he didn’t know how to deal with the unknown enemy who was haunting him day and night, when suddenly he is startled back to reality by the phone call. He half heartedly knew it was she, and yes indeed, the screen displayed- ma calling.

He tried to sound perfectly normal as he entered home with a gleaming smile on his face. “There you are. I was waiting for you for so long. You are never so late from office, is everything ok?”- Mom enquired with an alert in her voice. “Ma I am perfectly fine, and I’m enough grown up to take care of myself and you too” he replied assuring. The mother was happy with the reassurance that her son gave her “you are all that I have”.

That night he couldn’t sleep. The sounds, the cries, the beatings kept him awake. He woke up, turned on the lights and for the first time took out his diary and pen that he long locked inside the drawer and started penning down his pain. That night the pen did not stop, but the pain he bore became minimal. The open diary read-

23rd November, 2005

“I don’t know from where to start, I can’t even recall from when did it all began, it feels too old an affliction. The past still don’t let me sleep. I was may be 6 years old then, we were a happy family, ma, papa and me. How happy we used to be, a perfect picture like family. I don’t recall who distorted the picture, who brought so much hatred into it that now I don’t even have the guts to look into the picture and reminiscence the good old days. It all started when one day papa returned from work with a sour face. I can never forget that day; it still gives me shivers that run down my spine. Ma, with a happy face took his bag and asked him to change while she served him his dinner. Papa still had a face that deepened with something that I never saw before. I went to show him some poems that I wrote that very day, skipping my homework, about which ma had no idea at all. Papa always used to tell me that I can be a writer and I, of course, pretended to be one, but that day neither did papa exchanged a word with me nor did he read my poetry. With a heavy heart I retired to my room and closed the door when suddenly I heard a loud thud of utensils falling on the floor. I was about to open the door when I heard papa yelling at ma. I couldn’t figure out what was going on but I could sense that there was something wrong. That night, ma’s yells kept me awake whole night. I thought of asking her in the morning but I never got a chance, she was so busy smiling and in her daily chores that she made it feel it was all perfect. That night too, the crying followed by unending thrashing continued. Papa curtailed almost all the ties, whenever I saw him I found him in a Trans, lost in his own world and when he came out from it all I could hear was the cries and sobs of ma. Every day she met me with the same glowing warm smile, but her body had an altogether different story to say. Everyday a new scar, one day she will say she got a bruise cause she fell from bed or burnt during cooking or hurt by the glass vase that used to be in her bedroom. I did ask her about dad, and smilingly she would say “your papa is having a bad time. Try to be a good boy that will make him happy”. Deep down in my heart I knew nothing can make him happy anymore. Time kept flying. The violence took a vivacious form. It’s not that I didn’t want to stop papa, but I ended up with a broken arm in the hospital the next day. Ma gave her swear never to involve myself in their matters; and finally one day God heard our prayers that day papa left home and never came back and I feel he left for better.

I wish I could say you ‘yes’, i wish i could say it all to you, but as the saying goes ‘like father, like son’ i fear hurting you. I don’t want to give you such a life after marriage and give my child memories of a helpless mother and the closed doors in front of him.’’

Aarav

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I can't figure out on what do I have to write.. Like cn I pick up anything from my mind and write on it!?!

We have a list of topics on this website. WWW.mediatron2016.wix.com/mediatron

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Entry 4: Unwritten facts, wonderful facts

Unwritten facts, wonderful facts The lion is the king of the jungle, but the lioness is never called the queen; The universe has a lot of languages, but only the chosen ones understand the only universal language- love; Every mother wanted that last piece of cake, but it eventually ended in her child's tummy. Unwritten facts, wonderful facts. It left me wondering all night.

Unwritten facts, wonderful facts Little did a girl know that once she is married she has to be addressed as "Mrs.", but her husband can remain as a "Mr."; When it comes to begging a female holds her baby next to her chest, but the male is not even accompanied by his child; A boy with very long hair is never questioned about his gender preferences, but a girl with short hair might face the question- " Are you a lesbian?"; Unwritten facts, wonderful facts. It left me wondering all night.

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Entry3:  The Unpopular Two

The theme i wanted to write about was ‘the unwritten’. i’m going to make an extremely contentious and cynical claim here. With the surge of digital media and popularity of sites like quora, facebook where your story can be read or shared by total strangers, I feel that people are making up stories just to get people’s attention and hence more ‘likes’ and 'shares’. They suffix or prefix it by saying it is a true story and they are not making it up. Some of these stories are downright ridiculous. So, effectively although they have written it, isn’t it 'Unwritten’? 

 Continuing with the same theme, the growth of digital media and feminist movements can be tracked simultaneously. The word feminism bothers me a lot and i’ll telly you why. Make no mistakes, ours is a male dominated society and i’m not disagreeing with it all. So i’m all for women fighting for their rights. But, the word feminism is defined as follows as per google - Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women.

The definition is spot on except for the last few words, “for women”. Let’s assume that these movements succeed and somewhere in the future we become a female dominated society? is that the aim? and then men have to start some movement to get back on terms with women? Now, consider the last words of the definition to be “social rights for equality between men and women”. Isn’t that what the movement is striving for? To be considered equal to men and to not be discriminated on the basis of gender.

 Another issue i have with this is that SOME women misuse feminism. When they are up for a promotion at work, they wanted to be treated on par with their male counterparts. However, promotion means extra responsibilities and sometimes longer hours of work. Now they play the 'i’m a woman card’, i’m a woman how can i work for so long, i’m a woman how can i come to office at 2AM for this client call. You can not have it both ways can you. There are also numerous cases of women filing cases against their husbands under the dowry act if they fail to act at all their whims and fancies. I reiterate that there are only some women who misuse this while there are thousands of others who truly want the women of our society to be uplifted.   

 I feel that this is a rarely written or discussed about and hence the justification for 'unwritten.’ I apologise if i have hurt the sentiments of any women who eventually end of reading this and also for grammatical errors.

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Entry 2: The Unpopular One

Any essay writing competition or written event in general is conducted using the pen and paper format but with digital media, i’m able to sit hundred of kilometers away and submit an entry to this competition. If that is not evidence for the massive advantage of digital media, i don’t know what is.

  Communication has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few decades. had you told me i’d be able to communicate with someone in the USA or Europe with just a smart phone, an app and a wifi connection, i’d have probably called you deluded. But today, it’s a reality and most of us have been making use of it. However, the irony is digital media has brought us closer with the ones far away from us and has disconnected us from people who stay close by. Have we lost something in digital translation? yes, the ability to have a conversation with people whom we meet in our daily lives. Our milkman, our newspaper guy, the middle aged uncle whom we meet everyday on the way to work or school, the cab driver who drives us to office or the vegetable seller from whom we buy vegetables regularly, all of this people are a part and parcel of our life but we neither have the time nor the intention to simple say a hello or even smile at them when we look at them.We are so engrossed in our ‘digital media’, read as facebook, whatsapp twitter among other social networking platforms. Again, the irony here is that the term social networking implies we ‘network’, as in be in cordial terms with people who are a part of our lives on a daily basis. But we are more interested in taking photos of the food we eat and posting them on instagram rather than saying thank you to the server who served us the food or the vegetable seller who sold us the raw materials for our food. We crave for attention and appreciation from people unknown. It’s appalling to see that we have lost all sense of basic courtesy. I apologise if you think of this as a rant rather than an entry for a competition. But i must admit honestly, this is a rant and i’ll stop at this point.

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Entry 1: Digital Love Affair

Fingertips kiss papers and ink, Down the memory lane next blink. Love was plenty and regrets few In a world of letters sent by you.

After summer as the sky poured, Breeze drifted and thunders roared. Scent of petrichor and sound of rain, Drenched bodies, umbrellas in vain.

Conversing through the windowpane Of things heartfelt, and less sane. Hustling to find in you a single flaw, Until at last the curtains you’d draw.

What we had is but times elapsed, Castles of romance wildly collapsed. Love only emerging through the frames, And flashing in screens like video games.

Texts inept at ear-whispering bliss, And the emojis sent still don’t kiss. Digital love-making, state of the art While love lies orphan miles apart.

Candidly blessed are the modern teens With those bright and loving screens. Was it just us in the good old days, Or has love changed all its ways?

-Syed Shakib

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ChewWORDbacca: The Anthology

One fine Tuesday afternoon, the idea of #chewWORDbacca was born. The result of a Eureka moment, it spurred from the Star Wars character, Chewbacca, the loyal and intelligent friend of Han Solo.

Chewbacca is known to confuse his opponents instead of refuting them and to us, is the ideal mascot who embodies wit, character and charm.

His inability to speak English becomes synonymous with the difficulty we face in pronouncing difficult words. Environ a copacetic diurnal day!    

This is the end.

You can stop reading now.

For all you curious people, who have continued reading; follow us on Twitter and Facebook .

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Role of Digital Media in Society

Social media is the ultimate equalizer. It gives a voice and a platform to anyone willing to engage.

- Amy Jo Martin

It is a universally accepted fact that man is by nature a social animal, Aristotle being one of the earliest philosophers who alluded to this fact. Humans have always been known to have voiced out their thoughts, opinions or views on many a subject with a natural tendency to interact with one another.  Through the many cave inscriptions, Egyptian hieroglyphs, written manuscripts and finally with arrival of the printing press mankind has come a long way.  

Previously, the exchanging of important information between people whether it is political or social, took place by word of mouth or through a messenger. Society or the world at large did not always function or revolve around incidents that affected a particular region or country. In contrast with the past we now have people probably living in the other side of the world sharing our most intimate moments thanks to the social media. Although people still depend on newspapers and magazines to a large extent, primary importance is given to broadcast media by way of television and predominantly the internet.

Considering the prevalence of the internet, there is this sudden flood of information and news from every nook and corner of the world. One would sometimes find difficulty in assessing, accepting, disregarding and compartmentalizing the enormous amounts of information we receive through a click of the mouse. There is a certain advantage that the media can take over this matter.  Take for example the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. Although the ‘discord’ between the countries has existed for over 60 years, no one found it necessary to cover the issue. Every year thousands of Palestinians, a large number of which were women children would be killed and with absolutely little or no defense the Palestinians could do little to protect themselves.

It is only recently that the world at large has been able to see the atrocities that have been taking place in Ghazza and other places and here again, the social media deserves most of the credit as it is a platform where ordinary people who are not necessarily reporters or any other sort of media personal made the issue known.

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Mediatron: The Beginning

Mediatron. One word that is a constant thought in the minds of the students and faculty of the Department of Media Studies and Communicative English of Jyoti Nivas College. Each day, we get closer and closer to the culmination of the work and effort poured out by every participant into this national-level fest and conference.

The groundwork for Mediatron began to be laid out in the beginning of January 2016, with the re-opening of the college after the Christmas vacations. From the very first meeting, debates began between and among the faculty and the students. The theme, the backbone of the fest, had to be decided before anything else. Various ideas, such as YouTube’s effect on television, films and their genres, and the evolution of media were lobbed around and dissected. The conclusion that the planning committee arrived at was that digital media was a common factor, and highly relevant to youth and life today. And so, the theme ‘Digital Media and its Influence: Empowering or Overpowering?’ was adopted.

The next step was the naming of the fest. A lot of thought and consideration had to be given to the name, as it would be a permanent one, used for years to come. It had to reflect the fact that it was a media fest. ‘Mediatron’ emerged as something that fulfilled this requisite, along with having a nice ring to it.

With the theme and the name sorted, things began to pick up speed. A core committee was elected, which would chalk out the blueprint of the structure of Mediatron 2016, and make it a reality. Details, both major and minor, were pinned down. The event list was planned.

Now, the event heads and volunteers have been chosen, and everyone is proceeding with full steam ahead. Pieces are falling into place, and Mediatron 2016 is near its completion, with one week to go.

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How has digital media affected writing?

We have to admit that digital media has become an indispensable part of our everyday life. It has simplified many a varied task for us and has also taken much of our time that is usually allotted for recreational activities. Even so, writers – aspiring ones as well as those who have already established a platform for themselves have much to gain from this form of media.

Before digital media took a hold of the masses, writers had to depend first on their editors, followed by a review from their publishers who would then take the responsibility of publicizing their work. However, in present scenarios, writers are able to do their writing, as well as their very own editing and have become publishers themselves.

Writers are able to connect with their audience directly without the need of a go-between. What is more is, students who engage in writing activities can create a platform where different writers from contrasting areas of expertise can exchange ideas and dialogues effectively making it a forum for learning and sharing. With an audience that is ever willing and encouraging in their support of these emerging writers, digital media has certainly seemed to have gained the favor of writing enthusiasts.