Of Kings and Presidents...

“India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters”, the very first line of the Indian pledge. Yes I am an Indian , by birth ,by origin but at heart i never was. Born in Kerala ,in the southern part of India , I was brought up in arguably one of the finest countries in the middle east ,Oman. For people who have not heard of Oman, it is a small and peaceful country in the Arabian gulf (its diminutively small when compared to India, in fact its smaller than Tamil Nadu),l geographically it shares borders with the UAE and is four hours away from Dubai by road. All said and done, it is one of the most beautiful places on planet earth. Twenty five years ago , Oman was only sand, it was a desert but now it has an infrastructure better than India. Most of you would argue saying that governing such a country would be like taking candy from a baby as compared to governing India. But does size really matter or is it just an excuse for not developing????Another question that would arise here would be “is monarchy better than democracy or vice versa”??The answers to the above two questions would help us to analyze one very important factor that governs a country’s progress – DEVELOPMENT.

DOES SIZE MATTER?? Well up to an extent it does. Governing India and governing Oman are two different propositions. India is larger both in size and populations. But consider this , Oman , twenty five years ago was barren desert .In a span of twenty five years , the changes Oman have undergone are tremendous. Again people may say things like “India has a space programme which has improved vastly over the last 10 years or so and that since Oman does not have one and , India is more developed “ and so on and so forth. But then is development only about the space research or development of infrastructure? According to me development is about upbringing the poor and creating a society where the there is an equal distribution of the economy. Once again here the populations of the two countries can be questioned , yes India has a far bigger population .But the fact is if our leaders had given a thought to developing India region by region , I guess India would be far more developed and there would have been fewer people beneath that dreaded poverty line today. Another factor that has hindered India’s path to development is the amount of Corruption that takes place here. It is a fact that Oman is lesser corrupted when compared to India. Hence according to me India- corruption would be a fantastic place to live in. But when will that be the case only time will tell.

Is Democracy better than Monarchy? Yes democracy gives you the freedom to do whatever you like. But at the end of the day I think things happen faster and quicker when it comes to a monarchy. Yes its the king who takes all the decisions ,in a way i guess its good. For example , take the case of Ampa Skywalk , it took them 4 years to complete that project and in those four years more than two new malls was up and running in Muscat .Same is the case with the flyover near the airport.

At the end of the day , I am an Indian by origin but I would any day prefer to live in my country of domicile for the past 18 years , the Sultanate Of Oman.

ORION 2010...THE BEST EVER (PART 2)

Day 2 began from where day 1 ended.WIth events like tamil debate , Just a Minute and Entertainment Quiz hogging most of the limelight during the morning.

While the Ent quiz was all about the quizzing accumen , Just a Minute was all about spontaneity and quick thinking.

The afternoon of day 2 was eagerly awaited by every crescentian. It started with the variety events which were absolutely brilliant.But then came the moment the audience had been waiting for ,the entry of rapper BLAAZE .It was planned to pin point precision , the lights dimmed and whe the curtains opened there he was ready to rock.He rapped to various hit numbers like hosanna and BABA RAP.WE were honoured to have him with us for the rest of the evening.

Then came the pro show from the final years.The Crescent variety team which have been winning on a consistent basis at various inter college events performed at their very best.Their show payed a tribute to all the final years and ended up being an emotional affair.Next , we had some hit numbers being sung by the college music team and this brought the crowd to their feet.

Like every other good thing ,ORION 10 also had to come to an end.After felicitating the chief guest , we also felicitated one man who has been the pillar of ISTD for the past so many years,Mr M.Abdul Kader.We bid him an emotional farewell (since he is leaving Crescent) at ORION 2010.The end of Orion 10 was an emotional one.Many of the final years ended up in tears and this made us final years realize how much we are gonna miss Crescent.

To sum up the emotions at Orion 10, Id like to quote a few lines from a poem which one of my "bestsest" friend wrote recently.

These days of spending good times,

ending with melancholic chimes.

These days started with instances of fears,

ended up with moments of tears…..

ORION 2010...THE BEST EVER (PART 1)

There's this thing , sometimes while one thinks about writing on a topic there can be instances when he does not know where to start . This is one such instant.I am at a loss for words.

March 5th and 6th of the year 2010 shall be remembered for long long time.

Orion 2010, kicked off in grand fashion on the morning of March 5th , 2010 at B.S.Abdur Rahman University.Being a part of the core team , the days prior to the start of this cultural extravaganza had been extremely busy and hectic.As the day dawned , we hoped that this would be the beginning of something special.

DAY 1

"Lights, Camera, Action", the show Crescent had been waiting for was set to begin and begin it did with a bang.Prior to Orion , we the ISTD had promised the junta of Crescent that we would get celebs to judge the events at this Orion.And thats one of the many promises we at the ISTD kept at ORION 2010.Day 1 kicked off with veteran blogger and founder Director of F5ive technologies , Mr Kiruba Shankar .His talk at the beginning at the even was awe inspiring and the audience were stunned into silence .As they say " Well begun is half done". With Kiruba giving it the perfect start , the stage was set for the stars of Crescent to take over.It started with the opening dance in which the guys from the final year put on a fantabulous performance. They moved and grooved in flawless coordination and their free styling skills would have probably given the "Step Up" dancers a run for their money.We then had the Quiz finals were the best brains in Crescent went head to head to be known as the university's quiz wizards. Adaptune was the next on stage and the dancers of Crescent showed their extempore dancing skills.Apart from onstage events the , the offstage events also proved to be a grand success.Events such as Paper modelling , Collage , Rangoli , Hair stying and Mehendi too had many participants.Scavenger Hunt proved to be the best outdoor event of the day and had maximum participants .Literary events too had gotten underway in the seminar halls with popular video jockey ,VJ Craig judging shipwreck .Gaming was another event that saw maximum participation with gamers competing for supremacy in games like NFS, FIFA and CS.

The morning of the 1st of the two days of Orion had gone according to plan.Being a friday , Orion was halted for sometime during the afternoon to account for the special friday prayers.The afternoon session would see the budding dancers and musicians of crescent in action.

First event of the afternoon , was the group dance finals which saw some awesome dancing.The finalists danced to the latest tamil songs and brought the crowd to its feet.Next up we had the solo instrumental finals.Judged by popular tamil singer Haricharan and Mr Suresh Chakravarthy , there were some magical performances.We saw instruments such as piano , flute and tabla played with ease and precision by the participants while the junta of crescent cheered on.The solo singing finals followed and the musicians of crescent had the audience spellbound with absolute magic.

The day ended with the pro show from the college dance team with the final celeb of the day being 'Nadodigal' director Samuthrakani. Apart from this , we also had special messages from tamil actor Shiva and director Venkat Prabhu.Kudos to the PR team for the getting those for us.

On the whole day 1 was pure unadulterated entertainment and this ofcourse had set the tone for day 2 .It was a near perfect day for us and this was summed up by the statement which our beloved student president of the ISTD gave the Registrar of our college when he said " Sorry sir, for ending the show 2 minutes late".