Thursday, July 7, 2011

Experiences. Past three months.

Often comes a time, when things start crumbling and everything starts falling apart. It only awaits a new beginning. In the last three months, things in my life have been greatly influenced and changed, owing to diverse reasons and I've certainly started to identify myself more as a person in synergy with the new age of activism. I'm a different person now. Earlier my purpose of existence was entertainment, more precisely self-entertainment via several sources such as writing, music, reading etc. Now it has changed. I've evolved as an activist now and want to champion the causes that I feel passionate for. I wish to utilise all my talents together to bring a change in issues that bother me and society on a whole. In this regard, I've come to realize that writing and networking are the two ultimate weapon for creating a revolution and I feel really grateful to God to pursue the two.

I want to share some amazing things that I've come across and been involved with in the last two months.

Social media creativity and activism
  • Diary of a SLUT - I came across this article on the day it was written, since I happened to personally know the writer. And without any effort on the writer's part, this article has gone viral, just because of the content and the power in her cause. Her mission has been read by 10000 people and amplified by over 2000 people across the globe, in just 15 days, without any pass-it-on-otherwise-it-will-bring-bad-luck tactic.
  • Let's do ABCD during convocation - A movement to bring a change in the convocation tradition of IIT Delhi, to change the prevailing decreasing CGPA order to call out names to alphabetical order. It sparked off with just a status message and within four days got the support of more than 450 IIT students and alumnis. The petition has been placed in front of Director and his response is awaited.
  • Get well soon, Mr. ABC - We participated in a prominent B-plan competition and won the 2nd prize. Unfortunately, we never received the prize. That prompted me to take use of the social media to bring out the corruption of such a reputed college and forewarn the prospective candidates from appearing. I wrote to the organizer for over a dozen of times but no response came, when ultimately I'd to resort to the use of social media. And it proved effective. I just sent this incomplete letter to the Overall Coordinator, and told him that I'm going to make it public after the next three days. One day later, my account was credited with the required amount.
  • The Lazy Writer's Competition -I launched this competition to crowdsource the title of my novel. I managed my own PR and through twitter and social engines popularized the competition. During this process, many of my interviews were published and a wonderful response was seen from my readers and bloggers likewise. It was an enchanting feeling and ultimately I even found out the title from amongst the submitted titles.
  • 365 Days - my fourth book - is a book full of tweets. The social bug caught me. I thought of utilising my time spent on the social media and began writing this book. Unfortunately, I've stopped in between for quite sometime now. Will resume as soon as I get time.
Effect of information
  • Auto-wala - All the Delhiites, if you're tired of the rampant rates charged by the autowallas, then note this number: 01142400400. The moment I came to know that there exists a complain no. if the Delhi autowallah charges more than the meter rate, I exercised it incessantly. I've lodged a complaint of about 12 autowalas and haven't paid a penny extra since then.
  • RTI - Another important right in the hands of the common man. I'm going to file an RTI against DTU, in case they don't give us our prize, which we won in a B-plan competition. We are tired of mailing.
Graduation. New Home. New Activities
  • I found a fully furnished 2BHK flat in Malviya Nagar. It's good, independent, airy and shabby - come on what would do you expect of bachelors from IIT. It's a home cum office. My landlord is an entrepreneur himself, check out brandbaron.com
  • I tried nude photography. Don't ask me who was the model! ;)
  • www.thewittyshit.com - I won't say anything about it. Check it yourself. My child has grown big and has become quite famous.
  • I wrote to Anurag Kashyap relating to him one of my novel's plots. He's yet to respond. Perhaps he won't.
  • I'm single. Yes, you can try your luck. :P
Good day.