Web Magazine —Ingenium— Episode 2

This is a continuation of a previous blog post, Web Magazine – Episode1. So if you haven’t read that yet click here. If you have, well done! let’s jump into it.

I have always been terrible at handling nasty situations. So, my reaction after the incident was quite expected. I’m not proud of it, what I’ve said that day. But it was not unexpected. After listening to me, Abhishek said “Don’t worry! We will talk to him later”. But, unlike other days I did not find his words very assuring.

Retrospect

We were having a lot of disagreement lately within the Students’ Chapter committee members. We are not “professionals”. Our personal lives were affecting our work & work was affecting our personal lives. Too many things were going on. Most of us were contributing to the problem either by doing something wrong or doing nothing at all. But just mentioning the downsides is an inaccurate portrayal of the community. Because the greatest challenge we were facing at that time, was “Lack of Support”. The “Agitator” literally threatened us that if we don’t stop thinking about events and start paying more attention to our studies, he will shut down “Students’ Chapter”.

Momentary Rage

Words can hurt people very badly. Especially when you’re working for something without thinking about personal gain. After receiving that kind of treatment from the authority, some of us were furious (Especially me). “No more games”. Most of us were done with this unnecessary criticism we had to face before every event. The next day we went to the HOD of our department. We informed him about the threats of “Shutting down Students’ Chapter”. What he said after that was enough to reduce our anger. He said “It’s your committee, that’s why the name is Students’ chapter. No teacher has the right to shut it down”.

Commence

Abhishek was trying to convince the ‘Agitator’ so that all students can participate in The Web Magazine. We started thinking about the design of the website, name and started collecting submissions from CSE and IT department. We scheduled a meeting to build a committee for Web Magazine. A lot of people came. Listened to our proposals and Ideas. We asked for there views and feedbacks. None received. They went back to their classes. But we realized one thing, that we have to personally approach people. After we started personally approaching people, they started joining the committee. Which was really good for the Magazine.

After the committee has been decided, I asked committee members to suggest names for the Magazine. More than 25 names were suggested. After a grand voting, the name “Ingenium” was chosen. Which comes from the word “Ingenious”.

“Yes” from Agitator

As the college fest “Arcadia” was near (that got cancelled because of Covid-19), students used to spend their free time practising for the Audition. Me and my Bois used to sit under the trees and talk about miscellaneous things. One such lovely day, Abhishek and Dipu went to the Agitator to ask for permission again. Agitator asked them about a case study in ML. It was a quid pro quo situation. If they can solve his problem, He’s going to consider ours’. After spending more than 2 hours they came back, with a smile in their face “Mil jayega permission!”(permission will be granted).

For those looooong 2 hours, I was singing Bengali songs with my classmates, waiting for the good news. After hearing this I was relieved. I was like “Now you Talking!”.

Agree to Disagree

A lot of new faces were there in the Organizing Committee. As an Editor of Web Magazine, I was communicating with a whole bunch of people. Open Conversations often disclose unspoken facts or mindset. After speaking to them, I found out, A lot of students from the third year feel disconnected from the Students’ Chapter. And as a member of the organizing committee, it was kind of my duty to know the reason and try to solve it. So I asked them about it.

In our friend circle, we have this culture of criticizing the actions of each other. It’s not because “Ayse hii, Sexy lag rha tha!”(Just for fun). We genuinely believe that criticism from a person, who was there with me both in my triumph and downfall can only make me better as a person.

So, Abhishek and I tried to have a conversation about this problem. But, as I have said earlier the work was affecting our personal lives. The harmless “professional conversation” escalated to a dispute, quickly.

I have already written how these things personally affected us in another blog. Click here to read the previous blog.

This time let’s discuss it from the college’s aspect. The whole thing was turning into a mess. Every discussion was ending with a bad tone. So, one evening we decided that I’ll take every responsibility for Web Magazine. Abhishek is not going to help me with anything. From then a new journey started.

To be continued…