What occupies a small, but significant, part in an IIT-M ians life is making graffiti on the notices on the notice board. In an effort to be different, we call the notices IPs, standing for internal publicity. The fact remains that hardly anything we do deserves publicity, except acads of course.
IPs fall into a set of categories like lost, lost and/but found, literary or sports events, extramural lectures and misc. As I was saying, ‘lost’ IPs usually involves losing cell phones, wallets or cycles. I am sure you would agree here that these don’t deserve publicity. IPs of ‘Lost and found’ category are rarely seen, but come with strings attached: ‘Treat expected’ Yet again, does out greed need publicity? If anything quality needs publicity, it’s honesty. That’s exactly the reason why politicians, though shameless, are popular.
To be frank, the lit activities do set high standards here. Those standards are set by not more than ten individuals. Lit skills of an average IITMian don’t deserve publicity either. Next in the line are extramural lectures. Is it something that WE do? Obviously not.
Misc category is better not talked about. Those are something that an average IITMian maggu doesn’t care about. Before concluding this, I must tell you that a misc IP is not ignored when the reference to grade cards is seen. IPs from NSS are keenly read by all the freshers. An innocent outsider would definitely find that the social service minded people are just the freshers, who are sure to turn anti-social in following years.
Talking about graffiti, as a fresher, the unknown destroyer was elevated to the standards much higher than any writer known. Little did we know that it gets predictable after some time, annoying after some more, chocking after a little more and inexpressible as it stand now.
IPs that are stylish are the first targets of this destroyer. In an older blog, I had talked about how easy it is to find fault with others. This quality in all of us is easily reflected on our notice boards. Not coincidently, this is not a quality that requires special publicity. All that is done is rhyme what is written with certain anatomical parts which aren’t uttered by her majesty, the queen. I am not so sure about the king.
All said and done, it is these IPs which brings the whole student community together. This includes (the minority) hard workers too. The jobless ones are always united. That’s the first thing we read in the morning before reading newspapers and last thing we read before dinner. A new IP is like a boring magazine, but one that is eagerly looked forward to. The destroyers continue to prey, the others continue to crib. This crib of having to read the graffiti somehow goes under publicized, while this is the only thing that requires publicity.
# posted by Shankar : 12:34 PM
