The Creators | Shorthand

Kartik Sundar, Class of 2020

The Creators will be fortnightly series of artist profiles of Ashokans who are actively involved in different creative fields including music, photography, creative writing, and visual or performing arts.

They might be some of the most humble and down to earth people you’ll meet, but when you hear them play live, Shorthand is a whole other animal. Hearing them at The Piano Man Jazz Club was an experience. The intensity with which they play is only matched by the happiness they exude from their performance. Seamlessly transitioning from lighter, mellow elements to heavy, headbang-worthy ones, the band lives up to its self-described “free genre” tag. Each member comes from a different musical background and this diversity only enriches their uniqueness.

Shorthand performing at The Blue Frog, Bengaluru | From right to left: Abhinav Srikant, Sreya Muthukumar, Prithvi Iyer, Govind Narayan | Source: Facebook

When I heard their rendition of John Lennon’s classic, “Imagine”, their ability to turn it into something particular to themselves instantly grabbed my attention. Listening to one of their original compositions, “One Mic Stand”, made me appreciate their attention to detail. The instrumental precision and synergy with Govind on bass, Abhinav on guitar, and Prithvi on drums, all come together with Sreya’s stunning vocals. When Sreya sang Beth Hart’s “Am I the One”, I could feel the emotion from across the room. Her performance was so strenuous and intense that she had to take a break for the next song, wherein the remaining members performed their stunning take on a jazz instrumental called “The Chicken”.

I sat down with Shorthand last Sunday afternoon for a small chat about their journey to this point as well as their plans for the future.

Kartik: The first thing I wanted to ask was how did this iteration of the band come about?

Abhinav: We had this band called Pineapple Acid in our first year. From the four of us, just Govind and I were in that band. As we got to the end of the first year, our drummer, Aashna, wanted to focus more on her studies. Then, we saw Prithvi performing when the new batch came in. We thought, “Damn that’s a good drummer. We should get him”.

Prithvi: I remember I was at some Ashoka outreach event when I first met one of them. They came to me and started talking about Porcupine Tree for some reason, and I was like “Oh, that’s cool. Do you guys have a band?” The way they spoke about it, it sounded like the band was legit, and I was like, that’s good. When I came here, there was an open mic thing, and all the first years wanted to impress each other. I thought the only thing I can do is play drums, so I’ll just do that. That’s where they saw me play.

We started off slow as a band. We wrote a song in like two weeks after we met and went to Jindal’s fest. It turned out pretty decent for a first song.

Later, I remember talking to Sreya’s roommate, and that’s how I came to know about her. I was told she was a very good singer. I heard her sing, and I was like, “Why is she not in the band?” So we got her on board. And, after that, I think we came third the first time we played together at Jindal.

Abhinav: But our sound was pretty empty. [Govind] had his bass, and I had my electric. But I didn’t have any fancy equipment — just one distortion pedal. All I had were two sounds — clean and dirty. That’s all I could do. Govind didn’t even have that [equipment]. He just had these knobs on his bass. Suddenly, he’d have to start turning the knobs and changing the sound. It was very bleak and empty sounding at the start. It just started as something we did for fun, really.

Kartik: Where did the name come from?

Sreya: We had kind of a weird phase when we went to Jindal, as we said, for the competition. We didn’t have a name, so we came up with a really shitty on-the-spot name; it was Big Yellow Balloon.

After that, I remember sitting down for many hours, many sessions, and we would just suggest stuff. There was never a name that all four people liked — at least one person hated any name that was suggested. But we couldn’t have a band name that even one person hated. At one point, I just started saying words; one of the words I said was Shorthand. And everyone was like, “Yeah, okay”.

Govind: The other one was Filter Coffee.

Sreya: Yeah, the other one was Filter Coffee. I guess, Shorthand kind of stuck. In my mind, once you know that your music is out there and people really respond to it, they enjoy it, they start associating your band name with your music. For example, Porcupine Tree doesn’t really mean anything. You know, you get a very different picture. I guess that’s the idea; at some point, people will start associating “Shorthand” to the kind of music that we play.

Abhinav: And that ridiculous name, you know, Big Yellow Balloon, it came up literally because there was a big yellow balloon floating in the sky at Jindal. Govind saw it, and said, “Fuck this. Let’s just call it [the band] Big Yellow Balloon.” About five minutes before we went on stage, he came up with that name.

Kartik: You guys have a lot of original compositions. What’s the process like? How do you guys go about creating new songs?

Prithvi: A drummer’s contribution to song-writing is often very limited. It usually comes at the end. But there’ve been times I’d come up with these grooves that I [wouldn’t] know what to do with. I’d record them and send them to Abhinav. I think for one of the songs, there was this groove I’d written. It’s called “Devoid” — and there’s this intro groove that I’d written quite a while back. So, I would just play this groove, and [Govind] would play it in his room and come up with a bass line. Then Abhinav would write all these parts and just…arrange it really well. A lot of our songs have stemmed from the drums, and that kind of…gives them some sort of backdrop from where they can take off. It allows me to really create a groove that actually translates into a full-fledged song. I think I’m very lucky to have that.

Abhinav: Right now, it’s been from all over the place, mostly from the three of us (Abhinav, Govind, and Prithvi). We found it easier to begin with either the drums, or Govind has some idea. They’ll jam and come up with something. I also have several hundred songs tucked away. So we just bring some idea in and then gauge the reaction of everyone else. It changes a lot even after you get the idea there. Everyone is pulling in a different direction. That’s been our constant experience, in a nice way! You know, you compromise and reach a place where you’re comfortable.

What we’ve been wanting to do is actually have Sreya way more involved from the start, which is something very hard to do. We have to figure out how the hell you get a song to begin with the vocalist. How do you get the vocal melody first? What we’re doing now is very different. We’ve been sitting down and talking about what we want to do on the latest song [that we’re writing].

Sreya: Generally, people bring in ideas, and we go by feel and see where it goes. How that works for me is that, we all sit down and discuss: “okay, this is gonna be the verse, and this is gonna be the chorus”. [We] essentially lay down the basic structure of the song. While they’re figuring out transitions from one part to another, I’ll record it and sit in another room — one of the classrooms. Just listen to it and write down the lyrics. The lyrics and the vocal melody come to me at the same time. So, in one way, the lyrics come after the music. That’s fine because I think they (Abhinav, Govind, and Prithvi) are inspired by the mood, and I kind of take it in a different direction, or give it a voice. It would be challenging to start it with words.

Kartik: You guys were recording in Bombay a while back. What was that experience like, the studio?

Sreya: I think the experience is very different for everyone.

Govind: Recording in the studio is a big challenge. We had a good thing going before we went to Bombay. Played a few gigs in Bangalore, and we thought, “Haan, we’re all good musicians”. But recording in the studio is like looking at yourself in a magnifying mirror. You can see all the small blemishes on your skin. You think that you can nail this part in one take — from beginning to end. You realise in the studio that you really can’t do that. Even the simplest of parts, you’ll make so many mistakes in playing it again and again. It’s like you see yourself as much, much worse than you actually are. So you play the same part five times, six times, ten times.

I remember one song we were recording — it’s one of our oldest songs — and I wrote that bass line. “Yeah, I’ve written this bass line and I’ll do it in one take.” But it’s the same thing: repeating again, and again for a good two and a half minutes. It just… really got to me. Because, one note would just be a little bit off. I would think that, “Oh, I thought I could play this, but clearly I can’t”. It’s an interesting experience. Reflecting on yourself and seeing how good or bad you are as a musician. Does it even mean that you are good or bad? So, questions that like came up.

Sreya: When we [were] in the studio, we were there from morning to night; inside the studio, you don’t know whether it’s day or night. I think some people respond to that. I think Prithvi plays equally well in the studio and outside. Abhinav can sit there for hours. There’s no circadian rhythm; you don’t know what time of day it is. For me, it was really stressful. I don’t like listening to myself. That’s a big drawback as a vocalist because if you can’t listen to yourself on record, then you don’t know where you’re messing up and what you’re doing right. The thing about vocal recording is that if you are tired or hungry or sleepy, it comes into the song. You can hear it. For me, the biggest challenges were one, hearing myself back, and two, trying to get that energy and that emotion out when there was no crowd, and there was no one responding. You are behind a glass, in a room all by yourself. I actually asked them (the other three) to leave, so that they wouldn’t be sitting outside and watching while I was recording.

Govind: That’s why vocalists are such trouble.

(They all laugh.)

Abhinav: That’s the interesting thing we found; for both of them (Govind and Sreya), they feed off of the crowds while on stage. To deliver the same intensity of emotion in the performance on a recording was really hard for them. They had to really dig it out. Whereas for Prithvi and I, it felt like this natural habitat where we were really happy. You know, Prithvi’d scurry off into that little drum booth and play some part and then he’d get all excited. He’d come back and listen to it, and if there was something he didn’t like, he’d go back and do that a hundred times.

Even I enjoyed watching him doing that. It’s not just [recording] your own part, but watching each other, watching other people do it. For both of us, that was a lot of fun.

Sreya: Also, I think you hear the song a different way [in the studio]. You hear each part in isolation, and you hear what the other person hears — from their perspective. Now, I know what the song sounds like to Govind, so I know from where he’s coming from. That was actually very exciting.

Prithvi: Two things really stood out for me. One was that if we did this six or eight months ago, it wouldn’t work. Because you can’t escape these faces for eight hours: the idea of being okay with each others’ presence in the room and having that level of comfort hasn’t been there throughout. This band didn’t start with a click where four people just got together and the chemistry was there. This was one thing that we really worked on. So, that’s one.

And, as a drummer: personally, I’ve always enjoyed listening to longer forms of music — listening to songs that are ten to fifteen minutes long. So, the idea of having multiple transitions and playing them through repeatedly kind of feels natural for me. And unlike, say Abhinav, who likes to write down his parts, I don’t. I leave a lot to feel and improvisation. There’ll be sections in a song where, for some eight bars, I don’t plan anything. Being a drummer, it’s also good because you are in this room and it doesn’t even feel like you’re in a studio. I felt like I was in my room, because even in my room I’m in an enclosed space with no one entering. In the studio, it’s the same. They can’t enter the room while I’m playing. I didn’t feel any pressure because I was inside a room. The moment that you enter [that room], you have the headphones on; it’s like the world is cut off. I don’t think they (the rest of the members) had that luxury.

Abhinav: And I’ve gotta say, there were some magical moments for Prithvi especially. There’s some insane things that he did on the spur of the moment. That is quite exciting to just witness and listen to.

Sreya: Honestly, when we talk about it in retrospect, it’s super-exciting to have a track that you can share. But, man, you have to have a lot of patience! A lot of the times, it’s kind of…boring? I feel like people should know that it’s a long painstaking process that happens over hours.

Abhinav: A lot of it is waiting for other people!

Sreya: It’s waiting for other people. It’s really listening to the part again and being like, “should we add this?” Abhinav’ll wanna add this…

Govind: Vibraphone.

Sreya: …vibraphone thing, and we’re like, “We don’t want it.” And you spend fifteen minutes discussing that. It’s not as glamorous as performing live, I think.

Kartik: About the gig you had around Thursday at Piano Man: Prithvi told me it was a six month process to eventually land it. How did you guys finally land that?

Prithvi: I remember, eight months ago was the first time I sent a Facebook message to Piano Man. We didn’t get a reply for like four months. We just forgot about it; we thought we probably weren’t good enough. Then, we played at Depot48 in May 2017; after that, we somehow sent the Piano Man people a message and our recorded stuff. Two months later, we got a reply. This gig was a long time coming. In that, it was a painstaking process to get it.

Abhinav: But I think it came at the right time.

Prithvi: Yeah, we didn’t have good recording, so I don’t think it’s a surprise that it took us eight months. I think now, if we had to do a show at a high profile venue, say in Bombay or Bangalore, it’d be much easier because studio recordings accurately portray our ability. I don’t think the recordings we [had] even came close to showing how good we were. It often painted a pretty bad picture.

Govind: This getting-it-in-eight-months made us realise one thing. I was discussing this with Abhinav yesterday; it’s not enough to be a good musician. We’re all good musicians; we’re good at what we do, but it’s just not enough. You gotta be able to network.

Sreya: Yeah, you go on merit, but you have to impress people, and they’ll have to want to help you. You have to be okay with asking for help and taking their help.

I guess, the last few months [have been] kind of a transition period for us: moving from being a college band or a band that does this as a hobby or as a passion, to actually wanting to be professionally in this. One of the things has been to think about everything else, apart from the music. You can’t afford to just focus on the music. There’s stuff that should happen on the side: marketing, social media, recording, releasing your music, meeting people, actually attending gigs. Things like that. I think Piano Man came as a result of playing, putting ourselves out there, networking, and being a little relentless and resilient.

Kartik: I remember, at the performance, you described yourself as a free genre band. Could you talk a little more as to what that means to you, and what kind of different music you try to incorporate into it?

Govind: [Sreya]’s trained in the Carnatic tradition, and I’m through-and-through a blues man. I’ve had metal influences and all, but when I really learned to play the guitar — when I learned guitar theory and all that — it was through the medium of blues. Prithvi has been into prog and all — nu jazz, Snarky Puppy sort of stuff. And Abhinav has sort of a metal background; he’s grown up learning how to play metal, really heavy rock songs. Now, he’s into jazz.

Abhinav: Yeah, it’s weird because I grew up on otherwise heavy music. One band who’s template I love is Alter Bridge because I feel that’s where melody and rhythm come together. I think that’s what we are always looking for, in general. At the core, you need to have a melody that anyone can relate to — a simple enough rhythm for people to catch on to. Despite listening to all that heavy music, it’s strange that most of the music I write is very jazzy, funky, and very out-there, weird. I don’t even know how to describe it, but it’s very different from what I grew up listening to; influenced but somewhat disconnected. All of us come from very different [musical] backgrounds.

Sreya: It’s interesting because we are also equally involved in the songwriting process; we contribute very different feels in a song. Even within a song there’ll be parts that are light and parts that are heavy. There’s a nice symbiotic relationship between the two things. It’s not like we feel forced to stay within one genre. There are people who do that, and they’re great. It’s like being a classical musician: you just play that, and you have to be good at it. I guess we like the freedom of having a free genre. We wanna be ourselves in our music rather than try and be somebody else and not do it right.

Prithvi: I think that’s very important. We say free genre borrowing from these influences like prog, and jazz, and blues. But if we really were any of them, we’d have to have a lot more virtuousity.

Kartik: What would be your major influences as individuals? Or just favourites? Bands, songs.

Prithvi: I really like bands like Porcupine Tree, Neal Morse. I like Robert Glasper, and stuff like Snarky Puppy. Also, softer stuff like Julian Lage. Some more jazz kind of guys. I’ve never been into metal. Porcupine Tree — that’s as heavy as I’ve listened to in my childhood.

Abhinav: I grew up on typical things any Indian rock fan grows up on. So, I had Guns n’ Roses, Metallica, and Iron Maiden. [I’m] also a gigantic Linkin Park fan but only the first two albums — not Reanimation, that doesn’t count! I wasn’t into their later stuff either. After that, I started listening to a lot of Alter Bridge; Mark Tremonti is my favourite songwriter. Then there’s the heavier stuff — Lamb of God, this band called Killswitch Engage — as heavy as it sounds. Right now, one of my favourite bands is Mastodon. I’ve also always had a soft spot for 80s ballads!

What I found common in all of this was that all of these bands have a very clear core of melody. Even if something might be too heavy for most people to listen to, there’s something great, rhythmically, about it. That’s what I’ve always had going on in all the music I listened to. When I came to Ashoka I actually hadn’t heard Porcupine Tree before, and in my first year I think Govind introduced me to them. That’s when I started listening to Steven Wilson as well, and Snarky Puppy. Then we had these overlapping interests because we swapped music. Especially Prithvi: he’s always got something new he’s listening to. He’ll just send us a link and make us listen to stuff.

Govind: Abhinav and I were roommates in our first year, and we listened to a lot of Alter Bridge. I think, now, that was one of the first things I asked him. I think I saw his Facebook cover photo or he saw mine. It was an Alter Bridge album cover, and we were just like, “Hey”. So, we listened to a lot of Alter Bridge. That has been one of my favourite bands.

I like music that is not so simple but masks itself as very simple. John Mayer’s guitar licks and rhythm patterns, for instance. You’ll listen to him and be like, anyone can play this. That’s what I thought when I first picked up “Slow dancing in a Burning Room”. In fact “Stop This Train” took me all of six months and a little more to learn! When I tried learning it, I was like, “Damn, it’s not as easy as it seems”. Then, I started listening to him, and he does that in every single song. Someone like Mark Knopfler as well, who makes it looks so simple to pick with his fingers, but it’s not that easy. There’s band called Lake Street Dive that I got super into. We even did a song by them at Piano Man. For me, anything that is creatively… different but that sounds very relatable and simple to someone who is not a musician or not into very complex music — I really like that.

Then, Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson really matured my taste in music, getting me interested in complex patters; my playing has been heavily influenced by their music.. The Beatles are a huge influence on what is going on. I told you I was a blues man so I really like B.B. King and Clapton too. And heavier stuff too,I used to listen to a lot of metal. I had a big Lamb of God phase and Metallica, obviously.

Sreya: Wow. I think that I’m on a further end of all spectrums because I never had a metal phase. I feel like, if you look at my iTunes, you’ll be really confused about what I like because there are so many different and sometimes opposing influences. I have a classical (Carnatic) background. I love listening to Hindustani music — instrumental, vocalists also — I find it beautiful. I’m a dancer, so I respond to very different kinds of music. Also, I enjoy listening to Bollywood. Some of the music is great — raga-based anything. Anything with a good beat. I’ve always enjoyed some amount of relatable…percussion? That really works for me. So, there’s this popular music thing that I do dip into.

On the other hand, I really, really love bands that are vocal-driven. After coming here, I’ve really come to like Snarky Puppy and people that they collaborate with. Becca Stevens. I like Jacob Collier. He’s amazing. There’s people like Beth Hart, Amy Winehouse, Ella Fitzgerald, Hiatus Kayote. All these really diverse things. For me, it’s always just to keep seeking out new music. I recently found this woman called Rokia Traoré. She’s Malian. As long as the music feels good, or emotionally feels right, then I really respond to it. I like to keep it interesting.

Kartik: You guys have new music coming up, since you’ve been recording. Three of you are fourth years, and one a third year. So, what’s in it for you in the future, in terms of releasing music and continuing playing?

Sreya: Well, we are planning to go ahead with the band. Prithvi will most likely be in Ashoka doing his fourth year. And we will be around and find some sources of income and accommodation. We’re not sure; there are a lot of things we need to worry about, in terms of where, what form do we wanna release the songs: all of them at once? Do we wanna release them as singles? We still haven’t completely finalised on anything.

Abhinav: We’ve finished one song, top-to-bottom — “No Surprise”. That song should be ready, including a video that Prithvi’s dad helped us make; he actually shot the video himself, in the studio, and edited it. That was great. The song and the video should be up within a month or two. I can’t give a concrete date.

Sreya: But we are very excited about sharing it.

Abhinav: And there are another two songs that we recorded at that time.

Prithvi: We’re getting them mixed and mastered. We’ll have these three songs, but do we put them out as singles, EPs? Do we record [more] and put them out as one album? Those are decisions we need to make. But it’s good that we have them with us because now we feel like we can send them to venues that are bigger, scale-up as a band into bigger things, and not remain constrained to the city or small venues. That’s what’s more exciting, the immediate ramifications of having studio recordings. It’s scaling up as a band.

Abhinav: Till now the great thing is the feedback we’ve got, both from crowds at venues and even from other professional musicians we opened for. For example in Bangalore, we played at Blue Frog. We opened for this band called Moksha, and there were a lot of big musicians there.

Sreya: They responded really well.

Abhinav: That really made us feel good. From both crowds as well as musicians, it’s [positive feedback] equally important. If you go around playing music that’s complex, you gotta relate it to the layperson.

Sreya: Release plan, I don’t know, but it’s good to have these recordings on hand. We’re planning to get some more made in the near future. Everyone should stay tuned for “No Surprise”; that’ll be out next month.

Abhinav: And we’re really proud of it.

Hearing them speak just made me appreciate musicians that much more. The amount of effort that goes into their craft is something we all take for granted. Shorthand are modest, but undoubtedly spectacular. To anyone who is yet to see them live, you’re sorely missing out. With new music and several gigs in the pipeline, keep an eye out for their rise.

Kintsugi: Healing Together

Esther David, Batch of 2020 and Charuvi Lokare, Batch of 2019

In November 2017, Charuvi Lokare and Prachi Palod started Kintsugi: the Mental Health Engagement Initiative. They formed a team, and now seven dedicated students are working to engage the entire student body of Ashoka in a healthy conversation about mental wellbeing. Below, Esther and Charuvi, members of Kintsugi, tell us about the idea and inception of this initiative.

Japanese Art of Kintsugi. Source: Lifegate

‘Kintsugi’ or ‘kintsukuroi’ is a Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery or vessels by filling the cracks with gold and joining broken pieces together. The philosophy behind this practice is to embrace the object with all its flaws and imperfections. It acknowledges that the vessel is not useless even after being broken. In fact, the cracks are only made more prominent and beautiful in the process of repairing it with gold.

The symbolism of ‘Kintsugi’ to human life is one hard to miss. Kintsugi reminds us that it is okay (and necessary, even) to feel broken as long as we can embrace this brokenness without shame and with honesty. We all have our cracks and perceived weaknesses, which we try our hardest to hide. What we don’t realise is that even after every fall and every scar, we still survive, whether victorious or barely scraping by. Our survival, like Kintsugi, is evidence that we are worthy of respect and love no matter what we have been through. The metaphor that Kintsugi stands for assured us that there couldn’t be a worthier name for our initiative.

Today, talking about mental health is often followed by groans, awkward silences, or forced sympathy. However, at Ashoka, we like to believe that we are too intelligent, too well-aware and too sensitive for this norm to be applicable to us. If this is true, then why do students at Ashoka constantly stress about workload? Why do we miss breakfast almost seven days a week? Why on weekends it is so difficult for us to leave our beds or even engage in any form of social interactions?

We, at Kintsugi, put on our conspiracy theorist hats and suggest that this is because we have forgotten how to be children again. Let’s go back to being 5 for a moment: how did your parents make you feel better when you were upset? Did they take you to a new place, give you a chocolate or offer you a warm hug? In retrospect, we are not far from these 5-year-old versions of ourselves. We still get upset over tiny things, crave for attention and absolutely love it when we eat our favourite food. Often, it’s a little more than a chocolate or a tight hug that helps us feel better again, but eventually, we do find ways, things or people that do. The bottom line is that we are still those same vulnerable kids beneath our 18-year old independent, intellectual, responsible selves — then why do we stop thinking about how we can be nice to ourselves?

It’s easy to forget how ‘mental health’ pervades our everyday lives and how it’s not just restricted to clinics or Tumblr self-care articles. While it certainly takes more than a couple of years to break the stigma that surrounds psychological wellbeing, we are here to give it a try. Let’s start by saying this: everyone faces mental health issues at some point in time. They may be mild, such as stress on days closer to finals week; they are also serious, such as chronic anxiety disorders or depression. It is imperative that we learn to deal with these issues in a healthy manner; after all, building a relationship with ourselves should be one of our top priorities. This is exactly what our initiative aims to achieve, a robust conversation about mental health and the spectrum of issues that fall within it.

In an environment where people are always pressed for time, it was heartening to see the response we got for our first two movie screenings and our stall at the Winter Haat. Our movie screening discussions brought mental health perspectives from different people across batches, and our stall — with free hugs, positive quotes and a whiteboard on self-love — made so many people smile and think about what self-love means for them. We are very grateful for your engagement with Kintsugi. This is our first semester as an unregistered society and we are evolving. We would appreciate any and all inputs, ideas, excitement, among other things to keep this initiative moving. There are endless opportunities for bettering mental health on campus and we wish to take up as many as possible.

Follow Kintsugi on Facebook and Instagram to keep up with their initiatives.

Apologies and Explanations

Nishant Kauntia, Batch of 2018

Now that the dust of the elections is settled, some matters need to be addressed. A few days ago, Manasi Rao wrote a response to an article published on The Edict, and criticized us, The Edict’s Managing Editors, for being irresponsible with our journalism. I consider it my responsibility to respond to the serious concerns that Manasi has raised regarding the journalistic practices of The Edict.

Listed below are the various counts on which Manasi has criticized the decisions of The Edict, and our responses to each one of them.

1. We tagged Manasi Rao’s Facebook profile to the article

When referring to Manasi in the article, ‘Resignation of a Representative’, we linked her Facebook profile to her name. This was something new that we had started doing with our articles, and it seemed harmless until we realized that it could make a healthy criticism seem like an antagonistic, personal attack on somebody’s public persona. I want to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to Manasi for the lack of professionalism displayed by us in this instance.

2. We invited Manasi to respond to the article on the Facebook Comments Section

After the article was published and shared on the Ashoka University Undergraduates Facebook group, a Managing Editor of The Edict commented ‘Manasi Rao, would love to know your opinion on this ’, or something to that effect. While this was an attempt to communicate The Edict’s commitment to providing both sides of the argument, choosing Facebook for such communication was a mistake on our part. The comment was deleted within hours of its posting.

3. The original article has been republished on a shady website

Since publication, the article ‘Resignation of a Representative’ has been edited in light of certain ambiguities. The original version of the article was taken and republished by a website epeak.in (who has also now republished Manasi’s response). As a media organization, we can only be held responsible for the content we host on our platform, but we also cannot ignore our role in the causal chain of events. Attempts made by The Edict to get the republished articles taken down have not been successful. We hope to work with Ashoka’s Media team to figure out a solution for this issue.

This has also raised concerns regarding The Edict’s content being accessible to anybody on the Internet, including future employees and graduate school admission panels. While we are sympathetic to Manasi’s concerns, we believe that when any student takes up the responsibility to represent the entire student body of Ashoka, they sign up for the public scrutiny of their decisions. For her specific situation, we have linked her response as the first line of the original article, so as to ensure that her perspective is not lost.

We have not yet encountered a compelling reason to restrict our reporting to members of the Ashoka community. On the contrary, The Edict remains a helpful resource for prospective students, parents and alumni who wish to keep up with Ashokan life and culture. Our writers also often link articles they have written for us in their resumes. These are a few reasons based on which we decided against restricting The Edict’s content to the current Ashoka community.

4. The Article was not fact-checked and cited properly

Manasi pointed out that the article had not been fact-checked properly, and we partly agree with her. The author referred to e-mails in which Manasi expressed that ‘the principle was not on her side’. This was not entirely accurate, and our fact checking in this instance was not up to the mark. Manasi only mentioned that there was a need for some legislation on the matter for future instances so that conflicts could be avoided, and the article has been updated in light of this information.

Another criticism was that her e-mails to the entire student body, referred to in the article, were not cited. The original article that quoted Manasi’s email mentioned the date of the e-mail. The quotes chosen from the email were chosen to present an accurate and charitable picture of her arguments. Since her quotes were not taken out of context or misleading in any way, we did not see the need to link the entire email. When Manasi insisted that the entire email be accessible, we arranged for that without any objection and within 10 minutes of her request.

Manasi also takes issue with the lack of citation to certain other emails about the matter, such as her communication with the Election Commission and the author’s communication with Dr. S.Y Quraishi, referred to in the article. These e-mails were not cited because they were not public in nature, and the author decided not to reveal any personal communication on the public forum, referring only to the parts of those e-mails relevant to the issue.

5. The article should not have been written by a past member of the AUEC

Manasi also takes issue with the author’s previous affiliation with the AUEC. She argues that the conflict of interest would render him unable to provide an objective, unbiased account of the debate regarding a house member’s resignation from their party. The article was not intended to provide an objective account of events, but a factual yet specific point of view. It is for this reason that the article is unambiguously listed under the ‘Opinions’ column of the newspaper, and carries a disclosure stating the author’s affiliation with the AUEC and that his views are personal, and not of The Edict. We do not see this as a serious concern, and stand by our editorial decision to publish this article by a former member of the AUEC.

6. The point of the article is to attack Manasi

This was the concern raised in Manasi’s response that hurt us the most. The Edict is strongly committed to not allowing any personal attacks, and fostering a sense of healthy, constructive criticism. The point of the article was to raise a red flag, and do so in the public eye, so that the House takes action to fix what the author thought was a loophole in our electoral system. Two day after the article was published, the HoR was going to take a vote on the amendment argued for in the article.

It was not possible to argue for this amendment without talking about the context in which it had (according to the author) previously been misused. Perhaps the tone of the article could have been more civil to all parties concerned, and we promise to strive for the same in our future endeavors.

I am grateful to Manasi for taking the effort to lay out the journalistic shortcomings of The Edict. We have been invested with the trust of the Ashokan community, and must be held accountable for the power that comes with that trust.

To that end, we encourage more Ashokans to hold us to higher standards and question us on the point, accuracy and consequences of the content we publish. In exchange, we promise that we will always be ready to lay out the reasoning behind the decisions we make, and will strive to be more responsible with your trust and our journalism.

Nishant Kauntia is the Editor-In-Chief of The Edict.

Why the Government shouldn’t tax Capital gains

A case against the LTCG

Vinayak Sahi, Class of 2020

The Narendra Modi government tabled its fourth budget in the parliament on the first day of February. The most radical change they proposed was reinstating the Long-term capital gain tax (LTCG). To be brute, I would call this idea nothing short of regretful economic mismanagement. But before I embark on a critical massacre of this tax, I will address what the tax entails.

The tax is essentially a certain percentage that any investor (“an individual who promises safety of principal and makes adequate return on the same”, as defined by the “father of value investing” Benjamin Graham ) will have to pay the government annually. This covers everybody who has a fixed deposit account, money in mutual funds or money in common stocks and is in it for the long run: everybody will have to pay 10% annually. For a single year the amount might look small, but when you apply the financial equivalence of an atom bomb — compounding — you see that the aforesaid tax has eaten more than 50% of your returns.

Arun Jaitley argued on the floor of the parliament that it is usually the rich who invest in equity or bonds, and thus these members must be taxed on any returns that they make. He of course omitted that a large part of the middle class holds their savings in fixed deposits and they too would be taxed if they fell in the correct income bracket. The problem is that a large part of investors invests their money in financial tools so as to keep their money from being eaten by inflation.

Inflation is nothing short of a dreaded monster for money. Inflation, simply put, is when you pay $15 for the $10 haircut you used to get for $5 when you had hair. Now the combined effect of tax and inflation would mean that returns on investment are 15% lesser every year and when compounded over a decade, it would causing you a loss of more than half of your returns. The real value of the money would have depreciated leaving the common man with almost nothing to show in terms of real value after a decade.

Joseph Stiglitz in a paper in 1976 had argued as to why capital should not be taxed. The short-term benefit arising to the concerned government will be negated by the long-term problems. Essentially what he argued was that a rational investor would be incentivised from future consumption to current consumption which would drive the savings rate down. The incentive structure would mean that saving or future consumption is costlier both in terms of nominal and real value which would then mean that the investor would find an alternate to this financial tool, which in most cases is gold. Gold outpaces inflation and interest rates when looked at historically. Of course, a similar trend of prices cannot be guaranteed, but can be expected due to the increased volatility of the markets in the past decade, making gold a good investment. A shrewder investor would invest in gold futures as this would mean that she would no longer have to pay for the storage cost and would result in a better yield.

The second argument that Stiglitz provided against capital taxation is that it is a form of double taxation. A shareholder in a company already indirectly pays the state a considerable sum through corporate tax. The implicit reasoning behind the aforesaid statement is that every shareholder of a company is a part owner of the company and thus pays a certain amount of tax to the government already through the corporate tax and the new tax on capital gains is just more taxes on the shareholder. Companies due to this double taxation might then choose to adopt raising money through bonds rather than IPOs (shares).

The newly imposed tax has an equitable function. Its function is to bring about equity in an unequal society, but there are other ways of taxing the rich and not hurting the economy. A simple idea could be proposing an inheritance tax which would essentially not allow inherited wealth to be the cornerstone of an individual’s finances. The long term capital gain tax, however, is a tax which will bring about equity and money for the government, but in doing so might drive the interest rate down and seriously hurt the middle class of India.

A Walk through Mehrauli

Surabhi Sanghi, Class of 2020

Qutub Minar || Photograph by Surabhi Sanghi

Two weeks into the semester and we were already feeling the need for a break from all the academic pressure. That was when the Ashoka History Society took us to Mehrauli, on a trip back in time. Our guide for the day was the ever enthusiastic Professor Pratyay Nath, who showed us around the Qutub complex, Gandhak ki baoli, and Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki’s dargah.

We first went to explore the Qutub complex, which houses several important structures apart from the Qutub Minar. The Qutub complex holds the memories of the Rajputs that ruled the lands of Delhi and the subsequent Turkic Afghan Sultans who formed the Delhi Sultanate. It boasts elaborate and intricate designs on the arches on one hand, and the rugged tomb of Alauddin Khilji on the other.

Prof. Nath enthusiastically explained the difference between a true dome and arch. His insights into the meaning of the architecture were a true delight; the Qutub complex held age-old secrets within its structural amalgamations of sandstone and marble. A simple observation of the architecture was enough to reveal much about the rulers and the period to which they belonged.

Alauddin Khilji’s Tomb || Photograph by Surabhi Sanghi

From the Qutub complex, we started walking towards Gandhak ki Baoli which was about half a kilometre from there. A baoli is a stepwell, often created in areas that don’t have easy and direct access to fresh water. This baoli once supplied water to the holy tomb of the revered Sufi Saint Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki and its inhabitants, thriving as a beautiful stepwell in the medieval times. Today, the baoli is a sad sight to look at. Ignored and unkempt, this little wonder, located in the middle of the posh area of South Delhi, is on the verge of crumbling to dust.

From there, we went to the tomb and dargah of Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki. It was a busy afternoon, with the traffic a complete chaos. Our stomachs growled because we could smell the delicacies of the streets of Delhi being made and served, but we continued to move on. We even stumbled upon the tomb of Adam Khan, Akbar’s foster brother, but didn’t get a chance to visit it.

Qutub Minar complex || Photograph by Surabhi Sanghi

Although narrow and chaotic, the lanes retained the charm of years gone by. When we reached the dargah, Qawwali greeted us to spill over the memories of another world into our present. There is perhaps a magical quality to Delhi not found anywhere else. It is a town steeped in a past that demands to be heard over the honking of the cars and cries of the hawkers. Here, it is tempting to get lost in the story of just one of its many by-lanes. Fortunately, we had Prof. Nath to remind us about the existence of Ashoka; he couldn’t stop worrying about how he hadn’t prepared anything for his class the next day.

Fake Lies | Fighting for a cause: Elections at Hoshak University

Rohan Parikh (Junior Correspondent at Free Press Pvt. Ltd.)

Fake Lies is a satire series about Ashokan life and culture (or lack thereof).

In a dramatic departure from conventional student politics, the students of Hoshak University will be voting in a dictator of their choice in the fourth election cycle of the newly established institution. Disillusioned by the erstwhile practiced model of representative democracy, the student body is eager to accord unilateral and unchecked power to the elected leader.

This strange decision has come to pass after prolonged debate and deliberation. The situation is such that it can only be understood by knowing more about life at Hoshak University. A first-year undergraduate who wished his identity not be revealed confessed his longing for subordination. He hates his lack of purpose, something he believes only tyranny can provide.

“You know, you come to Hoshak thinking it’s a great place. You won’t be judged and you can be who you want; its liberation. But, like, four months in you realize something is amiss. Everything is, like, too easy. I never thought I’d say this, but I kinda miss being bossed around.”

The student is reported to have undergone a severe spell of anxiety when no one judged him for having a two-month long polygamous relationship with two men and a woman.

“It’s like, I don’t even exist! I can’t stand such indifference towards my choices. Hashtag judge me please!”

And he is not the only one.

A fourth-year undergraduate whose name rhymes with Sia (but she dances) told us of her excitement about finally graduating. She looks forward to the oppressive social structures she would face once she is ‘out there’.

“After spending almost four years here I finally understand the problem. It is that there isn’t one! You start picking fights over trivial issues just because you want to. To my mind, it’s all because of boredom. Nothing really happens on campus.”

The student is currently working on her dissertation on Adam and Eve’s fall from the Garden of Eden. “Eve was bored- so she bit the apple. That’s my contention.”

After receiving several similar responses from students across the batches, we decided to reach out to the candidates standing for dictatorship. They, however, refused to be interviewed. A messenger speaking on behalf of the candidates told us that they couldn’t allow an interview since they had to seem unapproachable.

The student body, however, was eager to talk about them. Most of the students are simply exhilarated. There is a sense of indebtedness towards the candidates. We discovered that this was because the latter are forgoing their sense of oppression, only so that they can oppress, and thus satisfy, others.

Surprisingly, even the Administration denied commenting. We later discovered that this was because it was embarrassed. Clearly, it had failed to live up to its role as an obstruction to liberty.

An employee of the administration spoke to us in confidence. “All those open-door policies, town-halls, and advisories were our fault. We failed to give the students the enemy they all wanted- and now they are creating one for themselves.”

It is a brave new world, after all.

The candidate debate isn’t too far away. It is rumored that most of the candidates won’t even turn up for the debate. After all, the whole point is to not debate; just dominate. A couple of candidates haven’t even disclosed their identity. Should voters choose to vote for the anonymous candidates, they will press the button next to a blank plate. It’s like a game of chance, and as the Election Commission said, isn’t that the point?

A student sums up the situation aptly, “It’s simple. The less we know the better.”

To give this election legitimacy, some conventions were respected. Manifestos have been drafted and candidate posters are stuck around campus. While the manifestos haven’t actually been published so as to maintain an air of mystery, we did manage to get a sense of the kind of issues the candidates will likely create.

Chief among them will be strict curfew hours, gender segregation, boring meals, unapologetic email spamming, and random course allotments. Naturally, we were skeptical about some of the claims- after all, how much power will a student dictator actually have? Our doubts were soon put to rest. The Administration confirmed that it is more than willing to provide all the support it can. It wishes to give the entire student government budget over to the dictator, to be abused on whim and fancy. It released a simple statement:

“We want to make the students happy; that’s all we care about.”

Voting day is around the corner. The eleven-hundred strong undergraduate population is waiting in anticipation of what will be perhaps the most radical shift in student politics since its inception. Of course, not everything is going according to plan. There has been confirmation of the existence of a nascent underground rebel movement that wishes to usurp the totalitarian regime. Both the student body and the administration are on the lookout for the troublemakers.

“The revolutionaries are stupid,” says a candid second-year undergraduate, “they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s evident: we can’t handle our freedom. We need someone to call the shots.”

Such are the circumstances of this unique situation that a prediction is necessarily futile. But in keeping with the Free Press’s tradition of sounding prophetic while simply stating self-evident truths, we have come to the following conclusion: We hope Hoshak University gets the strife it desires, for peace seems to be the only thing it can’t handle.

Rohan Parikh is a humble creation of society and its many conventions. He has followed norms ardently and to the best of his abilities- so much so that sometimes the banality of the world feels all too real. He can’t help but laugh; He wants others to get in on the joke.

Let’s Talk About It

By Ketaki Mathur, Class of 2020

A Conversation With Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Kartik Sundar, Class of 2020

“Sometimes I surprise myself with my own eloquence”, said Professor Mukherjee as the entire crowd burst into uproarious laughter. “Rudy”, as he is popularly known among students, provided a glimpse into his private life. Given the way the entire university looks up to him, it was unsurprising that the entire room was packed to the tee. Professor Mukherjee was interviewed in a one on one discussion, followed by a Q&A session and a rapid fire round on 30 January. Attempting to summarise all the things Professor Mukherjee spoke about would be doing them an injustice, but of the many things he divulged to the crowd his passion for cricket and classical music stood out most.

Professor Mukherjee addressing an audience at Ashoka University

Cricket and classical music formed two of Professor Mukherjee’s biggest interests growing up. Up until the age of fifteen, his ambition was solely to play for the Indian Cricket Team. Upon realizing that he could not balance cricket with his academics, Mukherjee decided to quit playing competitively. His love for the game continued into his tenure at Oxford wherein he watched the sport religiously. And when the South African match-fixing scandal first broke in early 2000, it brought him to tears; hearing that people he looked up to were involved in the controversy broke Mukherjee’s love for the game.

His passion for cricket is equally matched by his love for classical music: during one of the trying times of his life, classical music was his sustenance. He was once diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy that required him to stay within the confines of his home for days on end; and until the medication began to cure him, classical music helped him during this period. To this day, his love for the genre remains as strong as ever, as he speaks of Beethoven’s and Bach’s symphonies even within the classroom.

The rapid fire round that proceeded after the interview saw Mukherjee answer a series of questions in the style of Marx’s Confessions. The interview went as follows:

Interviewer: Your idea of happiness

Mukherjee: None. I don’t think human beings can actually be happy. You can have moments of happiness, I have moments of happiness when I listen to Mozart or Beethoven or Bach, but it’s one hour.

Interviewer: Your idea of misery?

Mukherjee: Not being able to read and listen to music.

Interviewer: The vice you excuse the most?

Mukherjee: Cowardice

Interviewer: The vice you detest the most?

Mukherjee: Gratuitous lying.

Interviewer: Your favorite occupation?

Mukherjee: What I’m doing now.

Interviewer: Your favorite poet?

Mukherjee: Eliot and Yeats. Eliot, the correct answer is Eliot.

Interviewer: Your favourite maxim?

Mukherjee: Well I can only count my guru on this, “doubt everything”.

Interviewer: Your favorite motto?

Mukherjee: “Nonviolence is the first article of my faith, it is also the last article of my creed”, Gandhi.

Interviewer: And your favorite possession?

Mukherjee: My books and my music.

Election Results 2018

This year’s election results are out! Voter turnout this year was 57.71%, down by 15% from last year’s 72.5%.

Here’s the new HoR for 2018–19.

Independents

Kanan Gupta

Shivam Sahu

Bringing Justice to People (BJP)

Srishti Bansal

Vidhi Goel

Sriranjini R

Shubham Oswal

Prakrit

Akshay Ramkumar

Arush Pande

Gahena Gambani

Ritunjay Shekhar

Akila Ranganathan

Adit Bharadwaj

Deep Vakil

Moksh

Arnav Mohan Gupta

Abdul Mannan Majid

NOTA got 92 votes (which is equivalent to 3 seats in the house)

The new HoR has 5 female representatives and 10 male.

Batch-wise, the new HoR will have 1 representative from the Class of 2018, 7 from the Class of 2019 and 7 from Class of 2020.

Opinion | A Review of Ashokan Politics

Revolution is overrated. Ashokan politics needs a new way to associate itself with the voters.

Rohan Parikh, Class of 2019

The fourth year of the election cycle at Ashoka University, and already the candidates are promising a zestful return to the politics ‘of old’, where students had faith in the House of Representatives (HoR) and elections shone with the halo of honey and sunshine.

As is the case with each election cycle, this time too there was talk about a ‘stunning lack’ of representation, accountability, transparency, and efficiency. Candidates are convinced there is ‘something’ at stake; unfortunately, they seem unable to articulate it. So they resort to beating the tired old drum of revolution, of a utopian Ashoka that lives by utopian Ashokan ideals.

Inferno

The Election Commission had promised the audience a riveting first debate. And they delivered. The Candidate Debate was a mess. President of Bringing Justice to the People (BJP), Srishti Bansal, lost her composure and abused the Election Commission (EC). Members of other parties, the Independent Bloc and independent candidates took cheap shots at BJP. The EC repeatedly either forgot to acknowledge independent candidate Kanan Gupta’s presence or mistook him for independent (and absent) candidate Vihaan Singh.

Whether BJP was a joke or not was the central concern addressed in the debate. A host of other issues were brought onto the table (admittedly in a sincere spirit but received with mockery), the most memorable one being the introduction of mini-thalis, proposed by independent candidate Akash Kumar. A community solution to allowing students to consume alcohol illegally without getting into trouble was proposed by BJP. ‘Ethnic day’ was Moksh’s solution to a concern about the lack of knowledge of people’s diversity and backgrounds on campus.

There was a poignant moment when Shivam Sahu raised the question of inclusivity and pointed to the caste and economic discrimination that undergirds relations between individuals on campus. Unfortunately, but expectedly, the moment was cheered, appropriated into a few remarks, and then forgotten, for the show must go on.

Halfway through the debate, it seemed the winner of the night would not be those who attempted meaningful debate; rather those who stayed more composed than BJP. In that respect, Prakrit owned the night. It maintained a dignified silence through most of the debate, speaking sparsely and only to the point. But this negative victory only conferred to them the moral high ground, which is a far cry from displaying actual ability.

The audience too was as much part of the problem as were the candidates. Precious time was wasted in getting them to calm down. Rhetorical battles ensued and were quelled. Election Commissioner Anirudh Pisharam summarised the dominant sentiment of the night when he bid everyone a good night and promised an even more interesting event three days hence- the Presidential Debate. He may not have meant it in a disingenuous spirit, but the message that came across was painfully clear: It was the dusk of Ashokan politics.

Purgatorio

Come Monday night, Dr. Reddy’s auditorium was packed with people ready for what many feared would be a reenactment of last week. The new moderator Apuroop Sethupathy stepped up to the role with one purpose: to make this debate as informative and comprehensive, in other words, as boring, as possible.

Perhaps some people were disappointed by the lack of fervor in the speeches. Candidates actually spoke intelligibly. They raised issues of varying importance and when asked about the conduct of their parties in the previous debate, were surprisingly (and thankfully) insightful and penitent. Let’s try and forget that night, they said. The old adage- nothing ever happens on campus- is to be preferred if the alternative is the embarrassing event they orchestrated.

The Presidential Debate, moderated by Apuroop Sethupathy

What followed in the Presidential Debate, however, must not be judged in comparison to the first debate. Our umeedwaars spoke of a host of administrative issues, ranging from air purifiers to sports equipment to an improved structure for sex education for students. Critical issues like mental health and sexual harassment were mentioned.

Yet, all of this was not quite adequate. Pervasive ignorance on some critical issues was brought to light. The most uncomfortable five minutes of the debate was when fourth-year undergraduate Akash Megh Sharma bluntly asked the candidates about their stance on affirmative action regarding caste-based admission at Ashoka.

The fact that Sethupathy had to repeatedly explain what exactly the question intended to do, and even what affirmative action amounted to, said a lot about the candidates’ knowledge of the problem itself. The answers/solutions proposed ranged from ignorance about the issue to a flat-out rejection to an acknowledgment of not having discussed the issue before to be able to do justice to the question.

There were other times in the debate when candidates were ignorant of the policies that were already in place. Provisions of the Committee Against Sexual Harassment (CASH) were not well known among the candidates; they had simply forgotten to do their homework.

And then there is the issue that goes well beyond manifestos and ‘party ideologies’, (whatever that means when all the parties take the same stand on issues):

Moksh suffered from the problem of inexperience and airy rhetoric that senior undergraduates saw right through as reminiscent of each freshman batches’ fantastical approach to politics at Ashoka. BJP for all its promises and hopes succeeded in marshaling a string of rhetoric that amounts to little. How the Independent Bloc is not a political party was not entirely clear- something they have been at pains to define, but somehow failing at. Prakrit stood on the safer side of revolution. It said all the right things at all the right times in all the right ways. No more, no less. But also: no farther, no deeper.

Independent candidates Sumedha Suresh and Kanan Gupta raised concerns about sexual harassment and breach of online privacy respectively. Akash Kumar proposed plantation drives and lunch carriers, among other things. When questioned how these problems required the HoR specifically to solve, only Suresh and Kumar chose to respond. They said it was simply the case that issues were ‘taken more seriously’ if the government raised them. Seriously.

Paradiso?

Ashokan politics could be at a fork in the road, and the road less traveled will make all the difference. But that would presuppose it to have left home in the first place. The path would be ill served if it is paved with rhetoric.

The question of ‘reviving’ ideals does not arise when they’ve never been implemented in the first place. Neither the zealous yet inexperienced freshmen nor the ‘wise’ but indifferent senior undergraduates can do something meaningful for themselves and the campus if they do not cooperate.

If there is one thing that each candidate mentioned in different ways, that goes to the heart of Ashokan politics, it is that for real and effective solutions, real knowledge about life on campus must be sought. The experiences of all eleven hundred undergraduates must be heard. Solutions don’t necessarily have to be revolutionary- they can simply be concise and helpful. “Uprooting the system” and being “done with this s*it” requires knowing what the aforementioned s*it is actually comprised of, how it came to be defined in such unpropitious terms and whether we’re interested in solutions; or is it merely a political platitude, to be used over and over and over?

To the voters: There are real issues and there are real solutions. There are good, hardworking people across party lines. They’re not perfect, but they can be molded. The onus is upon you to choose representatives who will run the long mile. Knowing that, the first mistake you can make is to not vote. The second mistake you can make is to vote frivolously. The third mistake you can make is to not hold accountable those who do get elected.

Better a cynic who voted than a rebel who abstained. Everyone is involved in this job — let’s do it right.

Rohan Parikh is in his second year at Ashoka University. Views are personal.