College magazine...the Saga continues!!

Not another one please..... Not yet another one of those rip offs!!! I mean how many articles can we search on Google and exclaim, "Phew, This one is lifted off the Net too!!" Having been in the magazine committee for two years now, I have seen sort of a pattern in its working.

It all begins when the publicity committee of the 'Iris' Magazine ventures on its yearly announcement routine, calling upon the talented writers and poets of the college to bedazzle us with their creativity and innovation. The 'Iris' magazine accepts almost everything ranging from poems and stories to spoofs, jokes and puzzles. But the only criteria we maintain is that the articles have got to be 'Original'.

Now there are many of the opinion that articles from the Internet, just appear there by chance and that no one has ever written them. They just appear out of thin air...Presto!... scores of words just arrange themselves randomly to form some of the best articles I have read.

Or they might agree with the theory that millions of monkeys typing away on a million keyboards can actually produce the complete works of Shakespeare! Whatever it be, we keep getting a number of articles every year all adroitly lifted off the Internet and submitted under the category of 'Original Articles'.

The 'original' articles soon start pouring in, chiefly in the form of poems. Now since no one in this committee has successfully read and memorized every single poem on the Internet, we really do not detect this fraud at first. These articles go through various stages of selection and approval by our editors... while we are left gaping at the literary genius of our classmates who have written such brilliant articles that even our wonderful editors take a beating.

Soon these poems reach the final stage of compilation and having pushed aside all the inferior articles authored by our not so 'ingeniously' gifted colleagues, are just moments away from gaining abode in our prestigious magazine when someone feels that he has read this poem before. Cats start meowing and scratching in the bag.

It can't be, some argue. Confused and a little scared since the deadline is drawing dangerously near, we approach Uncle Google. Five seconds and the entire poem flashes on the screen. We are shocked. This particular person had submitted two poems. We try the next. Lo and behold, there it is same till the last word. Finally after much struggling, scratching and biting, the cat is out of the bag!

Then starts a saga of checking each article for its authenticity. The poems are easily caught, but not so with the other articles. Some of them slip by, landing in the magazine and if any of you alert readers have ever caught one, profound apologies are offered by the Magazine Committee and thou art given total freedom to kick the author of that article where ever thou wisheth. However the Magazine committee shall not be held responsible for any untoward incident ;)

It is my earnest request to anyone frm my college who reads this that if you think you belong to Shakespeare's lineage or if you are just divinely inspired to give an article for the next year's magazine then puhleeeez - 'Stay Off the Net'. Just go pick up a pen or a damn keyboard for that matter and use your head to write something. Or if you have a million monkeys at your command you just know what to do. If you still can't come up with something good, you can write some rubbish similar to what you have just read. Whatever it is... let it be something 'Original'.