Swami Vivekananda – Father of Modern Indian Nationalism
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Swami Vivekananda – Father of modern Indian Nationalism “You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. ere is no other teacher but your own soul.” – Swami Vivekananda One of the most enduring icons who ignited the rise of patriotism in modern India, Swami Vivekananda was the valiant monk who proclaimed in America the greatness of Indian culture at a time when the West regarded India as a land of barbarians. He was an intensely religious man who lived a life immersed in spirituality, and dedicated his life to his country and yearned for the progress of the poor, the helpless and the downtrodden. He was a great thinker and a mighty man of action whose ringing words galvanized the slumbering Indians. Swami Vivekananda, known in his pre-monastic life as Narendra Nath Datta, was born in an affl uent family in Kolkata on 12 January 1863. His father, Vishwanath Datta, was a successful attorney with interests in a wide range of subjects, and his mother, Bhuvaneshwari Devi, was endowed with deep devotion, strong character and other qualities. A precocious boy, Narendra excelled in music, gymnastics and studies. By the time, he graduated from Calcutta University, he had acquired a vast knowledge of diff erent subjects, especially Western philosophy and history. Born with a yogic temperament, Swami Vivekananda he used to practise meditation even from his boyhood. Swami played an important role in the independence struggle of bonded individuals. Every individual is bonded by his own concepts built up by ego, endless desires, destructive and ignorant behaviour which gets them entangled to deep antagonism within self. So, the true independence is to liberate oneself from the clutches of this ignorance. In relatively short span Swami managed to rst emancipate himself from this bondage and then inspire several other seekers to achieve their own eternal freedom. A lover of mankind, he strived to promote peace and human brotherhood on the spiritual foundation of the Vedantic Oneness of existence by attending diff erent religion conferences in world. One of Vivekananda’s most memorable speeches was at the Parliament of the World Religions in Chicago in 1893 where he introduced India and Hinduism to the West which lead to broadening of views about Indians to the world. His views about diff erent religions and how all of them lead to one path was broadly appreciated the listeners. Towards the end of his life, he meditated intensely to nd answer to the true meaning of his life. He decided to dedicate his life to revitalizing the country and serving the people of India. His service was not to be restricted to the material plane, but would be on a deeper level, on the spiritual plane which he considered to be the core of India. e message he preached in India was not the one of renunciation and mysticism that he was used to hearing. Instead he chose to work staunchly for the downtrodden and poor of the country, for women and to upli the whole society. He realized that to carry out his plans for spread of education and upli ment of the people, he would need an effi cient and dedicated organization. us, he founded e Ramakrishna Mission in 1897 to serve as a machinery that serve towards materialising these goals. Today this Mission runs more than 600 schools, many Colleges, Universities, Orphanages, Rehabilitation Centres. It also works with the Government in providing services in tribal areas and in providing solar power to areas like the Sundarbans. Swami Vivekananda contributed to the awakening of his countrymen by his profound ideologies. Strength, strength was his message to Indians - physical strength, moral strength, strength to work for others. He railed against the weakness that had crept into the society, and preached self-control for the young. And it was a message powered by his own example and his tireless work throughout the country. Before his Mahasamadhi, he had written to a Western follower, “It may be that I shall nd it good to get outside my body, to cast it off like a worn- out garment. But I shall not cease to work. I shall inspire men everywhere until the whole world shall know that it is one with God.” Undoubtedly Swami, his thoughts and visions are rooted deeply into mindset of youths and for centuries to come, it will inspire them to strive hard in path of empowering their lives. -Ujala Jha EDITORIAL Greetings Readers! It has been a joyride full of bumps and twists and turns for us and our fellow team members as we bring to you the annual magazine ‘Vishwakarma 2017’. e magazine making process started few months back and since then the reporters are on their toes running up and down collecting information, recon rming it multiple times and then dra ing it down to be nally proof read. But it does not end here. As soon as we start compiling the articles, there comes a bummer, when a correction needs to be done somewhere in some article before it goes into the magazine and again the cycle starts where the reporters run back and forth to the concerned authorities to get it corrected and veri ed and nally it goes to the design team who are again working tirelessly to give these raw articles and reports a presentable structure, burning the midnight’s oil, to bring this magazine to its present form. e going certainly gets tough but the entire team is even tougher and hence they get going too. It gives us immense pleasure to see our eff orts come to fruition as we present this magazine to all its readers. As the tradition goes we pay our tributes to Swami Vivekanand, who has been a source of inspiration throughout this process. We also commemorate one of India’s greatest mathematicians, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who put India’s name on the global map in the eld of Mathematics. e magazine features an article on Alumni meet, the annual event of VESIT. VESIT has been known for high percentage of campus placement and this year is no diff erent. e placement report reaffi rms it. e seven departments in VESIT are its building blocks and are striving to excel in their respective elds. e department reports shed a light on the various activities and the achievements of these departments. Looking beyond syllabus continues to receive overwhelming response from the students who are eager and daring to look beyond the syllabus. is year again, two VESITIANS, Harsh Gupta and Nirbhay Pherwani, made us proud when they won the national level Hackathon at IIT, Mumbai. is magazine also celebrates the newly inducted Tinkerer’s lab initiative. Praxis has been one of the most cherished events of the year. We share a glimpse into this 2016 technical fest. VESIT has always encouraged extra-curricular and co-curricular activities for the holistic development of the students. Various societies like CSI, IEEE, ISTE, ISA and SPICE have been incorporated for this very reason which conducts various workshops, seminars and competitions. Music and Cultural councils are busy keeping the musical and cultural vibes intact throughout the year by conducting various cultural programs. Social cause has always been at the heart of VESIT and SoRT, the social wing of VESIT continues to render service to the society through its activities. VESIT also believes in the power of language and communication which brings the VESLit circle to the forefront. is initiative has been a roaring success and continues to spread its in uence since its induction. VESIT PhotoCircle has become the ‘go to’ place to get all the memories captured into the camera for lifetime. Our monthly newsletter, VESITConnect, recently celebrated its rst anniversary, commemorating one year of successful assiduous reporting. is magazine rejoices that success! Sports have been an integral part of VESIT and Sports council makes it a point to keep this sporting culture of VESIT alive. is magazine would be incomplete without students’ contribution. Hence, one section is completely reserved for student articles, poems, sketches, photography to provide a platform to showcase their creative genius. e Editorial team would also like to thank Mr. Vikas Pange and Ms. Ashwini Tambadkar from the administrative offi ce for sending in regular and timely information and data of events held in our college. We would also like to thank the VESIT Photo Circle for providing us the photographs of events and activities held in college. As co-editors, we had lot of fun working with this wonderful team of Vishwakarma under the guidance of Prof. Geeta Ajit and Prof. Priya R.L. We would cherish this experience for the rest of our lives. But now the time has come to part ways and hand over the reins. We hope that Vishwakarma goes on to become an emotion of every VESITian and does not remain just a magazine. With a heavy heart and lots of pleasant memories we sign off as the ‘Editor-in Chief’ (the position we are going to miss dearly) for Vishwakarma 2017. We hope you will cherish reading this issue of Vishwakarma as much as we enjoyed working bringing it to you. Happy Reading! - L. Sowmyasree Salil Shahane The Man who knew infi nity “An equation means nothing to me unless it expresses a thought of God.” - S. Ramanujan India has been blessed with the contributions of some great personalities with their remarkable work which has made India proud in front of the world. Srinivasa Ramanujan was one such personality. Born on 22nd December 1887 at Erode, Tamil Nadu into a Brahmin family, with almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infi nite series and continued fractions.