What has to be the 118th week of classes drudges on, I am filled with a sense of despair and hopelessness. I am beaten down by the elements and the assignments. I am personally victimised by a finbro, his JBL speakers, and a song I can only describe as waking up hungover at an active construction site. Finals are already being assigned but the midsem week isn’t even over yet. And yet I keep going. Yet I believe I can take this.
And then my phone vibrates – a notification from Gmail. Another one. I ignore them. Another one. I put my phone inside my bag. Another one. I take a br–another notification from Gmail. I reach for my phone to put it on silent and am barraged with so many notifications that my phone falls out of my hand and the screen breaks. I pick it up and look at the culprit – “bro rly lost his ID card again 💀💀💀💀”.
😃
If I were a smarter person, I could just let my inbox flood and ignore it – there’ll be a reminder on WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, the walls of the campus, the walls of my room, my dream, on the back of my eyelids, etc. soon enough anyway. But I am not. Unfortunately, I am Just A Girl. So I take to this guide to teach other people what years of being female had taught me at 14 – that people on the internet judge you. Here’s a guide on writing emails for Ashokans, hope it helps!
Kalinga’s Guide to Writing Ashoka University Emails (to the student body)
Step One: Conceptualisation
The first question to ask yourself when you embark on this journey is: Would the SG forward this? If the answer is no, then perhaps there is a reason for that. Kalinga recommends giving up and working on your class work. Save your ranting for your underpaid and overworked TFs.
If the answer is yes, then the next question to ask is is this necessary? What value does sending this email offer to its reader? To make answering such questions easy, please refer to the following table:
Characteristics of the Email | Approximate Value Provided | Recommended action |
Formulating the email will take less than 2 minutes | None. In all universes and situations, none. | Kalinga recommends giving up and working on your assignments. |
Can be summarised in 10 words or less | I guarantee you, 0 value. I read his work and Aryabhatta literally mentioned the value of this email in his introduction of 0 into the decimal system. Shunya. | Reading Aryabhatta’s work. He was rly onto something, you know. Insane man. Anyway, cease operations. |
Written by a member of SG in collaboration with other members of SG, from a variety of batches and friend groups. About something relevant and potentially working towards some sort of meaningful change. Uses at least one word you need a dictionary to understand. Will cause at least one person to tweet about it. | There may be some value to your email. We love the SG in this house | Please process to Step 2! After that, Kalinga recommends you take a break. |
You’re doing an internship that offers you ‘performance-based incentives’ and engages in selling courses and other self-help paraphernalia to students. | Girl… | You may be a victim of a Pyramid Scheme. Kalinga recommends not being a fresher. |
Contains an unspecified number of words and requires pressing send. Not covered by any of the previous points | I’ll give you a hint: | Don’t |
Step Two: Implementation
If your email has passed every single one of the previous checks, congratulations! Please go ahead and send it. However, there is a final point you must consider: fetching your every thought from the internet costs my phone its battery and my data plan its money. Do you believe in your email enough to also send 5 rupees remuneration to its every receiver also?
If yes, please do.
If no, refer to Step One.
And that’s it! You wouldn’t think it was this simple if you opened your inbox, but it is! Congrats on being a better Ashokan already. At least we’re not Jindal.
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