On 6th June, the books and beyond club organised ‘Tug Of Words – Chapter 10’s session 1’ on the topic “How art and politics influence and shape each other”. The meeting was attended by nearly 10 people both online and in person. The main goal of the meeting was to make people talk, think and debate over the topic without any restraints so they could express their thoughts more freely and in a just way. The conversation started with sharing their general and overall opinion on the headline in which everyone had a unique approach to how art is expressed all over the world and how politics and vice versa mostly influence it. Things started to get interesting when the discussion took a small turn on how both art and politics separately influence our daily lives in both direct and indirect ways. Then the participants talked about the history of how art and politics shaped each other from past ways to the present life scenarios. Then the meeting was gradually moving towards the end where everyone shared their final opinions and thoughts their change in point of view etc.  Finally, everyone agreed upon the fact that both art and politics are inevitable for mankind as both of them are expressions of thoughts and ideas of people which is the sole thing that makes us humans. At the event’s conclusion, everyone shared their experiences and how the talks were refreshing to them spurring up new thoughts and ideas.  

On the 10th of June 2022, Books & Beyond Kumaraguru conducted the second session 2 of “Tug of words” between 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm. The discussion was held at the admin block 2nd floor sitting area while some of the members joined online through MS teams. The short story that was chosen for our open discussion was “The ones who walked away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin. An introduction and a small summary of the story were given by the president, Subiksha. The participant’s opinion on what they would do if they were people who lived in Omelas was asked. Every participant agreed that they would try to help the child that has been suffering for the happiness of the people of Omelas. Everyone agreed that people in Omelas were selfish for making a little kid suffer for their own happiness. The mindset of the people in Omelas was very wrong and no one even tried to change it.  They discussed how people in society turn a blind eye to others’ suffering. They were asked what they can do to change it. Everyone thought and gave a different solution. But the most common thing was that we must have the power to bring a change to society.  The session concluded with everyone agreeing that society must change so that the rich can help the poor or the sufferers as much as possible. And the selfishness of a person must not cause others suffering. 

On 12th June, the books and beyond club organised ‘Tug Of Words – Chapter 10 session 3’ on the topic “How mental health is represented in pop culture”. The event started with the welcoming of the guest speaker Mr Jai Surya by a Dhinakaran, executive member. After formal introductions were made, the tug of words event officially commenced. In the beginning, the speaker asked the participants to explain what pop culture is in their own words. Every participant had different views. All of them lead to the single explanation that pop culture is everything we see as modern networking or social media. The web entertaining platforms, social networking sites such as Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc. Promote pop culture. Since mental health is a sensitive topic, everyone was asked to present their idea of it. And hence mental health was concluded to be something that emphasizes more on how a person feels. Coming to the core of the topic, the representation of mental health in pop culture, the participants shared some experiences where their friends had to go through some tough situations that took a toll on them. This made everyone realize that mental health is sometimes misinterpreted in most pop references. And on what to do about it, the participants suggested some state-of-the-art and highly understanding solutions, some things we can do every day and don’t take much effort. The event ended with the conclusion that real-life mental health issues and the trauma due to that are totally different from that shown in movies and pop culture and hence, we must make sure that we make ourselves available to someone who is going through such difficulties.

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