Project Coffee - Brewing young spirit...

This protest on 14th passed off peacefully.

Doing great still, apart from a few occasional trivial problems. 10th Day starts. Could not consolidate the past 200+ enlistments or so. But it is raining enlistments now. Will post list over the weekend.

To answer a few concerns:

Why Hunger Strike?
The main intention is to make the already active groups think about working together. This is not happening anyways. If this happens, 10,000 can be reached any day.

How to believe you? Who knows it for sure?
I am not sitting somewhere on road with banners and all like a traditional striker. I cannot prove it in any way that I have actually not eaten any (solid) food. As I am not a politician but a person like you, you can be sure that I have respect for hope and faith of people. I love my food (realizing it more so these days), later when I have time I will write all about what it means to go without food.

We are working continuously to reach the online community and attending to our professional committments by working extra. We don't have any money or sponsored muscle behind us. We are just a few individuals (numbers growing by the moment) trying to stoke the fire in other ordinary people like us!

But no one knows about it!!
Since we have managed to reach as far as you, we are sure that we will go further. We completely trust the Internet medium of reaching out to a fair number of educated people.

Media coverage might have helped but I think it is only of documentary importance. Our media is being funny these days, they hardly have that flair for true journalism and fall way short of getting people to think and move. Even one can't look at them to make an informed opinion.

Ah! Why Project Coffee?
We do not have any formal name yet and neither are we a formal body. Most of us haven't even met. We just intend to be a collection of as many like minded individuals and organizations. That is, we are loose like coffee powder.

Then coffee is something that boosts spirit (what we are trying to do), is precious (indeed, next only to oil...and it is precious to us), when it brews the environment knows, mixes well, is catchy, is bitter when not matured (we may fail terribly and vilified) and is extremely agreeable when done well (think...). The people who access the Internet/computers most have a special bonding with Coffee and they are our first allies!

We the yong, educated people want to do something for our country. Thats why we want to synergize with you to see what we can do together

We had better sounding names like Project Ashwamega (which symbolizes our immediate purpose immaculately) but we opted to keep it simpler and multi-ethnic. After all, this is just one stage, the true name will evolve.

How to enlist? INTEREST LEVEL (basic/medium/high):
E-MAIL ID:

We are trying to establish this page and the Orkut Anti Reservation Action Forum as a one stop for all activity. Kindly help us help you by notifying us of your move and any news that you come across.

FAQs
Q- Do I enlist by mail or by posting comment?
A- Any one method is sufficient.

Q- After enlistment what next?
A- Have already posted the plans above.

Q- How do I know that Hunger Strike is actually on?
A- It has ended after a 10 day run.

Q- Why should I enlist at all?
A- We are building a database of people who want to contribute (even a little bit). We do have specific plans on what to do with the database, when we have one. We are still working on it.

Q- Will I get into trouble by enlisting?
A- You are already in trouble.

Q- What will I have to do on enlisting?
A- Every activity we undertake will be optional for you. Enlisting is not binding. It is just an expression of interest.

Q- Will I get a lot of useless e-mails after enlisting?
A- About two mails per day (max).

So far exactly 100 people have registered in one way or the other. Of that, about 20 are my immediate friends who have probably done it because I myself am involved. We value all the enlistments because they have made an effort to reach out and create a small hope like a candle in a storm of indifference. A long shot off 10,000 we are, but I am not surprised.

We sympathize with the people who dont have even that much hope remaining and have ridiculed or ignored the move/cause. You see, talking and idling wont help either, do join hands and feel the collective spirit invigorate you.

With about 36 hrs gone I want to assure my well wishers that I am fighting fit physically and mentally. To non believers I want to say (as if they are listening) that why do you think like there is no use, no hope? I dont know what are you loosing by making a small effort on your part? Need someone reiterate that how an ocean is formed?

All I ask for is a peaceful, non-violent assertion from the educated people that we are here and united and will do our little bit some time or the other (maybe it simply amounts to casting your vote in the next elections).

Anurag

Dear All,

We, software engineers are hardly being attentive to the anti-reservation voices being raised throughout the country by the student community. But we people might be thinking that it doesn't effect us, we are already through our education and have our careers to mind.

But have you ever thought if it is extended to jobs in pvt sector (the next natural upgrade of the reservation policy...already being contemplated upon), what will be the state of the industry we are thriving upon? Are you not thinking about your siblings, and the next generation to come? Are you blind towards the partisan availability of jobs, promotion and opportunity already faced by our elders, parents and relatives in Govt sector.

Realizing that the anti-reservation sentiment in established professionals is not strong and students are fighting alone I thought that I would appeal to the software industry (in particular) to rise up and take the lead. So that (at least) you pay attention to the issue I (Anurag Singh - Software Engineer) am going without food since 00:00 hrs, 2nd May. I will next eat any food when we have 10,000 active people standing by us. (Just to clarify - this means that I am on liquid diet, will give that up too if things don't get moving).

Please refer to Project Coffee page for more details and news:
http://projectcoffee.blogspot.com/

Leave your contact information with us if you have woken up.

Regards
Anurag

Dear friends,

I will be skipping all food indefinitely from 00:00 hrs May 2nd 2006 (liquids/water will be on, though). I will take food again when there will be 10,000 enlistments under Project Coffee (or any other single platform). Currently, it is below 100.

I am doing it because:

- We are of the belief that divided, isolated, sporadic protest by students against the reservation will not help. The need of the hour is to get together in one communication network. Then only we can reach our opinion on the policy to the entire nation effectively. We want as many people as possible to realize this.

- I wish that in schools, colleges, universities, institutes, software companies and people from industry, business, academia, doctors, engineers, lawyers, professionals, artists et al initiate formation of howsoever small informal groups and progressively connect/merge with each other.

Leaving your contact, number/names of people in your group and expressing willingness to participate in peaceful movement against the extended reservation policy (in near future) on this page is one good way of doing it.

- I want to appeal to professionals and students to be active and alive about political mal-practices like caste politics.

Note - I will be attending to my office, Project Coffee work and contribute to ground work in Bangalore and wont be staging a dharna or something. Just that I wont take any solid food until the above is achieved. One will have to have faith that I will actually not be eating. If the going is slow the I may drop the plan to continue with fluids/water also.

Assure you that no amount of persuation by family, friends or anyone will deviate me from this decision. It stands made.

Format:

NAME:
AGE:
OCCUPATION/ORGANIZATION:
CITY:
INTEREST LEVEL (basic/medium/high):

or send it in mail to anurag.email@gmail.com

(Dont forget to mention e-mail if you are posting comment)