Welcome, fellow readers. The Glint Magazine editors of the year, 2018-19 welcome you to an experience that is an amalgam of all that we hope to deliver, and all that you hope to read. Our lives, the last few months, have been a constant battle between reaching out for answers that have nudged us to the platform where we are today and still craving for the essence that the previous editions of Glint have enriched through the years.

Reaching for success through failure. Seeing life seep through an artist’s sketch on a blank canvas. Looking up while looking in. How is one to reconcile these? This issue’s theme: ‘Cosmos – Discover the Universe Within You’, hopes to deliver an opportunity, a door, a getaway, within and beyond the life that exists around you as a physiotherapist.

Our vision this year, has been to have the magazine continue to expand its reach to achieve its goal of being a truly representative student publication. We have recently expanded into the digital world through the inception of our blog, where we try and engage the college community by publishing their creative content, by organizing competitions under the umbrella of Somaiya Magazine Week, and through continued and rapid reporting about college events. The team hopes to build on this ethos just as much during the upcoming academic years.

By now, you’re trying to determine whether you like the change, and wondering why we made it. That’s good. We want you to question. We want you to ponder. And we hope that, ultimately, you’ll understand why we felt it was time for this step. Because as Somaiya Physiotherapy evolves to its fullest potential, so should the publication that serves to illustrate that evolution.

This issue, we go beyond keeping you at the edge of your seat, and aim for keeping you at the edge of the planet.

Dr. Annamma Verghese

Dr. Mugdha Oberoi

Vidhi Shah

Mahima Dani

It gives me great pleasure to put my feelings regarding this magazine into words. It has been fulfilling to experience how the magazine, which started a few years back as a small creative initiative by students, has this year escalated into a website blog under the empowering leadership and enthusiastic teamwork of faculty and members. It has now become a great access to tap the hidden potential amongst so many students and provide a platform to illuminate and showcase creative ideas.

I thank all the participants who contributed to the magazine through their artwork, poems, photos, stories, etc. I congratulate our faculty, Dr. Annamma Varghese and Dr. Mugdha Oberoi: Heads of the magazine committee, our final year students, Vidhi Shah and Mahima Dani: Student heads of the magazine committee,our software team: Maria Dalal, Sonal Bandekar and Shaheen Arkate,our editorial team: Roslyn Francis, Safoora Parkar, Manali Dama and Urmi Shah, our creative team: Siddhi Sharma, Krishna Ved, Akshata Manjrekar and Vaidehi Shettigar, for gracefully shouldering the responsibility of this magazine and taking it to completion.While human mind tends to set boundaries and to  compartmentalize, the human consciousness dreams of limitless expansion. It’s very interesting and wonderful that students chose “Cosmos: Discover the Universe Within You” as the theme of the magazine this year. Moreover, it’s satisfying to see that today’s youth, is not superficial in their thinking. They are evolved enough to have the urge to go deep within and far beyond…both limitless and transforming.I’m sure the readers will enjoy the experience of visiting the new digital face of our e-magazine, ‘Glint – illuminating ideas.’

Our Founder, Padmabhushan Shri K. J. Somaiya was deeply influenced by Gandhiji, and dedicated himself to nation building. He founded Somaiya Vidyavihar on the 9th of September, 1959. He later went on to found many similar institutions to make great citizens of India and the world. In the words of Swami Vivekananda, ”We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect expanded, and by which one can stand on one’s own feet.” We have now grown into a multi-disciplinary and multi-campus education institution with over 1500 faculty, and 38,000 students.
Our motto is
ज्ञानादेव तु केवल्यम्।
Knowledge alone liberates. Liberates from poverty, from hunger, also to liberate one from the attachments that bind us to small mindedness. Knowledge also provided opportunity, to make life lived more meaningful. In the service of one’s family, one’s community, one’s ‘samaj’, country, and indeed the world. Beating in minds that there is no religion other than the life lived in the service of humanity, न मानुषात परो धर्म ।
Our education in any subject will reflect its timeless fundamentals, its current context, and applications. There is so much scientific discovery taking place at the intersection of fields, of biology, computing, medicine, the social senses and everywhere else. We will provide students and faculty with an environment to engage this world, to discover new truths, make new applications to create and share knowledge.
Our education will also be experimental. With projects that are ‘real’ and those that complement the learning inside the classroom. Our students and faculty will be at the cutting edge of change, to incubate companies, to create NGOs, and pursue any field of their passion. Our education will also be holistic. Sports and physical exercise may be a firm part of the curriculum. For students to develop a live for sports, for recreation, for health, for teamwork, for competition. Our education will also instill an appreciation for art and culture. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Arjuna asks Krishna how one is to control one’s mind that is as fleeting as the wind. Krishna responds that it can only be done through practice and discipline. वैराग्येण तु कौनतय अभ्यासेन च गृहृते। We will strive to teach our students to learn to stay calm in our turbulent world.
Also our education will include the ancient Indian tradition, its  culture, its depth and its knowledge. We may keep connection with our mother tongue and our languages. Languages are the storehouses of culture, and the loss of a language takes with it much learning, stored through it over the ages.
Finally, our education will help students lead a full life, to fall in love with life.
Our dream is to build a world class research and teaching institution, that is global in the reach of its ideas, and universe in its service. Welcome to our community.