Under the guidance of the Humanities Department, several thought provoking sign boards have been installed all over the campus. These signs have a simple objective. To make the students take a moment’s break from their busy lives and be conscious of the miracle of mere existence. Because when you actually observe, not superficially but in the deepest sense of the verb, you will see in the chaos around you a living breathing world, the beauty of which is just impossible for your nervous system to comprehend. The ‘sublime and beautiful’, as the romanticists would call it. The increasing enthusiasm in yoga classes among students and the deserting of Gaylord are just a couple of the numerous benefits sought by the admin with the introduction of these signs. These sign boards read: Rukiye, Dekhiye, Jayiye.

Although these changes can be considered constructive, it contradicts the image that we hold of a healthy college campus. A clean-shaven, brisk, sober and yoga-class attending engineering student seems out of place as much as a Russian will at the Milk Bar. We at WatchOut! could smell something fishy and after assuring ourselves that it’s not from the RJB mess, we began our investigation into what could easily be the biggest treason committed to the students here, apart from prohibiting home delivery from restaurants.

After following a long trail of paperwork and tips from several anonymous sources (which involved many TAs and several disgruntled Ph.D. scholars), our investigation was narrowed down to one person who might know something: The night-guard of Kasturba Bhawan.

“My suspicion began when late one evening, I saw a few dark mystical figures, down the road, near the Earthquake department” says R. Swayamsevak Singh, the night-guard of Kasturba Bhawan, “At first I thought it was just a bunch of girls dressed in black trying to sneak away in the night. But after I looked closely and passed some misogynistic remarks, I realized that something was different. They didn’t just run away. Instead one of them turned and started swinging a pendulum with a spiral on it in front of my face. When I asked him what he was doing, he asked me to count to ten and breathe deep. I don’t remember much of what happened later. It took me a little while and a few J’s to realise that I had been hypnotised.”

For some time, the signs of freemasons have been quite obvious on the campus. In a way that can give buzzfeed a run for its money, we present to you the findings of our investigation: How IITR is being taken over by the New World Order supported by Freemasons?

1. For a long time now prominent members of the Debating Society have been spotted doing an obscure, elaborate combination of movements right in front of the hobbies club. Though one might think that this is largely due to social rejection as a result of being annoying, it might be what we assume to be some sort of a mandatory entrance ritual to a secret chamber inside.
2. The main building was unceremoniously renamed the James ThoMASON building earlier this year. We believe that it was for a reason. A very particular reason.
3. That squabble of illegible words on the top of what is possibly the most beautiful part of the campus, is a visible evidence to the Gothic sub-culture of IITR. For those who were questioning the Thomso team regarding their blog posts about our insti having a Gothic past, here is your answer.
4. The long-standing 10 PM deadline and Rs.6 for butter. Count the number of letters in ‘Masons’. And now count the number of words in ‘Freemasons’. You get our point?

Update: After we published this article in the magazine the previous semester, the almost-Masonic administration was quick enough to revise the 10 PM rule to avoid suspicion. So, to all you love-birds out there, you now know who to thank for the change.

Disclaimer: We can assure our readers that Watch Out is not a part of this cult. We have introduced a simple Freemason-detection test as a part of our recruitment process. We show the first year students a 100 dollar bill. If we don’t have the bill with us at the end of the interview, we send them to the Finance cell. If they get turned on, we immediately know that we are dealing with the New World order. Any reference to our symbol ‘W’ being referred to as an inverted ‘M’ with the Mason’s symbolic eye on top, is rubbish and a mere coincidence.

This article was originally written and published in WONA, the IIT Roorkee news magazine