Ahem .. Ahem .. 2010 !!

     No .. I haven't written this as an yearly exercise to summarize what I have done this year. This blog comes to you as my way of showing how things can transform in one year. My story might seem quite uninteresting to you , but if you look at it from another angle , things might seem different to you . So the quote for this article is :

" Sun can never perish . It only vanishes till we wake up !! "

  As you can see , I have made it up . Nonetheless , I hope the message is conveyed to everyone who reads this. My diary reads that the same day , one year back , was almost like an antonym to what I am doing today. I was buried in a fat book called "Organic Chemistry" by " Morrison and Boyd " or MBD . To crawl out of that book proved to be quite a task which culminated with the all-important IIT-JEE.  While nearing the end of April , I almost felt a desperate urge to leave the clasp of the MBD , but exams wouldn't let me do it. Eventually , it finally did get over and I felt a big relief , but how my relief would prove to be a fleeting sensation !

 If you feel getting into IIT gives you a high , wait till you get up from your slumber and await the hangover ! Now , what do I mean by "hangover" and "slumber" ? It is something which can only be defined after you come to IIT . To give you all a bigger picture , I would only say that things are not so easy here. Things can get really tough as you will see the immense competition from the students here. From being the cynosure of all eyes to just one in the crowd.

  But ,You really do not have to stand up in the crowd and shout out loud to get noticed. Your actions are enough to take you one step ahead and becoming the leader of the masses. It just takes one small step ....

Planet twistor : The story

                Circa 3091 ..... While humans celebrate their 500th anniversary of the occupation of planet twistor in the faraway galaxy XC-89991 , the jungles of twistor see the birth of the planet's first creature with intelligence. The sun shone over the sulphur dioxide clouds , giving a strange halo in the jungle sky. It wasn't any ordinary event for the planet , a fact acknowledged by even the sun. But this auspicious occasion in twistor , wouldn't matter much to the barbaric creatures , the original inhabitants of this place. But sooner than later, things would change drastically for both the humans as well as the "barbaric" creatures, called " twistorians" .

              While occupying this planet , 500 years ago , they wouldn't have thought of the consequences of their colonization of this planet. They maintained utmost precaution in not disturbing the ecosystem of this planet and even stayed in huge-sized tents which was completely air-locked from outside. No organism could have penetrated into the outside world unless permission was granted. Nor any harmful bacteria could have come inside the monstrous tent. But their enemies wouldn't be those small creatures of unknown planets but they themselves.

            The humans , by the year 3000 had organised themselves into a very potent force in the universe. Conquering galaxies,stars and laying their hands on things transcending imagination.The Milky Way Galaxy was a witness to this fact. But , in all these conquests , they had maintained a code of conduct which all humans were supposed to follow. The obstacle in all these progresses would prove to be a well-known enemy , the human mind.

 

         

The topic is -- :P

" Brevity is the Soul of wit "

    You may think what is this moral doing here ,but your thoughts will be heeded to , sooner than later .
Colon P ( :P ) , unlike its famous cousins like " :D " , is one of the rare smiley which encompasses a lot of content and emotion, just like a good, old Bollywood movie ! Even the mighty Facebook is a witness to this fact . Postponing your "good" friend's rather unfriendly remarks is a much easier task with a :P . Teasing your friend for his new crush can be comfortably conveyed in just ," crush !!... :P".

    But in all these writing escapades of mine, I haven't explained you the moral. But I have just one thing to say," :P ".

( The topic was given in a creative writing competiton in IIT-B's cultural fest - Mood Indigo.. what you see is what i had written... )

MI diaries - The events !!!!

  
 
   Lets begin with day 0 , simply speaking , the day just before MI begins . Our work had started much before that day and soon things were beginning to take a shape. Yet , contrary to my (and all of the organizers ... ) expectations , things weren't much ready . The tents were out of place , our events had unfinished business . But , would organizing MI be fun if everything is in place ? The real fun is in making events out of zilch .

    Trade-offs ... The MI perspective

    Our lives are always a game of choices , choices which have been made by us . But a wise decision can lead us to a life full of fortunes and a bad decision can make our life filled with despair . This was the philosophical angle , but how does MI feature in this ? It does... but only for the organizer . As organizers we are spoiled for choices . The number of departments in MI outnumbers all the other college fests in India. Now, for an innocent freshie to choose a department can be quite a task . Fortunately , seniors had advised me to join the informals department and it turned out to be a smart decision . We were asked to make clues for Treasure hunt , conceptualize event formats of MI records and Clash of Titans . This was the primary tasks , but a lot of secondary things were also done by us. This obviously led us to making choices , in departments , in events and also in co-ordinators (people under who organizers are in MI.. ).
My choice of the informals department was simple ... It was to do anything but routine !!!


  Let's talk about how the events were ....


  We'll start with events other than the one's I helped to organize ( so that I do not appear narcissistic...)
   ProNites :


   A common thread which bound all the four concerts was the aura of standing right in the front . The lights shining on you while you are doing the routine head-banging or how you and your friends jump right in the middle of the mad rush of people are things which you can only experience. And , I did all of that and much more ... ( You don't need long hair for head-banging .. the spirit is enough ...)

   Words are less to describe the first concert I attended in MI. Before the concert , I had an image that it would be undoubtedly boring. But , I was wrong by quite a margin. The living legend , Ashaji sang songs which made the audience go crazy . The orchestra accompanying Ashaji was nothing less than brilliant (not  to forget the amazing drummer , the stud guitarist .. ) . It felt like as if the actual song was being recorded.

  Are U getting bored ??? ... even me !!! .. so next time i'll do the rest ...



      

MI diaries - Organizers !!

          People have a general perception of IITians being nerds and always being locked away in their tiny rooms at any given moment . But , perceptions can change very quickly once a person visits Mood indigo . What I saw had me astounded. Never had I imagined it to be on this scale . But as I said , things do change pretty quickly .

IIT-B Mood Indigo ...

     For the non-IITians reading this article, you may find a twist in the tale . But for the IIT-B crowd , it was always known to us . During the first all team meet of MI , we (freshies...) were briefed on the working of MI . Another important factor emphasized to us was the " HHB " factor ( My fellow IITians , you are surely aware of  this). Also to be noted , things did turn out to be as we had anticipated . The stark ratio of 1:10 did transform to a IITian-friendly 1:1 ( now you might have got it !!! ) .
   Getting back to the point , Mood indigo was an eye-opener for all the first-year students of IIT-B ( The so-called "organizers" .. but should be renamed as "workers" or "labourers" ) . But nonetheless , fun can be found in all things , even the most "clichéd" of things. The ways to enjoy the most boring of  things can be quite a task but we certainly did it . My job was in the Informals department of MI . The events , I was a part of were Treasure hunt , Clash of the Titans ( a highly underrated event .. but can have a bigger role in the future ) and MI records . These were my primary tasks , not to forget the "infi" amount of worthless things we did ( frisking .. for example ).

Organizers or  Commodities ??


  During the zeroth day of MI ( one day before the event starts ) , I came across this fact . My CG ( the third-year senior who headed my department of MI ) was talking to his counterpart of another department . The facts I overheard , overwhelmed me . It was not as if I had heard it for the first time , but to hear it live was rather amusing . One of the CG's was short of "bacchhes" and wanted the other one to "supply" him some .  Were they child traffickers ? No , they were just some CG's of MI . But , it isn't their fault . Infact , Is it a mistake after all ? I mean , first year students are supposed to volunteer for their college festival . If they do not show any "enthu" , it is obvious that there will be a short supply of volunteers . I also believe that the name "organizers" given to the volunteers was proposed to make the reluctant freshies to participate. But , this unfortunate lack of participation is only to continue as parents  do not send their kids during winter vacation to the campus for organizing stuff. Only the localites prefer to stay in the campus and organize things . But , inspite of this , I found many exceptions to this rule . More non-Mumbai organizers were present than the Mumbai ones. Things do not go as I think they do !!!

In the next part I will expand on my experiences ...

The Pigeon Life

              I am not a big fan of pigeons but I certainly do not hate them enough to incite the anger of animal right groups against me. But, in the last week , I stumbled upon an entirely new aspect of pigeons which my mind had never delved into . This aspect came from an unexpected source , my driving instructor.

              You may think what relates a driving instructor to a pigeon , but this is what I was trying to find while driving . We were moving past a drain , at a excruciatingly slow pace . This place is known as a hangout for pigeons who come faraway places just to get a stomach-fill . Nonetheless , I never expected my driving instructor to brief me about those pigeons and how they take food back home for their kids . I must surely be driving well enough to take his concentration of the road . His talks went unheeded as my eyes were affixed on the dangerous terrain Mumbai roads . Inspite of this , somewhere in the back of my head , I was befuddled finding a relation between him and those pigeons.

              Suddenly , his voice sounded shrill . I looked at him and saw his eyes shining in the bright morning sun . He started telling me about his family in a small village in interior Maharashtra , where he goes back every six months . He started grumbling about the poor employment scene in his village and how he was compelled to migrate to Mumbai . My attention started to wander off the roads and I started to think about what he was saying . Suddenly , a cycle-wala come in front of the car and my instructor had to intervene to avoid a collision. After this , he was back to his regular talk of how to drive safely on Mumbai roads .

               I found out a relation between the pigeon and my driving instructor . I hope you have found it too ...