Glimpse of Modd Indigo '06

If you are a fest enthusiast and you walk into day 2 @ MI then there’s very little you can do on the participating front as most of the elims happen on day 1. But if you got there just to maaro lukkha then there’s more than just one thing to do.

MI just keeps on getting bigger and better every year and this year it brings to us the Indian Raaga. I heard of them bagging a huge sum in sponsorship and it got clarified on the face the moment I entered the main gate @ IITB. Everything at IIT seems to have a worth be it the trees, the lampposts, the walls , the main gate and even the urinals (see pic) as each of these flaunted at least one big commercial banner on their chest (Mr. Buffet,guess I have a tip for you)

The most brand draped venue is the Convo Hall where most of the informals happen .The comic strip exhibition by Shreyas was simply kickass and so was the rangoli exhibhition (see Sarkar rangoli pic) .

Makrand Deshpande’s play Sa Hi Besura was almost a house full at least at the beginning, but don’t know what happened after I walked out within five minutes . A Shabhaas India kinda stunt was seen where this man pulled a Tata Indica with his teeth.A gallery full of XBOXes was available for the junta to juggle with the joysticks.

A new event that’s come in is “The Reality Show” which asks the participants to organize an event on the final day of Mood Indigo. The folks, who get short listed by a 100 word synopsis of their event idea, have to stay on campus for all 4 days . Winners will be bagging Xboxes, iPods, Goa trips “and of course some cash’- as they put it. Overheard a few guys talking:” Yaar yeh to puri Roadies khila rahein hain , bus XBOX mil jaaye yaar”

JAM this year had an exhibition showing of the best JAMmers (IIT alumni) who like sticking to the campus every year.” We like hanging around IIT and we always ask them (MI organizers)to allow us in (JAM). So this year they decided to have a JAM exhibition finally”, said Zuzhe ,an alumus.

The ballroom dance finals @ LT was packed to the core! Couldn’t even get a glimpse of the dancers but the crowd said it all: I missed something great.

The queue outside the SAC kept on growing as the Popular Nite came close and so did KK’s performance.The crowd management wasn’t all that smooth , but the show made for it. It began with the hindi band finals “Mantra” which showcased a band from Delhi “Zingaro” (strangely they sung a track on their band name Zingaroo-o-o-o-o-o Zingaro –o-o-o-o-o the folks behind me went ‘ho ho ho’) and a few bands from Mumbai too. ‘Mukti’s fab vocalist became a cult figure thanks to his versatile voice spanning over tracks by Kailash Kher, KK and Atif.

Just before KK arrived, the crowd was exposed to an eccentric light show customized for Mood Indigo 05 & 06.
Then came the man himself and the OAT with approximately over 12K junta gave an uproar and the stage literally was set ablaze. It had a couple of goblets of fire and outlets for firecrackers and which shot rockets and confetti as the man rocked the junta to the core.

KK performed songs like Aap ki dua, Hum dum, Dus Bahane, Tu hai aasmaan mein , etc. But the crowd went crazy when he came with his version of Summer of 69 :”…Me and some guys fromVersova….. Nobody Quit and evone got married….. Those were the best days…” .
But when he came onto Pyaar ke Pal, the OAT was quite a scene. It went all dark with over 10K cell phones swaying with karaoke under the moonlight.

Sriram Emani, the very hospitable Overall Coordinator of MI ’06 was extremely glad when we expressed how much fun we had , after all it’s blissful when your efforts pay off well.Kudos!



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Tryst with Paper Dance

Microprocessor and Microcontrollers(MP) is just three days away, and yet I go to this alumni reunion of my school, well I had to just because I’m onto its OC. So what’s the big deal with Mp? Umm.. nothing much, just that its a core electronics subject which had more than 30 chips (not wafer chips...those computer processing chips my friend) and expects the student to know them in and out for him to build up an intelligent device. An intelligent device is one that performs its stipulated function and responds to any external interrupts that are high on priority. I started pretty late for the event with my guilt eating half of me and the other half being eaten by my apprehension over the crowd turnout. Well, both my halves were eaten up successfully as the guilt peaked looking at the mediocre crowd turnout. To top it all, the a/cs went out for some reason and folks started cribbing. Most of them preferred staying out of the banquet as it was cooler. The guilto meter(GM) alarm blew.

One of the OCs intervened the "Even-I'm -the-bollywood-badshah" DJ ,who dint have the courtesy to accept the crowd's response while turning the tables, and announce the start of the most sought after game on the party: "PAPER DANCE".

All the wannabe kids let out a roar (believe me none of these roaring 'lions' came down to play).
This cousin of a close friend of mine came up and dragged "cute-looking" Sid who was chatting with me. Some time later she came back and tried to drag me for a friend of hers... but hey girlie me ain't as light as your partner. I went away as my guilt-o-meter had reached almost fsd (full scale deflection) and on top of it I was supposedly the organizer: naah I cant really play eh.

Finally she managed to convince me and to my WXYZ-ment the girl knew me already (guess I was popular in school). So here begins the plot:

We are supposed to dance on a piece of a broadsheet daily which folds every time the music stops and yeah its my first time on the game.

Partner(P): You know to dance na?
BL: (to himself:) WTF.... (to her:) Well I don’t think you need to dance in this game, do you?
P: (giggles)
BL: So what do you do?
P: Me? A li'll bit of salsa...
BL: err, I meant in life...in general?
P: Oh! I’m in the third year and I’m preparing for my MBA. What about you?
BL: Well I’m doing my engineering in Electronics.
P: Engineering! I thought so.
BL: Great (Wonders what made her think like that...to his rescue the music begins)
P: Hey make sure you are on the paper .. I don’t want to lose the game.

The music stops and its time for the first fold:
The situation is manageable. BL is not concentrating on the game thanks to status of GM. Suddenly something strikes: Man, I dint ask the girl if she was comfy dancing with me!(like I do every time)=> GM almost at FSD.

Music stops again. BL wonders how to manage on a quarter of the broadsheet.
Suddenly it strikes: Hey it was she who wanted to dance with me... so she might be comfy.
Guilt reduces. GM pointer turns to the left. Confidence is back. GM pointer reduces again.

BL :Ill stand on the paper you keep you right foot between mine and the left foot on my foot.
P: Does some movements.
BL: Nah your right foot between mine not your left.
P: Hey that’s my right foot only.
BL: Holy Christ! This is your left foot.
P: Does engineering does this to you. THIS IS MY RIGHT FOOT!
BL: Umm.. err.. yeah actually. so dumb of me. that’s your foot to MY RIGHT ..hehe (BL feels like a moron...GM reading rises.)

The round goes amazing and BL is on a high. Now its half of the quarter! Only BL can stand barely fitting on the paper.
BL: Well, what do we do?
P: Lets stand each on one foot and hold your partners other leg to balance.

BL tries and succeeds in failing. Looks at Sid who had his partner in his arms several feet above the ground. Looks at P. Thinks. Thinks again. Chucks the idea due to his sprained biceps.
P insists on her idea but then BL doesn’t like failing again and moreover that style put BL in an awkward position.

BL gets innovative and asks P to get on his back (Vikram Betaal style) but sadly BL finds that the dimensions of his feet are such that they dont fit on the paper.
BL and P walk out patting each other :"Hey it was a nice game!"

Now that I have The guilt-o-meter (GM) At Null deflection I have written about it calm and cool.
Scrolling up I feel guilty again for writing so much for you to read (Gm pointer moving to the right....BL clicks "publish" before FSD)

The New Year Prank

KK came down from Bangalore and so did KaKhe from Pune for Diwali, so it was ideal to meet all high school buddies and other IIT prep class buddies in the form of a new year outing.

KaKhe and me joined KK,Nik, Tanveer and Archak at Toss n Grill and on our way to Carter’s CCD the chirpy Hitesh joined us. The scene was pretty cool as Hitesh started of taking Nik’s case joined in by Archak and KK. Nik bragged about his hardware know how and the keedas that he could do with his cell a Nokia 6630 as we discussed life in the open air seating . the best thing about CCD Carter’s is it’s open air seating arrangement that gives a cool view of the promenade and the happening lane next to CCD .

KK and Hitesh were constantly checking out the chicks around us and rating each of them as I tried to block the rays from the setting Sun trying to figure out what Nik was bragging about to Archak . AceNik (his BT name) was transferring loads of .cis files (software) to Archak via Bluetooth as I cribbed to him about the inability of my phone to execute .cis files as it’s a MOTOSLVR that runs on a JAVA environment. BLUETOOTH the divine platform showed a few gals online to AceNIk which lit a bulb first in his brain and then in mine. He jumped up with excitement with an idea to chat with them over BT without revealing his identity and I was struck with an idea to change my nik to “Pretty Angel” and continue what Hitesh had started: Tke Nik’s case … Royally!

“Hey look at this , this one is surely a gal : Pretty Angel others have Niks which can be that of guys, lets chat with her!”, said AceNik to Archak who just nodded.

But I realized that MOTOSLVR doesn’t have the ability to send/receive .txt files over BT , so I switched over to MOBILUK a BT chat software that has around 20 ready to use templates that get customized with the reciever’s nick nameand custom messages can be typed also.

“Toothing? “ , I sent

Nik got fully excited “Hey ive got a message, this gal wants to chat with me!”

“ Hi AceNik, why don’t we meet up together and talk.”

Nik did not expect this, he looked around for the source saw me fiddling with my cell and doubted, but I calmly made up in the guise of sms-ing my girlfriend.

“No Im not interested.” Nik replied (this was the first and last message of Nik’s that I accepted the others were simply rejected as I knew what they were)

“Listen dude don’t act funny or I’ll ruin that Cream shirt of yours with my Mochachillo!”

Nik did not buy this . He knew it certainly is a guy but was concerned as this person was able to see him. NIk changed his seat and sat next to Archak and tried to spot this BT person but to no avail.

Now I knew that my job was to convince him that it’s a gal so I typed:

“Ok dude at times I get a bit wild, but I find u vry cute and so jus wanna tlk to u pls don’t say no.”

That’s it, he bought in! But now he was puzzled, he did not know what to do. There was an element of fear as this person could see Nik while he couldn’t .

SO I used the next template:” Free ur mind Ace Nik”

He was startled to know that Pink Angel Knows he is scared!

“The Matrix has you.” Was the next template msg sent to Nik.

He laughed at this one and replied a lighter msg.

The last message and the arrival of the Balaji Telefilms gang behind us got Nik back some confidence. I had to curb this level of confidence. Suddenly Hitesh looked over and figured out that it was me, but then Hitesh was the most appropriate one to know about this prank as he helped me remove Nik’s confidence. Sooner KaKhe also became a part of the prank. But I deliberately kept Archak out of it to retain an element of authenticity.

“dont try to locate me .its a waste but talking isn’t” I typed and a gal walked upto NIk (his friend) and started a short conversation. What an opportunist Hitesh was, he tried to convince Nik that she is Pink Angel, where as KaKhe and me did not allow him to rule out the possibility of the hot gal sitting behind us in the pink halter top.

“Walk up to de promenade and we shall talk there and do nothing else”

“Why should I come ther, u come up to my table if u can see me”, replied Nik.

“Lisen, I find u cute and want to talk 2 u n don’t lk ur friends who hv bn giving me those stares.” This added a bottle full of authenticity to the plot as most of us were staring .

Some how we pumped up courage into Nik to walk upto CCD’s gate where we hypothetically spotted many gals in pink and I sent him this message:

“I see u AceNik do u see me?”

He was fully convinced that this was true and the fact that we pointed out to him a few gals that he wouldn’t like missing out on was enough reason for him to cross the road to the promenade.

Now good ‘ol Nik walked up and down in search of Pink Angel as we sat by.

After five minute of search I sent him the curtain raiser

“ luvarien here! Had fun?” and we all could virtually see the Bakra cap on his head as Nik gave a sigh of relief. Archak was told why he was kept out.

Nik tried to defend himself but then we all know that he walked into it and fell for it.

A gr8 Beginning of the New year : For Nik atleast!!

Happy new year folks!!

Project Pure Diwali

So Diwali is here finally!!

Like every year well be doing the routine Diwali chores :

Umm some cleaning/tiding up . shopping, arranging for sweets and dry fruits ,some decoration, calling ppl, sms-ing, bursting crackers

Aha there it comes. BURSTING CRACKERS.

Well why do we Burst crackers??? Any idea??

I know one story, which says that Lord Rama came back after winning over Ravana after 14 years of exile. To welcome him his subjects celebrated Diwali by lighting up the kingdom and bursting crackers.

So Diwali, since then , has been celebrated for the homecoming of Rama (attributed by a myriad of +ve characteristics and Lakshmi) as the festival of lights.

So where does sound and smoke come from??

Its from our minds primarily!

What began with paying a tribute to the Lord has now taken many faces like showing of your gut to burn money in the form of a huge ‘ladi’ or look fwd to Diwali to burst crackers in the name of some shagun…and the list goes on

We all we all know what happens when we do it: sometimes we don’t realize and at other times we forget.

So I thought of taking a little step to revamp this awareness and remind those who have forgotten:

What I’ve done is simple- made a set of greetings (unconventional) that u cud copy from here and fwd to your kith n kin in the form of sms, Orkut scraps, offline messages, IM messages, emails etc

Or may be get innovative and have your MSN ncks , Orkut nicks et all to say something like this.

Yeah the smses would cost a few bucks to fwd, but then you’ll be doing it for a cause isn’t it?

So here are some of the messages:(in sms lingo)

Dis tm I wont trble Mom Nature on the homecoming of Father Rama. What abt u? may u hv a pure n xhiliratin xprience dis Dwali.

Fr a chnge lets burn pollution dis tm cause brsting crkrs is out!May u hv a pure n xhiliratin xprience dis Dwali.

Sound and smoke swell in a discotheque but stink in Diwali. Lets rev upto smthng innovative dis tm. Wishing u a prosperous Diwali.

I don’t need de fire to have a blast on Diwali, do u ? Let there be just lights.

May u hv a blissful xprience on Diwali.

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Dengue, malaria n cholera hv spread already. Lets nt spread pollution!

Just light up and enjoy! Wishing u a healthy n happy Diwali.

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ACKREDATION

[You need some time in peace to get this one right]
That is how the term accreditation has been conveniently phrased by the junta on my campus. The term was on everybody’s tongue-tip and was used as blatantly as possible. It spiced many a conversations and salted a few fights, sparked many a rebels and hopefully should give many of us a chance to wish the college admin.: “HAPPY REALIZATON !”

Well, when the branch in charge walked in to announce the dates of the accreditation committee’s ( hereafter referred to as Ac-Comm) visit to the college the students were more than just elated, but sooner did we realize that this was just a façade. Three days before the Ac-Comm’s visit, the college suddenly seemed to beat the rate of change in the computing industry as every minute something totally new came up in the 5-storey building. I wonder what Gordon Moore would have said on that!:

MOORE”S LAW BEATEN DOWN:

Split a/cs, direction signboards , boards boasting about the college vision and mission, departmental details outside labs, charts and time tables within labs, new aquaguard installed in the canteen and other aquaguards being connected to the respective coolers, a building being painted in record 2 days, the quadrangle floor being leveled overnight, some lecture rooms and labs being painted from within, journals being corrected instead of being signed, assignments and test being given and done for the heck of it, power peons and bais beginning to smile exhibhiting courtesy, colorful curtains started flying on the lab windows to save the students from heat, the ‘neelkamal’ types plastic chairs being swapped by the plush red springy-spongy movable chairs for the lecturers (err sorry, profs), new equipment being imported fast and how into the labs , the student council being shown and explained the college accounts, student representative committees being formed and trained to present before the Ac-Comm., certificates being collected from students to boast about a branch (sigh , lemme breath a bit.) .

Yeah I was a part of one such training meet and was also among the selected students to be ‘presented ‘ in front of the Ac-Comm.. And this is where the PSEUDONORM lies:

FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH:
Acredation is as important to us as it is to you (yeah, rite who gets to hike the fee?) from your point of view you would get good employment and better companies would some on campus (haven’t you learnt a new trick?), a better brand of the college would be created in the industry(there you are). No the fee structure and acredation are 2 different aspects altogether there is no connection between them (I think we’re the first one’s this morning) Don’t worry, all these are budgeted expenditures [we are not looking for a ROI] (There you’re, chor ki dadi mein tinka. Boss if all of the above are budgeted then was your finance officer sleeping these years, or was he training in book-keeping?) . Now when you meet the committee, you have to behave and speak well about the institute ( Buddy,we’ve got ample matter to speak more than just well about the insti.). If you find that there is scope for improvement in certain areas tell them that you have approached us and the matter is being looked upon (is there an equivalence between ‘upon’ and ‘over’?).


THEY CAME THEY SANG AND WE (GOT) BANGED:

Then there was the D-day and came the Ac-Comm. full of IITians and NITians,their background was sufficient to send shivers amongst all of us. Yet , I found many of the staff members more than just confident but one of them had predicted the fate which is yet to be declared as he has seen what it is to be groomed in a college of caliber. For A change students saw their teachers giving a viva. Our princi was taken aback when asked about the existence of a sexual harassment cell (She mustn’t have thought about it as she always banks upon the ‘culture’ that the college seems to be preserving {at least on the vision statement}). A girl fainted when the committee shot a question at her, but many others answered brilliantly to the committee except this BE kids who were placed in the Digital Design Lab to show off that project work goes on and eclipse the SEs from the committee. The Ac-Com guy straight asked him what they were doing in somebody else’s lab during lecture hours, and then came their viva which was enough to squeeze out their smartness for life. The SEs in the ECAD lab tackled the questions well thanks to their foundation laid by this very amazing prof of ours, however they went dumb as the Ac-Comm guy struck them with realization on this question “Is this what you pay 54K for”, he said pointing at the chain of 4 dusty computers with non-funct mice!!

The comment was enough to strike a realization amongst the masses: that we are the true proprietors of the institute as students. The lack of this realization is the root cause why we have been living through power peons and being treated as prisoners. A student walking in late has to wait for an hour with the watchman, then he’d be pulled out of the lecture room for a lecture with the princi on time management and culture preservation. But before that, he’ll have to assure the prof in class that his train wont run late the next time ( yeah, my pop owns the railways !). Fed up with the new recruits in college who teach to gain work-ex for an MBA, the student cant go home nor can he study in the library, all he has to do is jump of some wall to get back home and study in peace- making him a robber in his own damn house! A cultural secretary who has to literally beg the admin to allow the students to have a JAM session which apparently goes against the culture add to it the justification of a cultural festival in an engg college: these were the things that the Ac-Comm were lookin for as they were smart enough to judge acads and infrastructure. I know this is not new to you if you’re a fellow student, but there is a lot more to it if you’re not.

I hope this rebellion arisen by the Ac-Comm, takes some shape ( I think the BEs are the best one’s to take initiative here) and we do something to be proud of the institute when we refer of it as our Alma Mater!!