Day 1: I woke up at half past six. Usually a
Heraklean feat .But this time I needed no alarms, First memory of the day; gazing out of the window. Was it the effect of the Circadian cycle, (
or the effect of Hydrostatic pressure) I do not know. I performed my daily morning activities (
surfing the net…what were you thinking).
Askmen totally Rocks.
At circa 8:30 I was about to lock the room when Gtalk starts ringing.
Arpan: Got up?
Me: (was it a grin or a chuckle) Yes, thanks a lot. Wake up Nikhil and ask him to come early and register.
[The previous day there was a mention by Nikhil of his desire to attend the Movie-making workshop. I being his self appointed participation agent had learnt that the registrations were to start at 1000 hrs. Also I had got infected by his enthusiasm for this workshop and decided that attending the workshops was a good substitute to sitting in C.L.T.]
Newsletter had not arrived at the Hospitality Desk.
Note: One immutable panorama at the beginning of a day in any fest occurring in IITM is a group of most handsome, charismatic, understanding, charming, hilarious ( any other virtue left?) future engineers/managers pondering over the very critical matter of the days’ Quiz/Puzzle/Crossword. This day one could also have witnessed M. Rajesh Kumar Reddy performing an act of indecent exposure before the moral police woke up.
At 10: a.m. I.S.T. [IITM stretchable time] I was denied my mental warm-up by a voice;
“Registrations for Movie-making workshop are going on in the Hospi-desk.”
I was trying to contact my client to inform him of the development and suggest haste when,
“Mask-making workshop will start in Indraprastha”
[What is Indraprastha? Depends on who you ask:
Me: Just a piece of turf between the Central library and the O.A.T.
Saarang Coordinators: A Fun area created for the Sake of Saarang's Outdoor Activities.
Certain Humans from Bangalore: A very Bad name.]
I had planned on attending Biz Quiz Prelims. But because the engineers of IITM believe in stretch-ability of time, I had to choose between quiz and workshop. Opted for the later (Rohit believes the decision was idiotic). But when the event did not commence at 11:00 Yogi (my magnanimous team-mate) and I went to get the prelims question paper at the least.
This time, it was lack of question papers which encouraged us to return.
Poor Aditya became a victim of quota system and missed the chance of attending the former workshop, so to cheer him up,I dragged him to the later.
After more than 100 minutes of mess, sticking newspaper bits onto a mould, witnessing Aditya give up and substitute Vinod for himself, humming O.S.T.s and Pacifying Yogi and Chintamani that I was on my Way to India quiz prelims, I proudly showed my effort to the instructor. He delicately dislodged the mould to reveal a gaping hole in place of the nose. Nowhe then proceeded to stick A5 size pieces of paper .I looked sheepishly at Vinod, whom I had advised that small pieces were necessary to depict the contour accurately.
The Workshop by Nagesh Kukunoor was excellent. That Guy has Clarity of Speech.I hurried out as soon as it was over, had CL classes. Never sit in skewed corner position for a Group Discussion. 3 abstract topics where I spoke exactly four times. I was then substituted and a Case study was given.
Topic: An introverted IITian joins a manufacturing company with strong trade union. A specialist worker for a sensitive assembly operation is becoming inefficient. Our IITian tries interchange of workers which affected productivity because the replacements could not cope with the high pressure work. They start demanding additional incentive and overtime which the management has to naturally oppose .Our Man finally suffers an emotional breakdown.
“Discuss the main issues in the case and what would be your approach to this particular situation.” 25 minutes.
The Way discussion happened:
- The aspirations of an IITian and his struggle to get into IITs and the IIT education.
- People skills of engineers.
- Problems associated with Trade unions.
Sudarshan, Chintamani and I were sitting on the bench and hence did not roll on the floor… laughing.
Rangoli is a Gujarathi, Rajasthani restaurant in T.Nagar.Run by the Saravan Bhavan chain, the food is completely vegetarian.I recommend visiting it. Have the 130 buck unlimited meals. Do not have much experience in the afore-mentioned cuisines but I can certainly tell that it is Gooood.
It was in such a Jolly and satisfied Mood that I retired for the day. Same music as the day before, started Winamp and Crashed.
P.s.: the adjectives used in the Note are courtesy Rohit Bhat.(I am a very decent and humble human)
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