Saarang Post part 6

Day 5: Every Saarang, the morning of the Final day is the Nadir .No prelims where the crowd can join in. Most Event coordinators are anyway still in Hangover after the Main quiz Finals. Most outstation Participants take this time to pack their bags. There are certain Treasure hunt styled games every year .This year’s was called RUSH which we could not enter having been late to come up with a team. Most venues are reserved for conducting event finals which are attended by the finalists and their friends. I chose the Sports quiz Finals.

True to tradition, the event overran the allotted time. So, shift to PHLT to accommodate Mono-acting. My memory tells me that Aravind Shankar and I were the only two spectators to survive the exodus. Arun Roshan walked in some time later with his Psychedelic T-shirt. Reason warded of Hunger as long as it could before acquiescing.

Returning, I witnessed the Mono-acting in closing stages. My client walks in for the last performance.

To cheer him up, I drag him to WTGW finals (Again no link .We IITians are soo esoteric in our choice of pastimes).

Chinmay, one of your important achievements on 29^th Jan 2006 was introducing Nikhil to the wonderful game of What is the good word?

The A.V. Quiz final was scheduled to commence at 1530 hours, but I was blissfully seated in MBA 2 without any jitters. I had confidence, on Rohith Bhat, he would definitely not have allowed the event to start without Chinmay’s arrival.

Our team for AV quiz was called We Dig Marathi .Since no one asked the reason for the name during the quiz, Thou shalt suffer.

Our team was:

Shorty: Maratha from marathi land.

Yogi: Kanadiga (called Dig in IITM) from Marathi land.

Me: Tamilian from Dig land who imagines he knows Marathi

Shorty is a very good human. He is well traveled (Went alone on a road-trip of Europe) and of course good at picking languages. But his recall is frustrating.

One of the ‘connect’ questions had Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiat as a clue. The only connect I could make out is rubai which is a 4 lined verse written with some particular meter. I suggested the possibility of the connect being some form of poetry.

Shorty: No da, there is nothing in poetry called Kaeiri (Another clue whose actual spelling I do not know)

Final connect: Forms of poetry

Shorty: Ya ya now I remember, Kaeiri is……………

My English vocabulary cannot describe what I felt at that time.

[One undeniable effect of the effect of mob frenzy on human beings is seen in Rock concerts. Intermittently one witnesses people flashing a hand sign. Depicted below is the hand sign symbolizing the devil which was painted on the backdrop of O.A.T. (Open Air Theatre)

(Parents of all lands unite,

look what satanic messages your children are absorbing.)

This below is the “I love you” sign in the American Sign Language

One observes rock show crowd (of both the male and female kind considered immune to mob mentality ) flash hand signs with any three digits of the hand outstretched. The only reason they do it is because some happening folk around them are doing it.]

Parikrama went overboard trying to start with a bang. They initiated the concert with Highway to Hell, from AC/DC :the song whose loudness is used to:

• Wake up people by configuring into alarm softwares
• By law enforcement officials to force fugitives to surrender
• Scare birds away from airports

[This section might have been more suited to Day 2. Anyway,
Flashback: Saarang 2003 Opening night at the OAT was Shaan’s concert performed with a sore throat. It was the first Concert of my life as well as the first time I danced (or whatever name one deigns to bestow). Nikhil and Arpan were there .They were also there on the day of my last concert in OAT. Thanks guys for being there]

After the descent of Parikrama’s sound output, Led Zepplica took over. Bored and lacking any serious fan of Led Zeppelin, we packed.

Nikhil zestfully introduced all the assembled to the game of WTGW. The Led Zepplica sound overflow from the auditorium made for goods background music. Rohit Bansal was humming along to ‘Stairway to heaven’ when suddenly, no sound.

What happened?

How come there is power here?

I bombed myself in the leg by agreeing to play Word building game with the rule to allow 5+ letter words.

Start:

M

A

N

K

Now it was unto me and I was clueless. [Everyone who is chuckling is hereby challenged to come up with any word other than mankind without consulting a dictionary]

Challenged Prakriti and got a D.

Next round:

Purva: D

Neha:A

Prakriti: C

Me:?????????????

That was when my mobile beeped (the old one)

A guardian angel had messaged me: O

Now, the trick was to say O:

• after a gap so as to not arouse any suspicion
• In a manner which exudes confidence which comes from a sudden brainwave.

Ex: Wide open eyes to imitate pupil dilation, false evil looking grin [Necessary to carry through the bluff because the angel, due to the overconfidence in me, had not messaged the word.]

Finally, Nikhil took the bait and Arpan was trapped.

The assembly was dissolved Sine die

Reaching my wing in the Hostel, Sreejith informed me that Police had come from outside and Unplugged the Concert. I remember making a remark on Director should have stopped them... he has authority before sleeping.

Epilogue: If it weren’t for certain events, this part of my first peer-reviewed series of posts would have been called hangover .The next day , I wake up to find a different version of what went wrong with led zeppelin show. A road I do not want to tread.

Chintamani had the greatest of the after effects. Many instances came to pass where I mentioned my client to him. Enigmatically these would bring on a violent change to his calm demeanor. Apart from the Saarang mentions, were circumstances like the one hence mentioned:

Chintamani:’ when was the last time you saw a Horror movie?’

Me: ‘In Pune, with Raghuram and Kumar ….’

Chintamani (Showing signs of vigorous allergy)

Chintamani even went to the extent of threatening to liquidate Nikhil if he came to meet him. He went on a Manhunt enquiring every Metallurgy Final year student the following questions:

Are you from Meta?

Are you from Mandak?

Are you Kumar Nikhil?

Chintamani called Nikhil his ‘beladingala bale ‘[ a kannada movie where the hero falls in love with but never sees the heroine recommended If you do not get Kannada, get subtitles :)] Consequently, it was with great gladness that I witnessed their meeting: God bless the souls of Ram Subrahmaniam and every one in Spic-Macay for organizing the Satyajit Ray movie festival .

Of course, Acknowledgement time:

• Thank You Saarang guys for the wonderful Saarang in Particular R.G. for all those workshops.
• My Quiz team mates for putting up with me.
• The friends who gave company when I required.
• The reviewers for the patience in reading my posts.
• Everyone who commented on these posts.
• All the readers who read and did not comment.
• Everybody else:)