Blog 1201: Move over SF... Kshitij rocks!

I wonder what the whole fuss about SF is.
Take out Shankar Mahadevan, Kavi Sammelan and Perpz and there was nothing whatsoever in this SF.
Frolicaholic was such a farce.
The lit events were held perfunctorily.
There was no rock band this time.
And yet again, we had Euphoria in Kgp.

Clap Clap.
So much for the biggest fest of eastern India.

Cut to Kshitij.

Mind boggling events.
And even more mind boggling participation.
The best possible example: Atelier Unrehearsed.
The entire V4 was packed to seating capacity, there were people sitting all along the staircase... and junta standing at the back.
Same story, if not better, for El Matador.
Compare this with Extempore and Ad Spoof in SF.
The participation there was 20% compared to Kshitij events.

And why not.
Prize money for top three spots in a Kshitij event was a whopping 10 TIMES that of the top three spots in SF!

And the lecture by Prof. Klaus Von Klitzing!
I bet everyone who went to attend his lecture would have gone with the apprehension that this fellow will bore us quickly with talk about quantum physics.
No sir!
He kept the entire audience captivated throughout with regular dollops of humour.
Totally unexpected.
Thoroughly enjoyable.

And where do I begin about the Robosoccer show...
Simply awesome!
Just the way Happy danced... like hotge-podge little toddlers walking...
The soccer match...
The robot-load-carrying-capacity show...
Brilliant work by those guys from Manitoba.
Of course, whoever was there for robosoccer wont have forgotten the ROTFL producing comments by two of the guys in the audience.

One thing though... why cant any bloody event begin without being half-an-hour late?
The robosoccer show had the projectors etc being set up after the scheduled start time.

Some things never seem to change.
Maybe we need a Rang de Basanti encore out here too.
Hmm... so who do we take down?
G. Secs tech? S. Comm's? Core team?

Anyways...

A bit about Kshitij 06 as it turned out for me...

3rd Feb.
8 am.

One hour to go for the presentation of Atelier Rehearsed.
Had to prepare a marketing strategy for a horror based theme park about to open in Kolkata.


Presentation is ready.
Rehearse it for the 5th time with Himadri.
Our presentation doesnt follow Kshitij's guidelines at all [:D]
No bother.

My biggest concern... will my voice falter on stage?
Ours is the second team to present.

The first team goes up on stage.
I palpitate.
Their presentation is going on.
I start feeling better.
Our turn to present comes.
I'm fine :-)

Cool presentation.
Nice sync.
The lady judge was the one who had judged ad spoof too :)
Even while our presentation was going on, she was smiling, nodding, had given us the marks and was prodding the other judge and pointing at her marks as if to say 'give-them-this-much' :)
Thankew ma'am.
We land second. [:D]
I do intend to find out which subjects she takes in VGSOM. [:D]

Umm... what next...
Yeah we makhao case-a-franca badly.
Our case study was radically different from others'.
We realised we wouldnt be making it to the top 3.
Decided to focus on exemplar whose deadline was in 2 hour's time.

We scramble to put together a case-study for exemplar.
Run from RK to arena with seconds to go to deadline.

Find out deadline has been postponed by 2 hours.

Lose control.
Go to Gargi.
Take off shoes and socks.
Aroma spreads around the audi.
Laze around on the sofa.
Play passing-the-pillow with the case-study.
Finally submit the thing 5 mins after deadline.
[:D]

Next day... Atelier unrehearsed.
Junta has flooded V4.
Hoohaa presentation by Mr. Partha Sinha.
If you were present there, you'd now know what this meant.
He showed some ads and illustrated how out-of-the-box ideas resulted in hoohaa ads.
The best one, of course, was the wasssaaaaaap ad of budweiser! [:))]
Search DC for "Wassup", "Japanese wassup" and "new budweiser ad" to know what this is all about [:D]

Clear first round in collaboration with Sandy, Dash and Dayal.
Second round: have to prepare an ad for a book in which every page contains a summary of itself.
Our ad: video shows a book of the size of LOTR.
First page opens.
Text is hazy but u can read the word 'The' at the bottom of the page.
Second page, again text hazy but can read 'best' at the bottom.
Third page, word is 'way'.
Fourth, its 'to'
Fifth... 'read'
Sixth...'a'
Seventh... 'book'
'in'
'sixty'
'seconds'.

Partha Sinha likes it.
So does Rajshri [:D]
She's a student in VGSOM.
Handling this event along with a few other VGSOM ppl..
SO CUTE! AND SO DAMNED GORGEOUS!
*sigh*

And there was this other VGSOM bandi too...
dunno her name...
she herself came to ask me and Himadri how our presentation went after Atelier Rehearsed!
Talks well... cute... decidedly my second fav VGSOM gurl after Rajshri.
Hope she reads this!
[:D]

Coming back... [:P]
Umm.. had a quiz in the final round.
Ravi Handa came to the scene.
Dont think I need to say what happened next.
That fellow has some GK.
Me and Rushin answer a few in the quiz.

Final result...
Mine and Himadri's second Atelier this Kshitij and once again, we land second!

Schol Ave team had a talk with the editor of the Kolkata edition of TOI.
Have been invited by him to check out how the work happens in their organisation :)

Swati and I interviewed Mr. Farrokh Mistree, Kgp alum and prof at Gatech, yesterday.
That guy has some knack of starting things.
He started a newspaper, Impact, here in the 60's.
He was editor of Alankar.
He was also editor of another annual magazine, Udyog, here.
He's started Indian communities at various places outside India.
And...
You see all those board awards in the halls here...
He was the one who initiated the concept of board awards.
Paid for the first one in his hall, Azad, from his own pocket as he was graduating!


Watched Rang De Basanti yesterday.
Brilliant film but I doubt if any Indian govt will send comandos to kill non-terrorist college students in full media glare.
Awesome juxtaposition of the past on the present.
Totally and entirely a film that most of us can relate too.
Anjai has put it in words wonderfully well... Rang De Basanti

Meanwhile, blogging has been going on in full tempo at least in RK.
Naween has been belting out scorchers one after another.
Chaks has found this latent poetic talent...
And Kontham... he's just light years ahead of anyone else...

Three cheers to Kshitij once again.
Great job done [:)]