A Grand Spectacle

Technopreneur 2009 was a momentous occasion, and one of the first true instances where my chest swelled with pride at being an MECian. From its conception, to its planning, to its final execution, the event was a mammoth success. The day was an eventful one. A very lively and active presentation on technology, in particular wireless technology, and its future role in expanding our horizons was delivered by Mr. Anand Parthasarthy. Being the first speaker of the day, his engaging talk was a promising start to what would prove to be a day filled with eye-opening exchanges. Mr. Parthasarthy was then replaced on the dias by Mr. Manoj Das, editor of the Indian Express, Kochi edition, who spoke on the Freedom of the Media, and its role in shaping democracy in the twenty-first century. Given the topic, the chance to hear Mr. Das' views on the subject was priceless, but what was even more engaging was the question-answer round that followed. With the subject being of such mass appeal, the audience came alive, asking questions which arose from a sound understanding of current issues. Certain questions were so perfectly framed, that even Mr. Das had trouble answering them. One such question, notably, was asked by an ex-MECian, regarding the leanings of most printhouses today towards any one particular political party or ideology inspite of their claims of providing fair and unbiased reports of daily occurings around the world! The exchange proved to be healthy and extremely thought-provoking, and the smiles of the organizing team showed that visions of an unbelievably succesful event had begun to possess their minds barely a few hours into it.

Following these active discussions, Mr. Kalol Borah, an entrepreneur himself, spoke about Entrepreneurship in India, its Scope and the keys to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Unlike most of the audience, I had attended a similar seminar(albeit an exasperating 4-HOUR LONG ONE) at Excel 09, held by Tej Arora of Smartcrowds fame. As most of the content between these two seminars seemed identical to me, my interest level waned, and the general enthusiasm of the crowd too, seemed to dip. Although several of my fellow classmates and all appreciated his talk and stated that he appeared very knowledgeable and wise during the 30-odd minutes that he spoke, I could hardly notice as my mind was not there. Following Mr. Borah, the star of the event and the most anticipated speaker of the day, Mr. Sarath Babu, took the dias. The audience welcomed him with thunderous applause, and a unanimous standing ovation, the first of its kind of the day, signifying that they too, recognized the calibre of the man who was about to speak before them. Recalling his journey from selling home-made idlis on the streets of Chennai to IIM-A and to establishing Foodking, and his recent foray into politics, he captured the audience's imagination. His English was rusty, indicative of the background from which he'd struggled to the top, but it only endeared him more to the audience. His awe-inspiring determination and will to succeed, along with his good natured smile won him more than 1200 fans within 10 minutes of his 40-min lecture. He spoke of the challenges he faced during his school life, his risky dance with death as a teen, his embarassment at his poverty when he entered the halls of IIM-A, and a variety of other life experiences which spoke volumes about the depth of his character. The audience interaction round, more than just a simple question and answer round, turned into an expression of collective admiration, as several students and teachers alike raised their hands not only to clarify doubts, but to express gratitude to Mr.Babu for gracing the occasion and achieving in 40 mins the impact that the organisers had hoped to gain at the end of the entire day!

The buffet lunch that followed was well worth the wait. There were ample servings of chicken, mutton, beef, fish, veg curries, fried rice and rotis to go around. For many of those who had come from other colleges to this event, the discount buffet had been the major attraction. Even if the speakers had failed to deliver, a good lunch would have still sent most home with no regrets. Thankfully, the cooks of the Gokulam Park Hotel didn't disappoint. It was a sumptuous feast and I ate till my stomach threatened to burst at it seams, and then gobbled down 2-3 helpings of vanilla ice-cream for good measure before returning to the seminar hall. The post-lunch session featured a debate on Youth Politics. Though Mr. Ritabrata Banerjee, a prominent SFI leader failed to arrive, there were other capable speakers to fill his place. The debate was informative, and overall nicely done, but the rebuttal session in which the crowd got into the act turned into a straight out dog-fight between Ms. Deepti Mary Varghese, a reputed Youth Congress leader, and SFI supporters and politically aware youth among the audience. The battle was intense, and at times I felt great pity for Ms. Deepti, for the absence of Mr. Banerjee had left her the lone representative of a political party on the dias, with students' contempt of the political class clearly evident. It was also amusing to an extent, but there were a few good intellectual questions asked among the unnecessary heckling from ideologically motivated members of the audience.

The evening was closed out by a brief summary of the Chandrayaan Mission by Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, Director of the VSSC. Under most circumstances, this lecture would have been among the greatest crowd-pullers, and would certainly have received top billing in my book. Disappointingly though, Dr. Radhakrishnan proved to be not quite as eloquent as his counterparts, and the lecture became a rather tedious, prolonged affair that failed to grab the attention of any section of the audience. The lecture was too detailed, and the presentation too dry to merit any interest or audience response. Of course, the fact that most of us had over-eaten and were now sitting in plus padded chairs in an air conditioned hall did nothing to help stifle the yawns. While some declared their boredom openly by leaning back and dozing off, others like me tried to distract ourselves with a bit of conversation or a text message : anything, essentially, to avoid nodding off which would perhaps be insultin to the speaker.

With the final lecture of the day having been given, Technopreneur 2009 drew to a close. After a vote of thanks acknowledging the efforts of everyone involved in the planning and execution of the event, the audience dispersed, some rushing to railway stations and buses to make their way home before nightfall, and others like us, back home, to reflect on what was a true spectacle, and to speculate about the headaches we shall encounter when Technopreneur 2010 comes around!

The Toil Behind The Glamour

Technopreneur 2009, held at Gokulam Park Hotel on Jan 31st, turned out to be one of the most prestigious events ever to be conducted by our college! The build-up to the event was nerve-wrecking. The anticipation was greatly heightened by the line-up of speakers that had been announced, and the number of cities to which our seniors had travelled to publicise the event. Days prior to the event, I myself had travelled back to Trivandrum on a jam-packed day, faced with the hectic task of visiting three colleges, GEC Barton Hill, CET, and LBS and meeting with their student representatives to confirm the final list of students seeking passes to the event, and the requisite amounts of money! In a single day, we travelled about 450-500 kilometres : by train, by bus and on foot. A packet of biscuits, a paltry lunch, and a bottle of Aquafina were all the nourishment we could achieve that day. It was demanding, and physically exhausting, yet the satisfaction of having collected an approximate of Rs. 20000(the correct figure escapes my memory) in a single day for our cause was limitless!

The day before the event, we were forced to cut class on Friday to deal with last-minute crises that had hit the preparations for the event. Though our seniors had ensured almost all aspects were taken care of well ahead of time, handouts remained a troubling issue. The nightmare scenario which we desperately wished to avoid was to present these great speakers to an audience which had very little clue of their stature and had no means to find out! On Thursday night, about 8-10 of us worked from about 9-30 in the night uptil about 2-30 in the morning in the MH with hardly a break in between, sorting out the several stacks of handouts that had arrived from the printing press, but remained unsorted. The next morning, with a stronger work-force, we headed to the printing presses with the boxes of sorted handouts to make further additions to each of those handouts and finally proceed with binding. Though about 1200 had so far booked their tickets to the event, another 200 were expected to register on the spot, which is why the target set before us was a staggering 1400 handouts to be assembled and spiral bound in the space of a single day. Chaos soon broke out due to confusion in the order of pages and shortage of certain pages. Our own efforts lagged as a result, and by mid-day, the task seemed fruitless. But we dug in, and worked tirelessly, breaking only for a brief lunch. We toiled from around 9 am till closing time at the printers' at 6 pm. In the end, thanks to our refusal to quit, we managed to succesfully 1342 handout booklets.

The efforts that we ourselves had to put in truly pale in comparison to the incredible amount of time, money and energy that our seniors had put in to organize the entire event. Our energies were drained while managing only a minor fraction of the overall event, but our seniors excelled at managing every aspect of an event that was, in terms of scale, to use a less eloquent terminology, "Technopreneur 2008 ka BAAP". Transport, food, accomodation, hall, guest reception, college-to-college canvassing, collection, flyers and posters, websites, blogs, advertisments.....you name it, and they've dealt with it! The pinnacle of efficiency that any student body can desire when undertaking the organisation of such a gargantuan event with little ground support from the college. They are the true icons I look up to, for they are proof of what you can absorb and gain from these 4 years besides the simple B.Tech degree.

Technopreneur 2009 Teaser

Ripples '09

January 8,9 and 10th : These days were among the first few in my college during which I felt a vibe of uncontrolled, pulsating energy flowing through the halls. Our college arts festival, named "Ripples", kicked off on the 8th of January. Amid all the furore over the results and the controversies and allegations over the wisdom and impartiality of the judges, I started to understand why so many had recommended this college to me!

With the college being divided into Houses, similar to the old model at school, open participation was replaced by house-wise selection, following which alone one could take part in any of the smorgasboard of events. I, myself, was slated to participate in 3 events, on behalf of my house, the Pirates. The first, Gaanamela, was a unique event in terms of its magnitude. In the simplest of terms, Gaanamela saw each House receive 20 minutes to showcase their members' musical talents in as few or many songs as they can manage to pull off within the specified time. Our band chose to perform 4 songs, "Nenjukkul Peididhum", "Ennavale", "Sajna Di Vari Vari", and "Duur", the last of which, I was chosen to sing. Given the late stage at which I joined the band, my song choice was made with the time constraint in mind. I had a niggling fear that Duur would see the end of my aim of singing at future versions of Ripples, as, simply put, I thought the song didn't suit my voice! Given my lack of practice time due to relentless practice for the other events, my faith in my vocal abilities never found solid ground. Eventually, on the day itself, as I hit my first note slightly wrong and adjusted quickly throughout the rest of the song, I felt disheartened. My lack of practice had clearly shown, and even though I was on-pitch throughout the song, problems with the instrument mikes distracted my mind in between the performance, and ultimately left me with a bitter taste in my mouth for not having come even close to my own expectations. Admittedly, the response to my vocals ranged from "OK" to "Superb", suggesting maybe I hadn't done as bad a job as I felt, but my disappointment hasn't yet waned, for I still feel that given a bit more practise, and a little better luck with the instrument mikes, I could've sung with a lot more vigour and confidence than I actually did. Unfortunately for our band, the mixing problems which felped ruin my own song went on to decimate our chances by ruining every other song of ours as well, in particular, our instrumental masterpiece, "Sajna di Vari Vari", feat 6 instruments, which had sounded brilliant during practice. A disappointing 4th place was all that could be achieved.

The second event, on the same day as Gaanamela, was Nostalgia : A group dance performed in a dated fashion in the backdrop of a pre-90's dance track. While all other Houses chose old Hindi songs for their theme, we chose an old Tamil song to shake a leg to. Practice was hectic, and the amount of money poured in to help us out was mind-boggling. 5-6 days of practise was all I had, but that proved sufficient in the end. My confidence, though at rock bottom initially as I'd never even AUDITIONED for a group dance on stage before, began to grow slowly, and by the final 2 days of practice, was higher than I could've ever hoped. Our performance on stage was lauded, and it seemed the fruits of our several hours of practice were beginning to pay off, as the crowd deemed us favourites. I, myself, managed to recollect and perform my steps seamlessly(to my great shock), and inspite of a small slip due to the loose carpetting, my overall performance was satisfactory to me thanks to a quick recovery. Unfortunately for us, the judges found our costumes unattractive, even though one couldn't imagine anything other than a "baniyan" and "mundu" for the song we'd chosen, and our dance, to them, seem too "folk". As a result of these absurd complaints, we were relegated to 3rd place.

The final event, Western Dance, was the showpiece of the final day. Having been pulled into the group only 3 nights before the event, it proved a tall order for me. Combined with Nostalgia, we'd practised relentlessly almost every night, sometimes uptil 2 am. The practices were held at times at the MH, and at times at a 2nd yr, Lakshmi chechi's house, quite far away from our own MH. The practices were exhausting and physically demanding, to the extent that some skin on the toe of my left foot peeled off in the process, forcing me to bandage it till the final performance. Having worked hard to memorize my Western steps in just 2 nights and adjust my timing to perform in sync with the group, tragedy nearly struck as I sprained my back while practising just a few hours before the event. Gulping down a painkiller tablet, I managed to rejoin practise after a rest and subdue the pain enough to be confident of my chances on stage. Being body-painted in scary colours from the waist up, was a new experience for me, and one I doubt I'll forget for a long time to come. On stage, excitement and fear reached out to me in the same breath, but I held my nerve, and did my bit almost to perfection(or at least, as best as I possibly could have), until a small, perhaps not easily noticeable error in the handling of a prop at the end killed my joy and sapped me of my confidence. Tense moments followed, but the announcement that we'd be sharing 1st place was gratefully welcomed.

Over the week or so in which I'd been made to shed a lot of sweat and tears in preparation for these 3 days, I faced exhaustion,anxiety and fatigue as perhaps never before. But truly, in that one week, I enjoyed college life more than ever in the previous 4 months. It was refreshing, and a welcome change from the trappings of the classroom. Seeing the commitment of the many seniors who formed the core of the house was also endearing indeed! Finally, a House felt like something I WANTED to belong to, rather than an unnecessary label. Inspite of the many controversies that surrounded this year's event with respect to the judging and organisation, the urge to broaden my horizons and try my hand at a far greater number of events the next year has already set in. It's an anticipation that keeps growing in my heart, and should reach fever-pitch this time next year. Videos and pictures of the event should appear on this blog in a short while, but for now, my hands are tied! Let's hope Ripples '10 goes much much further in terms of competition, skill and entertainment!

BOLO PIRATES KI JAI!!!

Rewinding to the Holocaust

The subject of this post, I assume, is made very clear by the title. Recent events in the Middle East have brought back vivid memories of a time when a race of people endured the worst form of torture and persecution in mankind's history. The only difference between the events of 70 years ago and the previous 2 weeks, are that the victims have turned the aggressors.

The vile and despicable military action undertaken by the Israeli regime over the past 2 weeks serves as a reminder to people across the world, especially us in India, that harbouring feelings of vengeance can yield unimaginable havoc! Any kid on the street could tell you that a war in which the deaths of only a handful of Israelis is countered by the massacre of a thousand Palestinians is little short of genocide! The term "overly-aggressive" hardly suffices. With the highest population density of any region in the world, Israel knew that collateral damage and civilian casualties could never be contained if a ground offensive were launched in Gaza. The military leadership was either too stupid or too indifferent to care! The latter theory makes greater sense to me. What confounds me even more is the extent to which the United States can back Israel, even as it commits such atrocities! The U.N. Security Council makes the right noises, but its words fall on deaf ears, and yet, Israel is not evicted from the U.N. or punished for grossly disrespecting its orders! Other countries around the world, with the exception of a few, remain mute spectators. Palestine is left alone, and the Gazans have no hand to reach out to for aid! They live in abject poverty, their livelihood and economy crippled by the economic blockades imposed by Israel and the rest of the world. Without basic healthcare, sanitation and reeling under near-famine due to an acute scarcity of food, their suffering is unlike that of any race currently existing! A lead sky envelopes their present and their future, and yet the world does little but watch!

Post the 26-11 attacks, statements emerged from Israel saying that both India and Israel are bonded in grief, both victims of a remorseless and resilient terror! That assessment could not be further than the truth. India is a nation built on the foundation of non-violence and non-alignment. We have never played the part of the aggressor in any of the wars in our past, and have never sought to annex our neighbours, even though some of them now export terrorists by the dozen across our borders. The same though, cannot be said of Israel.

As my frustration at this collective failure of human conscience grows, a friend's summary of the events of the past 2 weeks gives me a fresh new perspective : "You believe in a God who is always non-violent and peace-loving and who is "goody-good", but some wars, and some conflicts, are justified even by God. Though he doesn't promote violence between his creations, God does consider some causes to be worth the bloodshed. This hatred and conflict between the Palestinians (or Phillistines) and the Israelites dates back more than 2000 years, as is said in the Bible. The treatment meted out to the Palestinians today by Israel is no different from that which was borne by the Israelites when their land was first conquered! This is no atrocity, it is only a case of Hamas using the pick of its arsenal : the Kathyusha Rocket, and Israel its F-16s, to carry on a war that may never end! The ratio of casualties is irrelevant, only the act of war counts." This friend is by no means a devil. He is, by my interactions with him, a very likeable and good natured person and a fervent follower of his faith, but some of his views, particularly this one, truly shock me! There is no God of War, and if there were, then I'd rather turn atheist than bow down to his feet and sing his praises. No God justifies the killing of innocents at the behest of self-righteous political regimes weilding the staff of religion to rally support!

This chat, however informal it may have been, caused alarm bells to sound loud and clear in my head. This is not a religious dispute, and nor should be made out to be so! It is the cry of a people removed from their own land after the Jews sought an independent state, to seek refuge after the holocaust : It is a cry of desperation for a small state of Palestine, to be recognized by one and all and given its due place in world forums! Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and even though my sympathies for Israel have all but dissolved by now, Hamas shall never have my sympathies either. An organisation whose sole purpose of being is the destruction of Israel should be denied both the importance and the dignity that they seek. The world has no place for such narrow-minded people to be given the chance to air their views in public forums! Yet, the more the people of Palestine are pushed to the brink of complete genocide, the deeper the roots of fundamentalism will grow in the minds of the people, and so too will the support for Hamas multiply!

It's time for the world to realize the urgency required in dealing with the Middle East Peace Process. Half-hearted declarations of temporary ceasefires will not do. Citizens across the world may protest these massacres, but our governments remain inept and incapable of taking action!
The suffering of the people of Gaza cannot be allowed to continue, for they will only aid in the spread of extremism in the Muslim world and destroy all efforts to maintain peace and order around the world!