Hillarious!

I had seen Aarti on flash, on my computer. But I had not seen a whole multimedia presentation on Maa Saraswati ever before. It thrilled me, really.

Udayan, Utkarsh and a few more had told me they'd be arranging a Saraswati Pooja on the Basant Panchami, today, 12th Feb, at 5:30 pm in Channa Reddy Auditorium. Yesterday again I got a message from my friend Ankit that he'd be in arrangement of Pooja and I was invited. I told them both I'd try my best to come. I wasn't sure cause of my review scheduled for Thursday, 14th Feb.

At 5 when I was in campus it struck my mind that I could go to the Pooja, and sometime before 6, I was in front of the Auditorium where I saw a notice saying that the venue was changed to Gallery One in the Technology Tower. I reached there and saw that the Auditorium, rather lecture theatre was almost 80% filled. Interesting.

I sat down on a chair (mentioning as some people later didn't get even chairs) near my friend Amit (basketball champ) and waited for the program to start. And when it did, it was a thrilling experience. I was watching a multimedia presentation which told about the Goddess of knowledge, art and wisdom, Maa Saraswati and asked for her blessings.

After that, there were a few Mantras being chanted on the VLC player and the lamps were lit. The entire theater, which was overcrowded by now, stood up. Something I could never think of. I mean the overall experience was something different. It was telling me what the future of our mythology was. It told me that with the change in generation, current technology was merging with everything and our culture and rituals couldn't be kept away from them.

Later students offered flowers to Maa Saraswati's photo (not online this time!! actually i hope this will be online by the next year) and finally, there was a QUIZ!!!

A mythological quiz. Where the questions ranged from the Avatars of God Vishnu to the names of Hindi months.

Phew!!

Is there something that the Hindi Literary Association people have not done? Actually it wasn't officially an event from them but then we all knew who had arranged it all.

Last but not the least there was my junior Suby Anthony who was, for the first time in this college (as far as I can remember, and I think I'm not wrong), was seen in a salwar-kurta. A yellow-white one.

I didn't tell the notice had urged people to come in yellow, the day being Basant Panchmi when people wear yellow, as I was not in yellow (Sorry, I had not read the notice). But at least half of the people were in yellow.

So finally it was a "RANG DE BASANTI".

Any doubts?

Dream Day

It was a day of dreams. A day when things that happened were never expected. Just dreamt of.

It started with a phone call that woke me up, at 9:32 morning. A junior of mine I barely knew, called me up and said his partners in the Antakshari had left for home and asked me if I could join him. Already out in the preliminary rounds of Antakshari by a tie breaker, I should have been excited at the thought of getting a wild card entry to the finals, which I was later when I was completely out of my sleep. For the time being I just told him I had no problems joining him and I would be there at 2, the scheduled time.

I broke the news to my preliminaries' partner motz first. Then to Tyagi, who had been in during the preliminaries' second round. And then to Jayant, who had to play against me once again now.

But probably these many people only knew that I was into the finals until the afternoon, after which people came to know one by one. And finally, I was at the stage of Channa Reddy Auditorium playing finals of the Hindi Antakshari as team E, with Sahil and Rakesh at 3:15 pm.

Our start was good. Not as a contestant actually, but as a singer. The first round was easy and there were number of choices for us to sing. Sahil suggested me 'dard-e-dil' and the song was appreciated as I myself felt I was singing good. Something to be happy about. Second song in the round I sang was 'Pyar deewana hota hai' which was ok.

The second round was a pick-a-slip-and-draw round in which we had to guess the movie by the figure drawn by our teammate, and then sing the title song of the movie. Fortunately it wasn't tough and I knew the title song of 'Kati Patang' too. Smooth going.

Then in the third round we had to guess the song on the basis of an music only audio clip taken from the song. For us the song was Aaj main oopar and we were sharing the top position with 2 more teams.

Then we had to sing 'mukhda' after listening to the 'antara'. This was interesting because I was unable to recall the mukhda of the song till the last line of the antara that was being played, though I was singing along. And then, as the antara was over, there was mukhda again, and I just kept singing. And that was the automatically answered. Unbeaten yet.

Interestingly, only when I discussed which songs I had sung on stage did I realize I had sung this song which was from a movie called Ajnabee starring Akshay, Bobby, Kareena and Bipasha. I mean, I don't know how I sang a song that unconscious of everything else other than those few lines, on such a big stage.

Then there was the 5th, final round in which we had to see a mixture of 2 videos and guess the songs. Here our team was 15 points ahead of the two teams just below us, and 25 ahead of the third team.

And this round bore 30 points.

God save me!

It's ok. It's just a game.

Is it possible that we get no prize?

Leave it. Play. Enjoy.

Okay.

Team A did tell both the songs. Doesn't matter. They had gone too down.

Team B told one song out of two. 15 points. 75+15=90.

Team C told both correct. 30 points. 85+30=115.

Team D identified none. 85.

And we could guess just one. 100+15=115.

A tie with Jayant's team. Once again.

Tie breaker again. One audio clip. It was confusing. And my partners got confused. With me getting nothing. So was Jayant, but his partner saved him.

And we lost a tie breaker again.

Now Jayant and team was first and we were second. But the home teams were not to be given the first prize according to the VIT rules. Well, okay. Team C, the highest scorer among outsiders was declared the winner and Jayant+, second, and we, third.

But then I wasn't going to be playing by the morning and at 4:30 I was with the trophy for having the third prize, first time from my college, no regrets, no problems.

And then I got congratulations and appreciations for my songs. To tell the truth, I was in heaven.

After sometime I went to my room and took a sleep. And then I was in the rock show at 8:45, which had to start at 6. The first part was of no use for most of us as we were hardly interested in rock and what the guys were playing we neither knew nor liked.

The second band, Bandish was welcomed as it started with 'O Humdum suniyo re' and kept on singing popular Hindi and English songs one after other. The guy didn't sing songs very good except a few like 'Saiyyaan' and 'Bheegi Bheegi si hain raatein' but was liked as the last one had been a disaster and this one was singing good songs in an 'okay' manner. And that was the reason we did enjoy him pretty much. Much more than my expectations as I never expect a thing from the 'rock night' of Riviera. I just go because I do not want to be sitting in my room.

At the end of the day, I had a trophy, a small amount of cash prize, and a day I could remember for long, all a dream till morning.

Finally, Out!

It was a bit surprising for people to see me there on that stage. Not because they thought I couldn't do it. But because they had seen me 3 feet below last time. In the Anna Auditorium.

It was Hindi Antakshari's second round in which they had to first select 10 teams out of 25 and then 5 out of the 10. And finally 2, for the inter-college finals in the Riviera, VIT's annual festival.

Last two years I had been in the organisation of the Hindi Antakshari and had prepared questions for it. But this time I decided to participate instead of organising. And finally I was a participant in the pre-final round of the Rs 10,000 contest.

The proceedings were all intersting. 26th Dec, we were given a written paper in which there were certain questions related to songs and movies. 25 teams were selected from almost 80 present, among which I was in the first. Yesterday the game started with those 25 teams and the teams were divided into 5 pools of 5 teams each. Knock-out antakshari was played in 5 corners of the rectangular Anna Auditorium and 3 teams were eliminated from every pool, sending 10 teams for the next, rapid fire questions' round. The rapid fire was easy for me as I've been pretty much okay woth such types of questions. Hence I replied 3 questions out of 4 fast enough. And after the rapid fire round, the results showed that 4 out of 5 teams were final years' and all of them from my friends' circle, the Mohalla.

Here I would like to say thanks to the administraion of the show for keeping everything fair and open because otherwise, 4 teams from the same group can be questionable at times.

Anyways, we were celebrating one another on the stage as we came up and I had to agree with the statement made by Udayan, the main organiser, that 'Experience matters'. So, there we were, Me, with Vishal and Abhishek on my team, the second team comprising of Dhruv, Jayant, and Mohan, the third - our least expected team - of Parry (Pradyut), Jeet, and Tyagi (Amit), the fourth one - a second year team, and the final one, of Ritvik, Apoorv, and Ankita.

The game started and went smoothly for the first two rounds and we were on top with jayant's team. In the third round we couldn't guess the song we were given after listening to the music, and we came equal to other two teams. In the next two rounds, the second year team went ahead of us and we were on second with Jayant and team.

And now, since there could be only two teams in the final according to our college, we had to go through a tie breaker. We did. And both the teams couldn't answer the first question. Tie again. The next question was answered by both the teams this time. Tie again. This time it was a mixture of two videos with some other song in background. We couldn't get both the videos correct. And finally, Out!

Anyways, the game was really enjoyable and it was a great scene when 80% of the stage captured by the 'Mohalla'. At last, the game was a memorable experience which will last long in my memory.

Once again: Judge

Well... I never thought there would be one such day. First, the friends of my class made me the judge for Besuregama, and now, this time officially, I was judging a 'kavi sammelan' on the Hindi divas, that is, today, 14th September. I had no idea I could be a judge in two events in one week. Simply a hilarious experience. And once again, I come to know that judging in live events is really tough. The people who always used to say that 'It was a tough decision...' are not joking. They really mean it, seems to me now. This time, I had to judge among 13 people for 3 positions. And after the calculations on the basis of 4 criteria what came out was 5 people sharing top 3 positions.
Though, now I do not remember the poems which got the prizes, I have some idea how the poems were. And how were the people who recited. I still find so many poets who write well but fail to get their credit because of improper recitation, or rather, lack of confidence. And I once again felt that girls do better when it comes to stage performances. I always used to think the same during my days of school while most of the winners used to be girls. (That doesn't mean I never won prizes there)
When I reached the stage to announce the result, I told them what I and the secretary of the organising association (Hindi Literary Association) had talked when I was invited. He had said that judging won't be difficult for me as I had been editor for the college magazine, Splash. But truly speaking, editing is ten times easy. I had to put the 5 best poems/articles in the magazine. And if I liked 6, I had to ask the management for an extra page. Here every single mark was important. So it was an altogether different, much tougher job.
I ended the speech and the program saying that their job was not simple and all these poets/writers had to keep on going, because their pens do not give words to just their own thoughts, they gave words to all those people's words.