Last weekend was all for Antaragni 2007, IIT Kanpur's cultural festival. Hadn't been there before, so was very enthu to go this time round. The trip was jinxed right from the beginning, as friends of mine equally willing to come along swung from 10 to none on a daily basis, what with the woes-of-fourth-year (CAT, job, resume, BTP etc) making life tough for everyone. So there was a time when my trip was nearly called off because all my friends were busy, and when that was sorted out, everyone's trip was nearly called off because IITD RCA folks didn't book train tickets in time and there were no confirmed reservations!!!
So on thursday, a few hours before we were supposed to leave, the bomb is dropped that IIT wants us to go in two buses, travelling 12 hours overnight, and that too UP Roadways buses (which weren;t even funded by IIT). The eternal question: to go or not to go, surfaced again, with the six of us clear on only one thing : either everyone goes or no one. And then, practical inconveniences were defeated by a hope of fun and relaxed company, the adventure that the trip promised to be, and there we were, on the bus, on way to Kanpur! Personally, it was the first trip I was going on after coming back from Sweden which was really really long ago, and the break was much needed.
The bus trip was a story in itself. I can almost never sleep while travelling, including flights. So I was up all night, and at least another three of us. All sorts of bakaiti, jokes and stories resulted, and by morning I was so high on insomnia and masti that all I could do was laugh like drugged. :P In between came Gaurav's special A1 thalis that he plans to open as a business venture (nutritious isn't it, Gaurav?), Udit's dedications to the 'dictionary', Rohan's antics and Doc's misplaced silences. By the team we reached IITK, the village, we were geared up for an adventure, albeit mundane things like getting registered and finding an acco ate up some time. High on attitude hospitality volunteers proved to be as entertaining as some of the low on IQ organisers. The concept of most of the events was good but the organisation, handling and in some cases the quality left a lot to be desired. Basically it can all be put down to a lack of experience, and the innovation and fun factor was highly laudable. Here in delhi, it's almost exactly the reverse. The competitive spirit is so highly ingrained that tried and tested wins over experimentation too often, and while efficiency and meticulour organisation are our traits, somewhere down the line we are missing out on the fun portion by not introducing much innovation. The bloody gory fight for the trophies has bred a generation of point savvy cultural secretaries and practice-crazy reps. Someone needs to start breaking the circle.
So over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we basically did loads of crazy things in between rushing from one event to another and pulling each others' legs. IITK had Poets of the Fall and Atif Aslam for the two big nights, none of which I really saw, but some of the other events such as dances, disc, informals etc were entertaining. One of the first things that struck me on seeing their campus was its empty vastness and relatively dead atmosphere as compared to the craziness IITD is during Rendezvous. The place is too huge, and everything is far from everything else. One can't help but feel that on normal days, and with such little distractions (relative to us, of course) what would people do there but study? :P On another note, the campus is so beautiful and romantic, and there are such few girls there!!! What a waste :P
The second thing was how most of the people we saw there, the guests, basically, were so over-dressed. I mean not just the girls but even a lot of guys. People wore funny hats, too much makeup,red and orange pants, short skirts with kurtis, random colour combinations, all kinds of jewellery and accesories, night gaudy dresses in the day and waht not. It got so obnoxious at times I wondered if we had come to Lakme Fashion week or something. :P We even designed a new gesture to indicate the over dressed thing, and that ended up being another private joke.
We ended up winning plenty of things, despite a lot of alleged biases and fraud by the IITK people in several instances. Group dance got second, Choreography got first, Fine arts won a position in nearly everything there was, while almost the same was true for English Literary, debating and quiz events too. Hindi people did well as well, so overall IITD had a good show. I won a debate and a couple of other events. Met old friends as well and enjoyed myself a lot. The crazy things included lots of funny nothings, esp when Moti "touched" a girl. :P
In the finale, however, Kanpur stole the show by declaring no prize money at all and giving us Classmate registers and notepad...yes a couple of small thin notebooks for winning those events!!! That was like the ultimate studapa I've ever seen.
IITK, come back to Rendezvous next year. We're not forgetting anything. ;)
So on thursday, a few hours before we were supposed to leave, the bomb is dropped that IIT wants us to go in two buses, travelling 12 hours overnight, and that too UP Roadways buses (which weren;t even funded by IIT). The eternal question: to go or not to go, surfaced again, with the six of us clear on only one thing : either everyone goes or no one. And then, practical inconveniences were defeated by a hope of fun and relaxed company, the adventure that the trip promised to be, and there we were, on the bus, on way to Kanpur! Personally, it was the first trip I was going on after coming back from Sweden which was really really long ago, and the break was much needed.
The bus trip was a story in itself. I can almost never sleep while travelling, including flights. So I was up all night, and at least another three of us. All sorts of bakaiti, jokes and stories resulted, and by morning I was so high on insomnia and masti that all I could do was laugh like drugged. :P In between came Gaurav's special A1 thalis that he plans to open as a business venture (nutritious isn't it, Gaurav?), Udit's dedications to the 'dictionary', Rohan's antics and Doc's misplaced silences. By the team we reached IITK, the village, we were geared up for an adventure, albeit mundane things like getting registered and finding an acco ate up some time. High on attitude hospitality volunteers proved to be as entertaining as some of the low on IQ organisers. The concept of most of the events was good but the organisation, handling and in some cases the quality left a lot to be desired. Basically it can all be put down to a lack of experience, and the innovation and fun factor was highly laudable. Here in delhi, it's almost exactly the reverse. The competitive spirit is so highly ingrained that tried and tested wins over experimentation too often, and while efficiency and meticulour organisation are our traits, somewhere down the line we are missing out on the fun portion by not introducing much innovation. The bloody gory fight for the trophies has bred a generation of point savvy cultural secretaries and practice-crazy reps. Someone needs to start breaking the circle.
So over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we basically did loads of crazy things in between rushing from one event to another and pulling each others' legs. IITK had Poets of the Fall and Atif Aslam for the two big nights, none of which I really saw, but some of the other events such as dances, disc, informals etc were entertaining. One of the first things that struck me on seeing their campus was its empty vastness and relatively dead atmosphere as compared to the craziness IITD is during Rendezvous. The place is too huge, and everything is far from everything else. One can't help but feel that on normal days, and with such little distractions (relative to us, of course) what would people do there but study? :P On another note, the campus is so beautiful and romantic, and there are such few girls there!!! What a waste :P
The second thing was how most of the people we saw there, the guests, basically, were so over-dressed. I mean not just the girls but even a lot of guys. People wore funny hats, too much makeup,red and orange pants, short skirts with kurtis, random colour combinations, all kinds of jewellery and accesories, night gaudy dresses in the day and waht not. It got so obnoxious at times I wondered if we had come to Lakme Fashion week or something. :P We even designed a new gesture to indicate the over dressed thing, and that ended up being another private joke.
We ended up winning plenty of things, despite a lot of alleged biases and fraud by the IITK people in several instances. Group dance got second, Choreography got first, Fine arts won a position in nearly everything there was, while almost the same was true for English Literary, debating and quiz events too. Hindi people did well as well, so overall IITD had a good show. I won a debate and a couple of other events. Met old friends as well and enjoyed myself a lot. The crazy things included lots of funny nothings, esp when Moti "touched" a girl. :P
In the finale, however, Kanpur stole the show by declaring no prize money at all and giving us Classmate registers and notepad...yes a couple of small thin notebooks for winning those events!!! That was like the ultimate studapa I've ever seen.
IITK, come back to Rendezvous next year. We're not forgetting anything. ;)
16 comments:
:O K pulled that off ...lol
they are getting meaner :P congrats for your wins though :)
I thorougly enjoyed reading dis...makes we wish....ah forget it..
lets toast to gud times ;)
Lemme go and ask moti about this 'touching' incident. Thanks for the info :D
"We even designed a new gesture..."
Really? You designed a gesture! Wow. Now that's what I call gaudy Indian, wait... Delhi, no... IIT Delhi English. Awesome dude/dudette.
[catalyst]
We had a :O look too. But mast studapa tha yar...notebooks and drawing copies. Lol!
Thanks waise
[the fake engineer]
good times indeed. Cheers. As one of my friends put it, it's all a memory collection exercise.
[sahil]
:D
Good luck!
[anon]
Oh cmon.."dude/dudette"...don;t take everything literally. Ok not designed, just devised/named watever. We were in a dumb-c mode then anyway, so it just came along. You get the underlying point, dont you ? :)
nice account!
ah and really liked the part where u described the dressing sense of the Kanpur-ites, I agree with it, and maybe the boys and girls (which were not from IITK) overdressed as they were going to "IITK"
It is a lot different from Rendezvous, infact a lot of excitement in Rendezvous is because of the DU crowd, the absence of any such crowd in Kanpur makes it a little dull....
Shantanu
You wont forget huh?
So anything IITK guys win they would get the neatly preserved note pads back?
That would be hilarious...
How symbolic of them to give you notebooks! They have made a silent and subtle statement. As I see it, by sending you back with notebooks, IITK has proclaimed itself to be the mother of all institutes and has demonstrated as its desire, to send deviant institutes like IITD back to school with all the necessary things, such as notebooks, in order. :P
Waise, tum keh deti, ki no one in IITD uses notebooks any longer, we make notes in lectures and otherwise only on laptops :P :P :P
Nice description. You seem to have a good time! And its really stupid to give out notebooks!
:)
dropped by after a while.. delightful as ever.. :) :)
And i really thought I was in your blog roll? :|
[shantanu]
Overdressing seemed to be epidemic, although there were plenty of delhi and non-kanpur teams. On my part I put it down to over excitement for the fest and the presence of dancers(as almost every college had sent a dance team if no one else) around :P
[pricky]
Oh you wait and watch. We're gonna give them watever we got plus one big extra notebook maybe framed and neatly wrapped. :P
[taps]
Much needed break, trust me!
[vibhav]
Rofl. Really profound and interesting insight. Love it. Though i still doubt if K people have that much brain. They may be nerdos all, but funde lagane mein to fight hai. Fourth year mein aake notebooks ka bhi koi kya kare. Deviant or no, preachy people need to be paid back in their own currency.
[canary]
And you are! always were. Look carefully. The thing is, the huge blog list in the side bar is arranged more or less in the alphabetical order of the url of the blog, that should help u locate thyself. You're on my reading list madam :D
Aah, good ol' IITK! This account brings back memories of my trip there a couple of years back. I actually planned to drop by this time with an IITK batchmate here, but the plan fizzled out in less than 5 minutes.
Which was a good thing in hindsight - who wants registers for prizes?
Interestingly enough, I have that issue with not being able to sleep while traveling too. In fact, during the trip to Antaragni 2005, I couldn't sleep for close to 50 hours (and then fell asleep during a quiz).
[captain subtext]
As Gaurav mentioned all through, the trip was meant basically to create memories for us, and the registers helped tremendously that way:)
The last non-comp edlc hosted, this monday, was almost entirely dedicated to this, and it was fun.
I managed not sleeping for about 42 hours before getting a 7 hour comfortable stint, but i guess it's not that big a deal. The fun part was getting high on insomnia and masti and laughing like crazy.
(We hav a lot of freaky things matching, eeks!!)
aha Looks like you have the same stereotypes as everyone. As an IIT Kanpurite myself, I know for a fact that its not all studies here. And after you pass out , its more of an IIT identity than an iitd or iitk thingie.
Oh cmon...that was a deliberate comment...notice the ":P" more like a refrain, obviously i know better than to say all iitkians are maggu. I've some very good frinds there myself. You guys probably have slightly fewer distratcions than we do but at the end of the day we are all iitians, and the same generation. Realise the momentary frustation in he post :)
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