We had Onam celebrations at college on a pretty grand scale. I tried something which I would have never dared before in life. Gave a shot at Thiruvatharai kalli. We had lighting of lamp/inaugration by director sir in the morning. Wearing the Onam saree to the class,sharing the responsibility of depetalling flowers, putting pookalam, eating some Onam food items,dancing twice(on popular demand) for Parvanendhu and playing tug-of-war ending up on the winning side were some festive memories that will be cherished. The collection of Onam pictures are uncountable. So many many memories captured..
Our mega responsibility of arranging the freshers' day party was fun. We were aided by friends who helped us really put the show together. The party started with performances from iMtech and then moved on to dance by MTech batch with seniors testing our skills by making their presence felt on stage extempore. The performances were followed by some non-stop music and dance for 3-4 hours. The DJ did a pretty good job and we were all set to celebrate hard, venting out our frustrations on the excessive workload here..The food was special with some yummy delicacies and awesome desserts..
The biggest event I have organized in life,so far, would undoubtedly be Foundation Day. It is one of the milestone events in college celebrated on 15th September every year. Our college was instituted on this day. Preparations began with sitting down with seniors and discussing on things to be done, preparing a schedule, a budget and above all choosing volunteers. An event of this magnitude needed some really dedicated volunteers, so we sent out google doc forms to everyone and got a pretty good response. The next few days were spent on concentrating on minute details, taking care of guest hospitality facilities and assigning tasks for volunteers. 10 days of work had to be potrayed in a span of 2 hours. We had guests from various genres. Dr Bombay Jayashree was one of the big names among the guests of honour. We met the IIITB Chairman for the first time in college that day. We had Prof Ananth, Director of IITM who gave a really inspiring talk.Captain S. Prabhala,Mr N Ravi Shanker,Mrs. Uma Reddy and Mr Virupaxagouda G Patil were the other guests of honour that day. I got an opportunity to anchor the formal event, something that I've always done and would always love doing. After the formal event, we had a short and sweet cultural programme, which everone thoroughly enjoyed. It went on well. The programme was followed by photo shoot session with the guests for SAC members, something that was one of the most special moments of the event. After the snacks, I was asked to accompany Dr Bombay Jayashree to her friend's place after which I could go home. WHile going in the cab with her, I realised why was this lady so special and so repected. Her humility and grace left me awed. Taking her blessings, I was about to leave when she escorted me to the gate. Such was the stature of this musical genius. It was a great experience in putting a show like this, meeting people so motivational and above all working with people from college who help you put up an event like this.The volunteers did an extraordinary job and we managed to have a successful event,yet again. Seeing smiles in the face of the people after an event gives me the highest satisfaction.
Small events like SpicMacay always crop up once in a while. The blood donation camp was a pretty big success with 50 donors and great enthusiasm. Festivals like Janmashtami,Ganesh Chaturthi,Dasara,Diwali came along with small celebrations at the food court. Rajyotsava Day was celebrated magnificently with a series of programmes lined up.There were speeches,games,movies screened, great food spread out during the day. I was also fortunate to be a part of the panel discussion conducted by NDTV titled "Does India respect Science?". The trip to the Infy campus that is a stone throw away, the travel in the golf carts within the campus, interacting and taking a photographs and autographs from Narayan Murthy, Harsha Bhogle,Prof Balaram(IISc Director), Vasundhara Das and Sonia,a student from NCBS, having a sumptuous meal at the Infy campus and getting back to college will be cherished memories.It was a very different and pleasant experience to be there on TV asking a question to such an esteemed panel.
Another memorable experience was the trip to Swanthana as a part of college's Aikyam group. I was very apprehensive about the trip since I had never tried something like this before. There were a lot of thoughts and questions running in my head. On November 18th morning, we were around 15 of us who went to Swanthana. After some yummy breakfast at Maaji Sagar, we boarded a couple of buses to reach Swanthana at Sarjapur Road. We went into a room filled with little girls, each with a disability. A few of them could not even express what they want. There was a group that had come over to serve breakfast for the little girls. We started off petting them, feeding them the food, playing with them etc. Personally, it was a very enriching experience. I started off with feeding a few girls with idli/sambhar. Once they were done with that, Mallika,Tarun and group told us the names of the girls there. We took the kids out on their wheel chairs. There was a girl,extremely naughty and was tied to the bench. Once she untied herself partly and I untied the other, she stuck around with me. She was tagged the "Heroine" there. The spark on her face when I put nail polish for her cannot be expressed in words. After spending some time with them, Tarun showed me the rooms they stay in, the activities they do etc. A few of the drawings done by them were very impressive. There was a girl who was in the incubator and had undergone a surgery recently. It seems she is extremely brilliant.I took a little girl who would hardly be around 9 months into my arms. She had been operated since she had some extra growth in her head. On carrying the kid, I really felt the urge to get her home. What made it even more difficult to part from her was that she refused to go to the others when they tried taking her from me. A few super seniors too joined us there. Once we came out, the super seniors had a ragging session followed by a treat session. We took a few snaps during the treat for memories. We went to Total mall on the way back,had lunch at Adigas and came back singing in the bus.This visit really left an impact on me. A thought of giving back to the society in some way, a thought of being thankful to God for being so blessed.
The next couple of days were filled with enjoyment. There was HP's and Sumit's birthday. The VFS tension was always there somewhere in the head.There were a few treats in between like the seniors on getting placed, Sridhar's on getting scholarship etc. Exam time was nearing. Loads of demos and submissions were on. The project had to be complete. We had a few very long nights spent in completing tasks. The few days in between the enjoyment and exams flew quite fast. The exams came and got over in around four days. The networks and communication paper was a mystery. Nothing of what we really studied actually came and that took all of us by surprise. With two sets of papers with some different questions, luck had a part to play. The next was DB paper. It was interesting to write the paper and was quite like what we expected. The algorithms paper was Greek and Latin to us, but with GNS setting it,that was sort of expected. The last one was JSP. We had a nice time pulling the legs of C++ students who had 4 hours of exam whereas we had just one hour. We thought it would be a cakewalk but I guess we were a little over confident. The JSP paper was a bigger surprise with questions least expected appearing int he paper. But that did not bother us much because what followed was freedom. Or so we thought.
I bid good byes to Preethy who had to catch a train after pulling her out of the exam hall so that she can reach the station on time. That evening we went for Alkas and Ravindras treat. Had a great time free from all tensions at college. The night after that was very very special. The December birthdays had their cake cutting followed by song singing session. The memories of semester end was very special. The next morning I left college to be back home. By the projects did not let that last for long. I had to go to college the next day to do the algorithm project. There were more people leaving that evening to go home. So that meant more send-offs, more visits to the bus-stop. The dinner after those send-offs was quite weird. After sitting on tables with 15-20 people,eating,laughing and pulling each other's leg every time we have food, this time there were 5 on the table, talking but minus the entertainment factor. The next morning, we sat together and did some project work till lunch after which I came back home.
Finally, it's holidays. With JSP project and the algorithm project to do in the holidays, I thought we could manage to have some peace and enjoyment. But midway of the holidays, we get a shocker with OS assignment. By the first look, I could not even understand what we had to do in the assignment. No wonder seniors always warn us saying it's a nightmare. In the beginning of holidays, I put in some work into the home work. But then I sort off took it easy. A hectic life awaits int he second semester. Why not enjoy the holidays by eating,sleeping and facebooking. So that's pretty much how the holidays are going...
A new semester awaits...More work..More stress..But am sure we are going to create more memories at IIITB..
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