Believe me.. Angels and Demons - The Movie is seriously good.Its greatest strenght is the insertion of Fiction into Facts.(like Hey Ram - Biography and Fiction.)
One has to understand that the beauty of any great book can never be captured as such on screen.It is an inherent limitation and nothing can be done about it.The book is always more riveting , more interesting because it leaves us with our own imaginations. However , while it is being made as a film , its done from one man's perspective ( The Director). Indeed, The most interesting part of watching these book - adapted movies are the situations when your view and the director's interpretation clash.(My personal opinion , Da Vinci Code was a great film , people never understood it and hence never liked it)
After reading this book A & D ( around 2 years back) , I for one thought that this book can never be made as a film simply because the entire movie is based at Vatican and certainly the Catholics would not grant permission.For me personally , making such a film is in itself a great achievement. Why bother about the minor defects?
Some Great Scenes in the Movie
a)The Antimatter Explosion
If one watches closely , all the 7 major colors come out during that scene.The amount of energy released is beautifully captured.A Visual treat.
b) The Making of the Antimatter
10 pages in the book is made into 1 minute video.It is great work because there has been no compromises made on the scientific explanation of the antimatter.
c) Archives Library ( Lack of Oxygen).
Ron Howard has added the humour quotient at the last part of the scene to make it more interesting. The breaking of the bullet proof glass is excellently captured and the guard's performance in this scene is nothing but great.
d) The Entire Papal Election Scenes
These scenes are simply the best.The process of electing a pope is so well captured. For once you get to see what happens inside the 'conclave'.Truly awesome!
e) Rome , Vatican City and the St Peter's Church
I'll never get a chance to be in Rome or Vatican.. All I can do is to watch this movie and nothing else.The way the city and the church is captured is mind blowing.
Special Point
Believe it or not ! There is no romance between the lead characters !. No unnecessary time wasted.In all these 10 years of watching cinema, its only the second time that I have a seen a movie in which there is no 'Love' involved.(The first film I Saw was the Bicycle Thief)!. Ya you are right.. I am in love with the film because the film is sans love.!!
Slight Deviation from the book is apparent in the movie.
a)In the book the lead characters engage in romance.
b)Robert Langdon does not go to CERN , he comes directly to Vatican instead.
c)The Super Fast Plane is not shown.! That was a dampener!
d)The ASSASSIN is a bespectacled 'nice' man.Quite unlikely in the book where he is a real terror.Another BIG Dampener!
e) The Carmelango goes alone in the CHOPPER. In the book , however he is accompanied by Robert Langdon.
If you have not seen the film , go right now..
Do not believe what the reviewers say and give this movie a skip. Always remember Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder!
Angels and Demons - YOU BEAUTY !
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The SPARK UNPLUGGED !
There are some moments in life you love being a sadist , more so if you become the architect (in this case unintentional)of the sufferings of the party affected. Certainly I do not regret being part of one such 'mischief' , the result of which blew up to immense proportions that I could not have imagined in my wildest of dreams.It happened during my class 12.
There were two factions within the science group( of course without any ideology). On one side was the 'White pig'(hereinafter referred as WP), 'Bombay brought up'(hereinafter referred to as BBP) and Najafgarh boy(hereinafter referred to as NB). The other side had 'Bad No Marks Jokee' (herinafter referred to as BNMJ)' , 'peter drucker(hereinafter referred to as PD)' , 'Deep Mud( herinafter referred to as DM)' Etc etc..
It had been common knowledge that 'WP' and 'BBU' had an affair which came to light by their 'Joint Account' at the 'Bhai shop'. Bhai sold items on debt to students. So if you buy cool drinks with 'Bhai' on debt , he would promptly note it down in his diary against your name column. He would tolerate upto 2 weeks of non payment or Rs 100 whichever was earlier.
We easily knew who had crush on whom by simply checking out which boy cleared the debt for which girl and vice versa. However 'WP' and 'BBU' went a step ahead and created a joint account.Oh what innovation!. Both of them could buy stuff from a single account and both of them could settle the debt to that 'account'.An open proclamation of their relationship indeed.
I guess 'BNMS' had a crush on 'BBU' which caused a rift between 'WP' and 'BNMS' who earlier where close friends.It in the end proved out to be the EP( remember oram po)friendship. I am not exactly sure of the root cause of the problem between those two camps but 'we' made sure that they did not patch up their differences in the future.How sadistic !.
The 'commerce' group is generally given a step motherly treatment in schools.In our case to add to the 'step moms' , we had irritants in the form of students of 'science' group and especially the Computer science group. They did what exactly Manthara did to Kaikeyi. We had been patient enough.It had to burst.
It happened on a fateful afternoon outside the school campus in the parking lot.We managed to sneak out after a test at school. I still remember a 'gang' of six standing around a motorbike and discussing plans to do something mischievous. It was Myself, Rama , Shravan , R , Vinoth and Kumar having round 'bike' conference. The 'board' passed a resolution of removing the 'spark plug' from 'WP''s vehicle. It was Rama who had to remove the spark plug and R had to Watch out . Others had a tough job of keeping quiet.
Rama did it without any fuss.We dispersed.
.
.
.
'WP' came out of school around 3 PM. She tried starting her TVS Champ for twenty minutes before deciding to drag it to the mechanic shop situated 2 Kms away . I suppose the mechanic told her that it was a clear case of 'sabotage'(for she had no brains).
It all started there. 'WP' thought it was done by the other 'camp'. The other camp were annoyed. Each camp arranged for a 'Goonda' group. There were enormous amount of money spent.If any individual of any camp was caught alone , he or she would be hurt to such an extent that they would not be able write the Board Exams. Each day there would be atleast 3 persons who would do an 'Erik Solheim' and be unsuccessful.
The tension within those two camps was entertaining to the core.The joy of watching them clashing with each other gave us immense pleasure. 'DM' was severely injured in one of the 'battles' and police had come to school and started investigating. The clashes died down a bit during exams and I heard from someone that the Fight is still on!.
Maybe this is what they call as the 'butterfly effect'. A simple act of removing the spark plug caused a huge chaos. All these years , our act has remained a secret. None except the six of us know about it. Here I am posting about it hoping that the two camps never read it.
There were two factions within the science group( of course without any ideology). On one side was the 'White pig'(hereinafter referred as WP), 'Bombay brought up'(hereinafter referred to as BBP) and Najafgarh boy(hereinafter referred to as NB). The other side had 'Bad No Marks Jokee' (herinafter referred to as BNMJ)' , 'peter drucker(hereinafter referred to as PD)' , 'Deep Mud( herinafter referred to as DM)' Etc etc..
It had been common knowledge that 'WP' and 'BBU' had an affair which came to light by their 'Joint Account' at the 'Bhai shop'. Bhai sold items on debt to students. So if you buy cool drinks with 'Bhai' on debt , he would promptly note it down in his diary against your name column. He would tolerate upto 2 weeks of non payment or Rs 100 whichever was earlier.
We easily knew who had crush on whom by simply checking out which boy cleared the debt for which girl and vice versa. However 'WP' and 'BBU' went a step ahead and created a joint account.Oh what innovation!. Both of them could buy stuff from a single account and both of them could settle the debt to that 'account'.An open proclamation of their relationship indeed.
I guess 'BNMS' had a crush on 'BBU' which caused a rift between 'WP' and 'BNMS' who earlier where close friends.It in the end proved out to be the EP( remember oram po)friendship. I am not exactly sure of the root cause of the problem between those two camps but 'we' made sure that they did not patch up their differences in the future.How sadistic !.
The 'commerce' group is generally given a step motherly treatment in schools.In our case to add to the 'step moms' , we had irritants in the form of students of 'science' group and especially the Computer science group. They did what exactly Manthara did to Kaikeyi. We had been patient enough.It had to burst.
It happened on a fateful afternoon outside the school campus in the parking lot.We managed to sneak out after a test at school. I still remember a 'gang' of six standing around a motorbike and discussing plans to do something mischievous. It was Myself, Rama , Shravan , R , Vinoth and Kumar having round 'bike' conference. The 'board' passed a resolution of removing the 'spark plug' from 'WP''s vehicle. It was Rama who had to remove the spark plug and R had to Watch out . Others had a tough job of keeping quiet.
Rama did it without any fuss.We dispersed.
.
.
.
'WP' came out of school around 3 PM. She tried starting her TVS Champ for twenty minutes before deciding to drag it to the mechanic shop situated 2 Kms away . I suppose the mechanic told her that it was a clear case of 'sabotage'(for she had no brains).
It all started there. 'WP' thought it was done by the other 'camp'. The other camp were annoyed. Each camp arranged for a 'Goonda' group. There were enormous amount of money spent.If any individual of any camp was caught alone , he or she would be hurt to such an extent that they would not be able write the Board Exams. Each day there would be atleast 3 persons who would do an 'Erik Solheim' and be unsuccessful.
The tension within those two camps was entertaining to the core.The joy of watching them clashing with each other gave us immense pleasure. 'DM' was severely injured in one of the 'battles' and police had come to school and started investigating. The clashes died down a bit during exams and I heard from someone that the Fight is still on!.
Maybe this is what they call as the 'butterfly effect'. A simple act of removing the spark plug caused a huge chaos. All these years , our act has remained a secret. None except the six of us know about it. Here I am posting about it hoping that the two camps never read it.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Oops..
Tomorrow was February 14.
He laughed to himself feeling a twang of a much deserved victory. “HA!” he added, for that extra punch. And so he read.The feeling of victory came down a few notches with every broken rhyme and unfinished thought. There were nearly 25 crumpled sheets in the waste paper bin.And late in the night finally he emptied the bin only to refill it with the sheets in which his handwriting was better. He finally had done it.
The 'learned' Brahmin looked down at the final fruit of his effort – 10 pages of the Devanagiri script. She had stressed it to be handwritten .Oh how she would love it!, he thought.She was the only reason that he was living. He loved her a lot. She was a damsel.
He slept with such satisfaction of having done something so utterly beautiful for someone who mattered so much to him. Tomorrow, he had to give it to her....
.
.
.
.
Early morning she dashed into his bed room ; hoping to find it there .
She looked at him. Asleep, with his legs awkwardly sprawled across the bed. How much more imperfect can one get, she mused. How she hated his dressing sense.She looked at the crumpled sheets of paper in the dustbin.She then looked at the papers on the bed neatly folded .She picked it up.She read it.She was not impressed.
.
.
And...
.
.
She left before he woke up.
.
.
.
.
When he woke up , he saw that the papers that were kept beside him were missing. A sense of happiness engulfed him.
It was around 8 when he walked to the kitchen to grab a bite before he left for work. As he walked to the refrigerator to get some bread, something on the kitchen counter caught his eye. It was a plate. With a simple sandwich. “Wow! Breakfast! Since when did this happen?!” And below the plate was a note.
It read simply, “You should make your promises more carefully the next time. I know the sandwich is a little stale; I made it at 5 in the morning while you were snoring away like a pig. I’m just being nice to you today because you took efforts to write something..Did I not say to you that it had to be really good. Neway that was a big ask from you."
"I think I'll be just able to manage a 4 on 10 in my internals with this piece of 'you know what'!.I'll never delegate my homework and assignments to you again Dad !"
He had to admit at last.
The Sanskrit essay on love was really Bad.
He laughed to himself feeling a twang of a much deserved victory. “HA!” he added, for that extra punch. And so he read.The feeling of victory came down a few notches with every broken rhyme and unfinished thought. There were nearly 25 crumpled sheets in the waste paper bin.And late in the night finally he emptied the bin only to refill it with the sheets in which his handwriting was better. He finally had done it.
The 'learned' Brahmin looked down at the final fruit of his effort – 10 pages of the Devanagiri script. She had stressed it to be handwritten .Oh how she would love it!, he thought.She was the only reason that he was living. He loved her a lot. She was a damsel.
He slept with such satisfaction of having done something so utterly beautiful for someone who mattered so much to him. Tomorrow, he had to give it to her....
.
.
.
.
Early morning she dashed into his bed room ; hoping to find it there .
She looked at him. Asleep, with his legs awkwardly sprawled across the bed. How much more imperfect can one get, she mused. How she hated his dressing sense.She looked at the crumpled sheets of paper in the dustbin.She then looked at the papers on the bed neatly folded .She picked it up.She read it.She was not impressed.
.
.
And...
.
.
She left before he woke up.
.
.
.
.
When he woke up , he saw that the papers that were kept beside him were missing. A sense of happiness engulfed him.
It was around 8 when he walked to the kitchen to grab a bite before he left for work. As he walked to the refrigerator to get some bread, something on the kitchen counter caught his eye. It was a plate. With a simple sandwich. “Wow! Breakfast! Since when did this happen?!” And below the plate was a note.
It read simply, “You should make your promises more carefully the next time. I know the sandwich is a little stale; I made it at 5 in the morning while you were snoring away like a pig. I’m just being nice to you today because you took efforts to write something..Did I not say to you that it had to be really good. Neway that was a big ask from you."
"I think I'll be just able to manage a 4 on 10 in my internals with this piece of 'you know what'!.I'll never delegate my homework and assignments to you again Dad !"
He had to admit at last.
The Sanskrit essay on love was really Bad.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Kamal Hassan and Sundararaman can't Vote !
Kamal Can't Vote... Rajinik(C)an(')t Votes...(ideally the latter should not have been allowed to vote). Its a real pity that a great thinker and creative person like Kamal Hassan is not being allowed to vote..His name is not in the voter's list.His home at Luz Church Road is listed as a godown in Corporation database.!!
The similar thing happened to me(may be coz I am a Devotee of Kamal).My name has been removed from the Voter List!!. I voted from the same booth last time for the assembly elections.!!. After some heated argument with the poll observers at the polling station, I had to surrender to the inefficiency and Red tapism of the Election Commission of India. What really hurt me was the fact that in the voter's list , I saw the name of my Neighbour who died 5 years back!!. Here I am alive and not eligible to vote in spite of possessing a Valid Voter's ID card.( I must have been allowed to vote at least for keeping that pathetic card safe for the past three and a half years).
Coming to the next issue... I am totally agitated by the way some of the 'educated' vote in this country.One of them I spoke with Said 'I will vote for the winning Horse'. Is this an election or something else?. People here vote for the opposition which is the strongest.They do the negative voting.They do not vote for the person they like but vote for the opponent of the person they do not like. They do so for reasons like Vote splits. All I ask them is why think too much?.Democracy is voting for whom you like.
If there is a vote split , let it be. Its a clear case of Democracy being misunderstood.
I am still not able to get over the anger and disappointment of not able to vote this time.As a Tax payer of this country ( well I pay Indirect Taxes!) I should have got an opportunity to Vote. By Not giving opportunity to Sundararaman and Kamal Hassan , the country has made a big mistake.
On a lighter note , this has once again proved that Kamal and Me are very much similar.(Saying this to myself has been the only consolation for getting over the anger and disappointment of not able to Vote!).
The similar thing happened to me(may be coz I am a Devotee of Kamal).My name has been removed from the Voter List!!. I voted from the same booth last time for the assembly elections.!!. After some heated argument with the poll observers at the polling station, I had to surrender to the inefficiency and Red tapism of the Election Commission of India. What really hurt me was the fact that in the voter's list , I saw the name of my Neighbour who died 5 years back!!. Here I am alive and not eligible to vote in spite of possessing a Valid Voter's ID card.( I must have been allowed to vote at least for keeping that pathetic card safe for the past three and a half years).
Coming to the next issue... I am totally agitated by the way some of the 'educated' vote in this country.One of them I spoke with Said 'I will vote for the winning Horse'. Is this an election or something else?. People here vote for the opposition which is the strongest.They do the negative voting.They do not vote for the person they like but vote for the opponent of the person they do not like. They do so for reasons like Vote splits. All I ask them is why think too much?.Democracy is voting for whom you like.
If there is a vote split , let it be. Its a clear case of Democracy being misunderstood.
I am still not able to get over the anger and disappointment of not able to vote this time.As a Tax payer of this country ( well I pay Indirect Taxes!) I should have got an opportunity to Vote. By Not giving opportunity to Sundararaman and Kamal Hassan , the country has made a big mistake.
On a lighter note , this has once again proved that Kamal and Me are very much similar.(Saying this to myself has been the only consolation for getting over the anger and disappointment of not able to Vote!).
Sunday, May 03, 2009
My Cultural Past
Those were the happiest days of my life. My College days and more particularly the Cultural days.
I entered Vivekananda College without any expectations of cultural events. 'Modern School' (where I did my Senior Secondary) ironical to its name had no cultural events. It had been total opposite to the school I studied ( sorry.. Went) till class X.
Other colleges conducted culturals regularly and we received invitations.The seniors in the college selected the teams. There were no Intra College events. Some juniors did get the nod but there were no proper mechanism to select teams that would represent the college. The first year went by.
Due to my poor marks in the plus 2 board exams , I had to take B.Com Corporate Secretaryship as I did not get the B.Com General Seat. I had often heard that the BCS department in a college received step motherly treatment. It had been no different. whatever I heard was true.However there was a surprise in the second year.
In the second year , entered Mr P.C.(HOD - BCS). He brought about a real change.He organized a BCS committee. The Structure of the committee was fantastic. It consisted of a Department Secretary and various other committees headed and managed by the students themselves. I was part of the editorial committee. We were in charge of bringing out a magazine. It never happened (thanks to our swamiji - Rector of out college.)There was this organizing committee that was to organize intra department cultural events every week and it was decided that the winners were to represent the college at other cultural events.The best thing about this committee was the fact that there was a lot of interaction between the seniors and the juniors.
This was a huge success.I got my chance to represent the college at other cultural events. I still remember my first cultural appearance at Ethiraj College. It was one of their department fest. I participated in 'Crossword' and 'Debug' with Roshit and won the First and Second places respectively. I then participated at creative writing and again won the second prize. To win at my first cultural appearance gave me tremendous confidence. We came overall second at that fest with Stella Maris winning the overall trophy.
3 months later , there came another cultural event at Ethiraj. This was much bigger to the previous one. I will never forget this culturals because we won an event that we were considered to be the poorest.This was Adzap. I can never forget the cheers and applause for our rebuttal session with the judge that day.There entered Kaushik Ganesh, my junior ( who sadly discontinued college after clearing CPT)whose performance that day I can never forget.. This was the culturals which was special to me as it was where won a 'Case-Study' event with a special appreciation from the judge.
A poor season followed. I wasn't winning. The comeback of sorts happened at Madras Christian College. I came second in Stock wars. That was it. My only win for the whole semester. However our college team had become a force to reckon with for the other teams that year. We were increasingly making our presence felt. We came Second in "Deep Woods'(MCC's annual Culturals) that year losing to ethiraj by a small margin. Skit,Street play,ad designing,quiz, you name it we were there.
In the third year , I became the cultural secretary for the department.
I was to decide the teams that would represent the college.I was trying to please everyone with my choice of teams and I think I succeeded.My strategy was very simple. I would send juniors to 'Attu' college culturals such as 'MGR Janaki', 'WCC' etc and retained 'Stella Maris', 'MOP' for the seniors. Thankfully the juniors were not complaining.
On a personal front , the third year was my best. I won every competition I entered.
One of the best came at MOP Vaishnav.It was the event called 'Event Management' named as 'preba gestion'.We had to submit a plan for a Mega Indian cultural event happening outside India. We put our sincere efforts in it and created a PPT and presented it to the judges who were spellbound by it. The other teams were no match to it. We won it. It was my first win as the cultural secretary. The Judges that day were professional event managers. They gave their visiting cards to us and if interested asked us to join them in any of their projects. It was a professional performance from us.
Vismith and myself started winning consistently from then on. We won almost all paper presentation events.My juniors Karthik(JAM) and Srivatsan Hari (For any event) also started winning consistently. Nash and Mahendra were terrific actors. We used 'Amullu' to add 'glamour'.They became the mainstay for onstage events.I was part of the Adzap team not because of my 'acting' ability but for my 'Mokkais' and most importantly for the Rebuttal sessions. We were winning everything.(Coming Second among 26 participants at ethiraj in Adzap is worth mentioning). Arvind, Sunder(there were three Sundar's in my class),Kumaran and Surya won almost all art events.
We were winning alright. However the overall trophy was still eluding us though not for long.
Loyala college culturals clashed with Stella Maris's Culturals during over third year. As we had 'seen' lots of Stella Maris and bored to death, I preferred participating at Loyola. This proved to be a great strategic move. Most good teams opted for Stella for obvious reasons and gave Loyola a miss. We (being intelligent)went to Loyola.
The first day was Loyola's morning college culturals. It was a dream day for us. We won every event that we participated. It was one of 'those' days. The quiz that day was simply amazing. It was simply the best quiz contest that I had attended for a long long time (in terms of quality of questions asked ). Myself , Aravind and Vismith came first in the prelims. I almost knew all the answers that day. The Finals was thrilling to the core. We were getting it right almost.The quiz was won by Stella Girls(who gave their own culturals a miss). We came second in the thrilling last round.( thanks to Vismith's guess.. lol.. he never knew it , the answer just came out of his mouth.)
The day was even more special to me as I won one more event . The event was 'Loan sanctioning'.The timings for the quiz prelims and this event clashed. I was itching to go to quiz prelims and I volunteered myself to be the first person who would approach the 'Banker' and approach for loan. Shravan was also participating in that event. I spoke first and then ran off for quiz prelims. The results were announced in the Main Hall and I was surprised that I came first because my speech was pathetic . Even more surprised was Shravan. Honestly , that was an event I should not have won . However as luck would have it I won it.
But we did not win the overalls that day. That hurt.
The best part came the next day. It was the evening college culturals of Loyala. There were three events and then a final event . It was progressive , If we won the first event , we would move to the next event and so on. Each college team consisted of Six persons. Our team was Myself,Roshit,Vismith,Mahendra, Aravind and Shravan.
The first event was academically related. So wisely I sent Shravan and Mahendra.They won it. We progressed. The Second event was aptitude test. We sent Roshit and Vismith.They won it . We again progressed. The third event was Quiz which myself and Aravind breezed through comfortably .( unlike the previous day , the questions were dumb). The Icing on the cake was the fact that we beat the Stella team that beat us the previous day. The final event was some talking event.Vismith blabbered something and came second in that event. Three first prizes and one second prize meant we won the overalls and also a hefty cash prize and a nice trophy.We had finally won an overalls trophy beating the filthy brats from Stella.Those two days at Loyola college are unforgettable days.
Perhaps my only disappointment of being the 'Cultural Secretary' was my inability to conduct a cultural event at Viveka. It was in the final semester that I cleared PE-2 and joined articleship. I was not able to devote time and do justice to my position. I could not carry both simultaneously.No one else from my department took it seriously. It just could not happen.
I heard that the culturals were conducted this year by my juniors. I am happy that they are reaping the fruits for the seed that our team sowed.
P.S.
--> You may think after reading this post that I have been blowing trumpets about my achievements.In a way I also feel it is true.
I would like to offer my explanations.
--> I will be the last one to proclaim myself to be the greatest.
--> At most culturals I have been lucky.
--> My list of participating certificates are greater than the prize winning ones. I have lost lots and lots of events.
--> My comfort zone is being modest.I must admit I have been outside my comfort zone while posting this particular blog.
Still I blogged about it because:-
1.Those were the moments in my life I was very happy and was enjoying every bit of it.
2.Such moments have been rare.
3.I want to treasure them somewhere where I can look back and feel happy about.
5.The greatest happiness comes by Nostalgia.Its like those master card ads. PRICELESS !
P.S for P.S ->>The intentional omitting of point 4 may please be ignored.
I entered Vivekananda College without any expectations of cultural events. 'Modern School' (where I did my Senior Secondary) ironical to its name had no cultural events. It had been total opposite to the school I studied ( sorry.. Went) till class X.
Other colleges conducted culturals regularly and we received invitations.The seniors in the college selected the teams. There were no Intra College events. Some juniors did get the nod but there were no proper mechanism to select teams that would represent the college. The first year went by.
Due to my poor marks in the plus 2 board exams , I had to take B.Com Corporate Secretaryship as I did not get the B.Com General Seat. I had often heard that the BCS department in a college received step motherly treatment. It had been no different. whatever I heard was true.However there was a surprise in the second year.
In the second year , entered Mr P.C.(HOD - BCS). He brought about a real change.He organized a BCS committee. The Structure of the committee was fantastic. It consisted of a Department Secretary and various other committees headed and managed by the students themselves. I was part of the editorial committee. We were in charge of bringing out a magazine. It never happened (thanks to our swamiji - Rector of out college.)There was this organizing committee that was to organize intra department cultural events every week and it was decided that the winners were to represent the college at other cultural events.The best thing about this committee was the fact that there was a lot of interaction between the seniors and the juniors.
This was a huge success.I got my chance to represent the college at other cultural events. I still remember my first cultural appearance at Ethiraj College. It was one of their department fest. I participated in 'Crossword' and 'Debug' with Roshit and won the First and Second places respectively. I then participated at creative writing and again won the second prize. To win at my first cultural appearance gave me tremendous confidence. We came overall second at that fest with Stella Maris winning the overall trophy.
3 months later , there came another cultural event at Ethiraj. This was much bigger to the previous one. I will never forget this culturals because we won an event that we were considered to be the poorest.This was Adzap. I can never forget the cheers and applause for our rebuttal session with the judge that day.There entered Kaushik Ganesh, my junior ( who sadly discontinued college after clearing CPT)whose performance that day I can never forget.. This was the culturals which was special to me as it was where won a 'Case-Study' event with a special appreciation from the judge.
A poor season followed. I wasn't winning. The comeback of sorts happened at Madras Christian College. I came second in Stock wars. That was it. My only win for the whole semester. However our college team had become a force to reckon with for the other teams that year. We were increasingly making our presence felt. We came Second in "Deep Woods'(MCC's annual Culturals) that year losing to ethiraj by a small margin. Skit,Street play,ad designing,quiz, you name it we were there.
In the third year , I became the cultural secretary for the department.
I was to decide the teams that would represent the college.I was trying to please everyone with my choice of teams and I think I succeeded.My strategy was very simple. I would send juniors to 'Attu' college culturals such as 'MGR Janaki', 'WCC' etc and retained 'Stella Maris', 'MOP' for the seniors. Thankfully the juniors were not complaining.
On a personal front , the third year was my best. I won every competition I entered.
One of the best came at MOP Vaishnav.It was the event called 'Event Management' named as 'preba gestion'.We had to submit a plan for a Mega Indian cultural event happening outside India. We put our sincere efforts in it and created a PPT and presented it to the judges who were spellbound by it. The other teams were no match to it. We won it. It was my first win as the cultural secretary. The Judges that day were professional event managers. They gave their visiting cards to us and if interested asked us to join them in any of their projects. It was a professional performance from us.
Vismith and myself started winning consistently from then on. We won almost all paper presentation events.My juniors Karthik(JAM) and Srivatsan Hari (For any event) also started winning consistently. Nash and Mahendra were terrific actors. We used 'Amullu' to add 'glamour'.They became the mainstay for onstage events.I was part of the Adzap team not because of my 'acting' ability but for my 'Mokkais' and most importantly for the Rebuttal sessions. We were winning everything.(Coming Second among 26 participants at ethiraj in Adzap is worth mentioning). Arvind, Sunder(there were three Sundar's in my class),Kumaran and Surya won almost all art events.
We were winning alright. However the overall trophy was still eluding us though not for long.
Loyala college culturals clashed with Stella Maris's Culturals during over third year. As we had 'seen' lots of Stella Maris and bored to death, I preferred participating at Loyola. This proved to be a great strategic move. Most good teams opted for Stella for obvious reasons and gave Loyola a miss. We (being intelligent)went to Loyola.
The first day was Loyola's morning college culturals. It was a dream day for us. We won every event that we participated. It was one of 'those' days. The quiz that day was simply amazing. It was simply the best quiz contest that I had attended for a long long time (in terms of quality of questions asked ). Myself , Aravind and Vismith came first in the prelims. I almost knew all the answers that day. The Finals was thrilling to the core. We were getting it right almost.The quiz was won by Stella Girls(who gave their own culturals a miss). We came second in the thrilling last round.( thanks to Vismith's guess.. lol.. he never knew it , the answer just came out of his mouth.)
The day was even more special to me as I won one more event . The event was 'Loan sanctioning'.The timings for the quiz prelims and this event clashed. I was itching to go to quiz prelims and I volunteered myself to be the first person who would approach the 'Banker' and approach for loan. Shravan was also participating in that event. I spoke first and then ran off for quiz prelims. The results were announced in the Main Hall and I was surprised that I came first because my speech was pathetic . Even more surprised was Shravan. Honestly , that was an event I should not have won . However as luck would have it I won it.
But we did not win the overalls that day. That hurt.
The best part came the next day. It was the evening college culturals of Loyala. There were three events and then a final event . It was progressive , If we won the first event , we would move to the next event and so on. Each college team consisted of Six persons. Our team was Myself,Roshit,Vismith,Mahendra, Aravind and Shravan.
The first event was academically related. So wisely I sent Shravan and Mahendra.They won it. We progressed. The Second event was aptitude test. We sent Roshit and Vismith.They won it . We again progressed. The third event was Quiz which myself and Aravind breezed through comfortably .( unlike the previous day , the questions were dumb). The Icing on the cake was the fact that we beat the Stella team that beat us the previous day. The final event was some talking event.Vismith blabbered something and came second in that event. Three first prizes and one second prize meant we won the overalls and also a hefty cash prize and a nice trophy.We had finally won an overalls trophy beating the filthy brats from Stella.Those two days at Loyola college are unforgettable days.
Perhaps my only disappointment of being the 'Cultural Secretary' was my inability to conduct a cultural event at Viveka. It was in the final semester that I cleared PE-2 and joined articleship. I was not able to devote time and do justice to my position. I could not carry both simultaneously.No one else from my department took it seriously. It just could not happen.
I heard that the culturals were conducted this year by my juniors. I am happy that they are reaping the fruits for the seed that our team sowed.
P.S.
--> You may think after reading this post that I have been blowing trumpets about my achievements.In a way I also feel it is true.
I would like to offer my explanations.
--> I will be the last one to proclaim myself to be the greatest.
--> At most culturals I have been lucky.
--> My list of participating certificates are greater than the prize winning ones. I have lost lots and lots of events.
--> My comfort zone is being modest.I must admit I have been outside my comfort zone while posting this particular blog.
Still I blogged about it because:-
1.Those were the moments in my life I was very happy and was enjoying every bit of it.
2.Such moments have been rare.
3.I want to treasure them somewhere where I can look back and feel happy about.
5.The greatest happiness comes by Nostalgia.Its like those master card ads. PRICELESS !
P.S for P.S ->>The intentional omitting of point 4 may please be ignored.
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