Deja Vu!

The last PAF of this year, undoubtedly the best PAF of the year and probably the best in IITB PAF History. The title was Deja Vu and it was probably the first PAF in the history with central theme as IIT. If I were to try and draw a good analogy, Deja Vu was to IIT as Rang De Basanti was to India. Those who have seen it would know what bullshit this blog is in front of the actual PAF. But this blog is to share the PAF with many people who visit my blog but are not a part of the present IITB fraternity.
The list includes a few who lament for not being in IIT, a few who have already passed out from this institute, some fools who missed it for something that in any case would be petty before it, some who just dabble through this litter of mine and my many friends from other IITs. A word of caution: It's going to be long but I'll try my best to make it as interesting & picturesque as possible.

Just to introduce about PAF to the ignorant souls, PAF stands for Performance Arts Festival. These are dramatic shows of huge scale and budget (not very sure but somewhere around 50k) with each PAF organised by 2-4 hostels. PAFs are seen as one of the biggest events at IITB and the hostels which lift the PAF trophy don't leave any opportunity to show their pride and abuse to the losers.
Deja Vu starts with a regular scene of how parents urge their children (in this case, a guy named Sonu) for taking JEE (IITs being one of the most promising institutes in terms of getting a good job and adding to their own reputation). Sonu works hard and faces a lot many expectations from his family, peers, girls and the old. The result finally comes negative and he finds that his parents have given up on him; he also faces insult from others. He just couldn't take it anymore and he commits suicide. The prod work is amazing with OAT (Open Air Theatre) in the centre and the IITB main road in the background.

IIT Main Road and OAT (green coloured structure) in background

The whole scene was carried out by an odd 12-15 people on a continuous and rotational basis; they served both as different characters in different scenes and as the objects of use as and when they come. Only 2 characters (Sonu and his father) were kept constant and the rest exchanged positions as friends, relatives, computer keyboard, gate, seat, questions of JEE paper and what not! The swift rotation of positions and designations was just mind-blowing and was the first hint of a great PAF in its unfolding.

First scene team

Sonu checking his result on internet

Sonu committing suicide

The second sequence is about a guy named Dumdum talking to his own self (heart/soul) about his failure at IIT (3 backlogs, lying to family, lost purpose etc.). Dumdum and Sonu are from the same town/city and it was Dumdum's father who bashes Sonu's father in the first scene when Sonu fails to clear JEE. He is one regular proud father of an IITian and as is in most of the cases, a regular mis-conceived father as well. Dumdum sees many issues with the students, their dreams & goals and thinks of making a PAF on these which his self flatly denies.

Dumdum (right) with his self

This guy is called by his BTP guide and the later sincerely tries to uncover the problems and also offers help to Dumdum for passing his course and BTP. There is a short appearance of a Cracku whom Dumdum hates/is jealous of. The scene shows so simple but so-true thoughts going on in Dumdum's mind when he talks to the Prof and when he sees Cracku. The scene was like a mirror - reflecting the self of almost everyone sitting in the audiences to some or other extent.

Dumdum with BTP Guide

A number of symbolic gyrations were fused into the middle of the PAF showing the guy unable to realize his purpose of existence - credit given to people and society who are but an obstruction in understanding the purpose of his existence and realizing it.

Attempts and failure in reaching the goal

In another scene, character sketches of 2 of his friends are drawn. One of them is a mediocre guy (who claims to share the dream of making big drams one day) whereas the other (Laddoo) is below-average guy (worried on the girlfriend front). The two dramatic dreamers (Dumdum and mediocre guy) have also submitted one of their works to Prithvi Theatre and are waiting for result.

Dumdum with Laddoo (left) and mediocre guy (middle)

The PAF here takes a turn with showing the making of a PAF within the PAF by 4 hostels combined - 1,4,9 & 11 (11 being the girl's hostel). Things like despogiri of an IITian male (and gleams of hope from a PAF with girl's hostel involved) and typical subjects of PAFs (freedom, riots, kingdoms or other contemporary issues) were sarcastically dealt with. And here begins the mockery of the previous PAFs of this year and of the yesteryears as well (they didn't even leave Kasturi - H4's last year's PAF which was universally criticized). Then begins the visualization and script writing of the PAF team – it is about a kingdom with all types of shady people from the king to the aam aadmi.

Conceiving PAF within the PAF

For some minutes, I couldn't understand the relevance of these scenes but later I realized it when our protagonist (Dumdum) turns up and urges these people to consider his script of a solitary & depressed IITian. This idea is unanimously rejected on the basis that who would come and see a PAF about a solitary IITian; it lacks the most important thing - masala.

At this point, I would like to mention Anshul Singhal's (I think the main person behind this PAF) studgiri. While the PAF team was visualizing the scenes of kingdom, they realize that an IITB PAF has to have choreo (dance) sequences and then they visualize having a salsa (sarcastically opposite to the kingdom PAF). A person there actually misses a step and also confuses the nearby couple and requests the sound box to replay the music. Now, I understand that a lot of effort is put into these things but asking for a replay in front of a crowd of 1000s can be nothing short of foolishness. And from nowhere, Singhal jumps into the sound box and shouts impromptu in the mike, "Band karo. Yaar, yeh choreo waale to hameshaa aise bhi puch hi maarte hain. Nikal jaao yahaan se (Stop it. The dance people always fail in performing up to the mark. Get out)." And the choreo junta walked out without it becoming a real puch. In one word, it was God-giri.

The salsa puch that was beautifully avoided

Anyways, our dejected Dumdum comes to his room just to find another source of dejection waiting for him - an XX grade, which means that he'll need to repeat the course next year. The mediocre friend who got a good job on the same day comes. He apologises for not being able to continue dreaming with him any further on the dramatics front (he is like the bakery shop guy of The Alchemist who thinks that he'll go after his dream after he has achieved and accumulated enough for a secured future). Our guy calls Prithivi Theatre to find the last ray of hope lost in the dark - a reject for their work.

Medicore guy gets a job

He pukes his anger and frustration on a freshman who isn't working for PAF as has a quiz the next day. The freshman complains the Authorities resulting in DAC (Disciplinary Action Committee) sitting on Dumdum (on a funny note, DAC is/was called as DISCO in IITD as I learnt from Five Point Someone). The DAC committees are notorious for their ways of handling such cases - the guy sitting in bulb light focus whereas the committee members in the dark (typical police station style) putting pressure on the offender from all sides by non-stop abuse. In the end, Dumdum gets an year of sit-back-at-home punishment, thus delaying his degree by one more year (a year delay already attributed to his 4 backlogs). This acts as the last straw in the camel's back and in all this depression, he decides to commit suicide.

Attempting a suicide

In an amazing turn of events, just as he was about to cut off his nerve on the right hand, his mediocre friend comes in his room and reports that Laddoo has committed suicide by jumping off from the Hostel's roof. In all these convolutions of thoughts and desperation, he continues with the suicide attempt but eventually fails. On the other hand, Laddoo succeeds (or in other words, fails his life).

Mediocre guy informs about Laddoo

Dumdum continuing with the attempt (symbolic)

The next scene is a sharp mockery on the Press who takes up an issue and use it for their own good. It also displays different attitude of people towards such a grave incident - a guy is running for getting some notes xeroxed and doesn't have time to respond, another doesn't want Press to make a story out of it, the third one doesn't know how people can get so depressed and the fourth one tries to give his expert comments as we see in the Fourth Umpire.

IIT Main Gate, Coffee Shack and the Reporter

The scene also showed some amazing Prod-shifting and revealed some mind-boggling Prod work as well. The main road of IIT is smoothly removed from both sides like curtains of a play and lo! We saw a live Coffee Shack (the most active place at IITB) - it was as if they had just removed the complete structure from the actual Coffee Shack site and put it up there at OAT for the PAF Performance.

In the next scene, our failed guy meets a psychiatrist (our Student Councilor) who tries to pacify and assure him of himself through various psychiatric techniques. But Dumdum doesn't feel what she says from within. And then enters our Cracku. Our guy is all :-O to find Cracku too coming for the psychiatrist's help who tells Dumdum that Cracku suffers from some Narcissistic Disorder. And our guy is suddenly all happy - Wow! Even Cracku has problems and even he is lost.

Dumdum with the psychiatrist

On his way back, he just thinks how amazing it would be if everyone has the red glasses similar to Mr. India's through which they can see the painful inner self of every person well-hidden into their happy exterior. The red lights are turned on and he sees pain in everyone's life; he realizes that this happiness and satisfied looks are mostly for the exterior demeanor.

Dumdum looking at "happy" people

Inner pain visible in the Red Light

In the final scene, the red lights are still kept on (meaning that the 'seeing-inside' work is still on). A lawyer puts Dumdum, his mediocre friend and his BTP guide on the vertices of a triangle and throws a number of questions before them, seeking insight into the matter. The crowd (including the real PAF judges) is both the judge and the observer of this trial. At every important point, the lawyer says to the crowd, "Point note kiya jaaye", which is received greatly by the chorus as, "Point noted". A very important point among these was giving more time to one's friends/classmates/wingmates - we crib that there is no time and there is heavy academic pressure but we always find time to see movies, play computer games etc.; there is no disagreement in the fact that these comes lower in priority than your friend's life. So both faculty and the student community should give more time to the student and that is the only way these sad incidents can be avoided.

Lawyer, Prof (left), Dumdum (back) and Mediocre Guy (right)

Just when I think how gripping the whole PAF was, I realize that it exceeded at least 15 minutes from the given time limit and not even a single guy made any disturbance - we were all stuck to our seats just waiting to see what happens next. The PAF team got a standing applause and rounds of hugs from friends and appreciators. And I can understand why it made such a deep impact - there was something for everyone, some character for everyone.

Appreciation and felicitation

The two places where I think improvements could have been made were lights (mainly the moon - I found the light people fighting hard to focus the moon and move it as characters moved; rest lighting was good) and voice overs (again perfection is difficult when you have too many characters). The one perfect in all senses was Shantimrigyam - our first year hostel PAF, but then the script was masala kingdom once again.

All said and done, it still stands as the best PAF I have seen in IITB. A formal thanks to Hostels 1, 4, 9 and 11 for giving us such a performance before we pass out of this institute - there could be no better ending to these big dramatic projects and performances as far as we are concerned.

And they say it is 7*

Had a dinner with two persons from Shell - John Hoppe and Tom Hyde (the person who took my interview during the recruitment process) and it was in Renaissance - one of the best hotels in Mumbai.
Well, I have been to the place before and that was a pre-recruitment dinner with the UBS people. That time we (all shortlisted guys) were all into making an impression on them and were trying to hear all they say too because it could have proved useful for the interview. In all this, we had to ditch our concentration on the most important thing, i.e. food. When I came back, I had to order a Maggie in the hostel and well, as my friends say, it was a shameful thing to do. The UBS interview was just an icing on the cake in negative sense - a sad end to a sad happening.
And within two months came another invitation to Renaissance; this time from Royal Dutch/Shell (I never miss to highlight the Royal Dutch part ;-) ). And this time, I was determined to make this dinner a huge success. And there was another setback.
At UBS dinner, at least the food was typical Indian. Here, the food was total crap and I am not sure what exact menu it was - some mix of Chinese, Italian and Indian food but all (the soup, vegetables etc.) filled with leaves and arbitrary stuff I haven't seen in my life and which I didn't even find good. And there was this Chinese tea - just another version of hot water. And you are charging us a fortune for it. For what in the world? And then they say it is exquisite :-O. Even in the end, when we were looking for Desserts, we didn't even find normal Vertigo or Chocolate Avalanche. There were some arbitrary puffs and puddings which could be rejected on their very face. Thankfully we could make a special order for Brownie, which in fact was good.
IIT-D people were luckier in the sense that they had Indian people (Baljit and Deepak) with them and I am sure they had some great Punjabi lunch there (source: Nidhi Bansal).
All said and done, lemme also highlight the good parts of the Dinner. The first and foremost was meeting with John, Tom and the colleagues (meeting many for the very first time). Another was the beautiful backdrop of Powai and Hiranandani behind the glass wall. There was some good deal of interaction with all people there though we had to stretch out our ears when either of John or Tom spoke (we also came to know that there are some decibel limits in Rijswijk, the Netherlands office ... man, what will us Indians do there ... we are going to become the next whisperers :-P). But they talked about Netherlands and the seasons, they talked about the technologies, they talked a little about their plans and they talked about Shell! Amazing down to earth people and they looked highly motivated by the company's prospects in India and the upcoming projects. Even Nidhi feels the same from their meeting with Baljit and Deepak.
I know we are going to miss India and the food in Netherlands but it is going to be one helluva great work and fun there.

Height of carelessness

In my post Final Midsems and Some Concerns, I tried to highlight some problems with the IIT academic system and the contributions of the students and faculty towards it. The best part of the blog was that I was able to change myself and I had started attending classes sincerely after that (barring Prof. Roy's where I had already missed loads of fundaes which were necessary for further lectures). And yet again, I am dwelling into something similar - this time my BTP (B. Tech Project) or the final year project as most other universities call it.
It has been more than 2.5 months and I have barely started with the second stage of the BTP which is worth a huge 15 credits (nearly one third of a regular semester). Now I have my excuses - the first month was all spent in job hunting and the next 15 days in celebrations, relaxation and the home trip. Not very genuine reasons but considerable. But the remaining one month (i.e. the last) has been a period of complacency and careless behaviour.
And this is not the case with me only but with more than 50% of my batchmates. Even I heard the likes of Aashwit Mahajan (both a nerd and a fighter in life) saying, "I just don't want an extension, anything else would do." Keeping in mind that he is hyping his carelessness and we all know he'll end up with some decent/good grade, the point worth noting is that the attitude of carelessness is all pervasive in our final year batch.
However, I believe in living life as it should be lived (adding value, doing something fruitful) rather than seeing what my peers do/expect and that is why this attitude has been bothering me for quite some time. And despite all this brooding and attempts, I have been unable to cross this activation energy barrier and initiate the task.
The worst part is that I believe I know the solution too because this is my experience that:
1. Interest generally develops once one begins the work, especially when there is some challenge and there is some success. Most of us fall behind, being prejudiced about the work and its results.
2. At times, work looks huge, unachievable but the most important thing in all these circumstances is to start, because once we start, everything else follows. I've observed this so many times and I see that during the course, we develop better and more efficient ways to do things and finally see ourselves as better and more efficient.

As it is obvious, this state of understanding is more difficult than ignorance because then I question myself, "Why not then?" And this is what I've been trying to dig out for the past week, always planning to do some BTP work (with ample time at my disposal) and always ending into relatively useless activities ranging from Orkutting to listening to music (as I said, relatively). And as I said this situation is more difficult because at the end of day, I find myself incompetent and irresponsible.
I was thinking on the similar lines in one of Prof. Roy's lecture and I guess most of others too were lost in their own preoccupations and somehow he caught it and said, "You know, I had a student who had the same small concentration span as you guys have now, but now he is working in an investment bank and with the boss sitting on his head, he can't even afford to take a single mistake. And he is doing the job very successfully"
This relaxed me a little because given the present concentration levels, I couldn't imagine myself holding on to Shell for long. But we needn't be concerned about it? I don't really think so. Everyone works under pressure when his/her job, reputation, promotion or for that matter grade is at stake. But what really matters is something else.
By now, every final year reader of this blog will become sure of my nerdness because the grades hardly matter to anyone now and I too am bragging around that I just want to avoid an FF and any passing grade would do. Bajju too was telling me not to worry as it is a matter of 2 more months. But really speaking, I am thinking of it neither in terms of grade, nor in terms of time. What really matters is to me is my attitude and character and these are the things which have their effects in long run and in all dimensions. It take time and sincere efforts on our part to develop, improve and groom them. I am seeking that improvement.
I wish for myself that work comes from within. I agree that everything in life can't interest us but then the reverse should too hold here - all guys of my batch reluctant to do the BTP. How is it possible?
I believe that that everything in life has a purpose and we are supposed to understand that purpose and work towards it. The same holds for BTP and even though half of the batch is going for a non-core job, we are expected to finish off the curriculum we chose. To think of it, not everything in life is acceptable because we want all goodies, all comforts which will but stay a dream.
Work has to be done for the sake of work and we all will understand it and hopefully follow too some time or other in our life. As is clear, this hasn't been a realization for me because although it has the knowledge part (again limited), it lacks the more important part - experience. But I believe that this realization will come for me and for all some day. Amen!

Keep Going!

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?
To this Arthur Ashe replied: The world over - 50M children start playing tennis, 5M learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5,000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD "Why me?". And today in pain I should not be asking GOD "Why me?"

Happiness keeps you Sweet, Trials keep you Strong,
Sorrow keeps you Human, Failure Keeps you Humble,
Success keeps you Glowing, But only God Keeps you Going.
Keep Going!
--

A forward which I have already forwarded to tons and couldn't resist posting it on the blog as well. A very simple story but of profound impact because it teaches us a very basic but at the same time very important thing: to accept good & bad things or the so-called happiness and sadness with the same attitude.
I know I'll face immediate disagreements on this so please let me first clarify that this attitude doesn't ask people not to aspire for better & higher things in life. It just highlights the importance of acceptance of the moment, i.e. I have done this and I have received this - not accepting the result then is a folly. It is of course then our responsibility to become better because life is nothing but a process of improving and bettering things and ourselves. Stagnation is contrary to life.
I believe that there are still some people left in the disagreeing lot and I don't mind it because that is always the case. However, I would just point out that acceptance (of say a bad/inferior result of any action) is only wise and it doesn't imply that we have become complacent. Rejection of the result is but the denial of truth. It takes courage to accept failure and more so to stand again and work in the direction of betterment in the quest of finally reaching perfection!