25/08/2014

25/08/2014; 19:09

22nd August-- I woke up, ran to class and got to attend a revision session of RM. All that we’d learnt in the last 14 sessions was summed up and the bits and pieces made a sculpted whole.
At 11:30, I was informed that there was a Campus Outreach to be carried out, our very first Campus Outreach in Indore! We were to leave at 12, and while this was being conducted by the Informals vertical, a few (read two) PR & Marketing team members were welcome. Sindhuri & I gladly jumped on board. 8-10 of us, almost 300 Swad Candies ( Atharv’s Candy Partner!), prizes and a megaphone got on the bus. We stopped en route, to pick up batteries for the megaphone since we’d been unable to source them earlier. The megaphone had everyone excited. This soon turned to disappointment when the thing wouldn’t work. The microphone was probably damaged. Mentally prepared to utilize our voice boxes, we reached the college. After securing permission from the Dean of Student Affairs, which surprisingly took under 5 minutes, we made our way to the college Canteen. Finding a flight of stairs in the open, I climbed half a floor up, onto a raised landing and put my loud voice to good use. We spent almost two hours, conducting informal games – with the Arm-Wrestling Event being the most popular-, talking to people about Atharv, giving them details of specific events and letting them know about Madhya Pradesh’s biggest DJ Dance party – Sunburn- hitting Indore on the night of 7th September.
The 7th September Sunburn will be held on the IIM-Indore Campus, on the newly levelled ground here. We were a little confused on the pricing, but, a Premium (VIP) Section will be made. Holding a Premium pass will allow you to be within 20 feet of DJ (S)haan & DJ Sartek , i.e. right next to the stage! Now, that’s exciting!

Later, since I had no other classes lined up, I went off to C21 Mall, to ‘chill’. I really like the honey chilli potatoes that this place in Malhar Mall’s food court makes! There was a Basketball match, the Women’s Final, as part of Chunauti ’14, scheduled to be held at 7 p.m. Careful calculation ensured that I was on the 5:30 bus back to campus. Unfortunately, the bus was a tad bit little and, I literally ran across half the campus, to join the match in the middle of the second quarter. It was an IPM v/s PGP game; both the teams were good. Everyone played well and, we were victorious, with a score of 32 to 26. Luckily too! Call it overconfidence, but, I’d already bought a cake from a bakery in C21, to celebrate our win!

Back in my room, I found pizza on my bed; it had been ordered around lunch-time and I’d forgotten all about it, in the crazy scramble of a day I’d had!

And, then, of course, I got to work. There’s the official Atharv invite and the opening address of the Inaugural Function to be worked on!
Here’s hoping that we do a good job of both! And, of the fest too!!

23rd August – The morning session was free and I yawned myself awake at 1:10 p.m. I rushed to make the 2:00 p.m. class, which was the only class I had all day. I’d had beautiful plans of missing this one class and heading off to Indore city to get my phone repaired. Of course, I realised just in time that I cannot go without my phone for the week it might take to repair my phone, since the fest is barely 2 weeks away and I have a bunch of phone calls to make & receive.
I’ve gotten great help from a kid in the 2014 batch, with doing the write-ups of all our panellists for I-Conclave2014. This time’s idea in focus has to do with Sustainable- Building cities of the future & the like.

Once class was over, at 3:15, I had to get on the 4 p.m. bus to Indore, for there was a 5:30 meeting with Radisson Hotel, to talk about the feasibility of them being Atharv’s Hospitality Partner. I spent the 45-minute interval running around, getting print-outs of the Sponsorship Proposal, arranging posters that needed to be sent out to campus ambassadors and generally gathering all relevant information. 12 last envelopes of posters were to be sent out to Atharv’s campus ambassadors in various colleges.
Once in Indore city, I wandered from one DTDC Office (the nearest to the bus route) to another whose number I had, until I finally made some phone calls and figured out that I needed to be at their Regional Office which was a few kilometres away. Since it was already 5:30, I made my way to Radisson. It felt a tad bit weird, not being dressed in formals, when everyone I saw working there was. Well, nothing beats light-green V-neck T-shirts and so, the meeting was fairly successful and elegantly brief.
I finally (with a lot of help from their Assistant Manager) managed to find DTDC’s Regional Office. DTDC has 30 franchise stores in Indore and I thanked my stars that I came to my senses after 2 wrong visits. Our final pre-fest shipment was accepted and the final payment made. Further shipments & payments will be after the fest is over; sending prizes, certificates & letters of acknowledgements.

Happy with work well done, I decided that it was the perfect time to buy some much-needed formals. I’d never shopped in Indore before and was rather lost. I wandered into Shopper’s Stop, only to find the women’s section full of printed dresses & kurtis. Well, the disappointment called for momos & I was off to Chappan- Indore’s Khau Gali. Post-momo-eating, I wandered around, and spotted a store that had a lot of denims on display. Well, I found a nice pair of jeans, but, they were men’s denims. I decided to drop them & come back if I didn’t find anything else. Honestly, I was just clueless about shopping in Indore; it’s been 2 years here and I haven’t bought one item of clothing- courtesy term-break shopping in Mumbai. I spotted a store which proudly announced that they had ‘Big Sizes Available’. It was as if it had been placed there for me. I walked in, bought 2 pairs of jeans and left smiling. I decided that the cost of the jeans ought to be put under fest expenses, since, the fest was a large part of my reason for buying new black denim. Of course, the Finance team also decided that new black denims don’t qualify as fest expenses. Ah, well, life’s good anyway.

24th August- Well, the morning session had 3 classes and the afternoon session had the Film-Making Mid-Term. Since cameras are entirely not my cup of tea, I had the afternoon off. Dainik Bhaskar- our media partner-’s representative was due to visit campus, in order to get details of event locations, banner/hoarding locations and about the Atharv Advertisements that are to be in print soon.
After spending a sleepless afternoon waiting on him, I finally decided to take a nap, at around 5 p.m. My head had just hit my pillow, when my phone decided to ring. Yay, work calling.
I showed Dainik Bhaskar’s representative around campus, the New Audi- where all the cultural events are to happen, the Events Court- where all the informal games & stalls will be, the Amphitheatre- where the Acoustic Music Event will happen, the Old Audi- where our Flagship game-theory based event ‘Game of Shadows’ will be conducted and the Acad Block- where all the Management events will take place. Details of each event, Dainik Bhaskar’s posters & standees were shared.
Right after this meeting was done, I literally ran over to the Throwball Court, for Chunauti 14’s Women’s Throwball final. Having beaten the PGP team in the qualifiers, we were pretty confident. Unfortunately though, our front-line player (the expert at catching drop-shots) was missing and that proved to be our weakness. We lost a well-fought game and tried not to be disheartened.
We treated ourselves to popcorn and I went a step ahead and treated myself to a much-needed nap. There’s been a lot of fest work happening, and sleep is the first thing to be compromised.