10/09/2014

10/09/2014; 20:04:
The morning of the 6th of September began with me being jolted out of my bed, for there was a guest lecture by Mr.Alok Purohit, RCOO, Dainik Bhaskar Group at 11 a.m. which needed to be prepped for. The lecture was to begin at 11 a.m. and unlike most other high profile guests, Mr. Purohit was already on campus, all ready, by 10:15 a.m.
I reached the venue for the talk and directed interested listeners into the room. Along with other people, about 20 Pi Quiz kids were in the audience. The Pi Quiz was an aptitude test, conducted for students of classes 9 to 12 in 5 cities- Bhopal, Indore, Lucknow, Delhi & Chandigarh, as part of Atharv 2014. It wasn't your regular test and was very enjoyable, as per the feedback received from the participants. The top 30 performers on the Quiz- 15 from class 9-10 & 15 from class 11-12 had been invited on campus, to enjoy Atharv and also participate in our Flagship Game Theory event, Game of Shadows. Mr. Purohit spoke about his career, moving from radio to print media & about how radio shall always remain his first love.
Meanwhile, the MUN resumed session and Round#1 of the Business Quiz, Pragnya, began as did GGWP- our LAN Gaming Event.
The spray-painting workshop continued, and two new ones began too. One, conducted by the CEO of Twenty19.com was focused on giving students tips on getting internships and, the other, conducted by TechBharat & AIESEC IIT-Delhi was titled 'Digital Marketing'.
I retreated to my room, after making sure that all three workshops were in session. There were then at least 10 cartons full of MTV B'lue in 3 different flavours- Guava, Peach & a new Zesty Orange, of which 5 needed to be transported down to JAM, where MTV was conducting a random game- you're blind-folded and given a sip out of a random bottle of B'lue; then, if you guess right, the bottle is yours to keep. Well, if you guess wrong, the bottle is still yours to keep! Well, transportation was fairly easy, since a lorry along with 2 guys from my batch found its way to right outside my hostel. All that was to be done was to carry the cartons from the fest coordinator’s room to the hostel entrance.
Post-lunch, War of Words- the debate event - resumed from where it had left off on the 5th i.e. the post-elimination round began. At around 4, Tremolo- the Acoustic Music event began in the New Auditorium at a large, excited audience. While the other Music Event, Delirium-the Battle of the Bands, had seen only 6 bands perform due to paucity of time, Tremolo had 12 participating teams.
A lovely fusion of ‘Khwaja’ & ‘Somebody’ ensured that the winning band, Leaf Tones, was the same one that had won Delirium the night before. People assured the performers that this performance had given them goose bumps and that this win was well-deserved. . Since the audience were equally enthused, the Karaoke & Photo Booths attracted large participation. There was this lead singer of one of the top-bands who refused to leave the Karaoke booth until he’d sung every song they had on their list!
Meanwhile, in the Academic Block, Round #2 of Econjecture- an event based on Economics & Debating and Round #2 of the B-Plan Event, Avant Garde, both began at 2 p.m. A few events had had their first rounds online, due to an exceedingly large number of registrations and the first on campus round was Roud#2. Also, Strat-o-Sphere, the strategy event saw its Finale, in the form of complex to-be-solved case-studies take place. Strat-o-sphere garnered very appreciative feedback from the participants and almost no audience.
Round #2 of Finopoly- Atharv’s Flagship Finance Event began- it had so much going on, auctions, bidding and more- all in front of a live audience @ JAM.
Since the media had been unable to get themselves on campus, our Coverage team provided a select number of good pictures of the day’s events which I rushed across to the editorial team, to ensure that they did make it to the next day’s front page.
The Finale of the GenKwiz began and ended in the Old Audi, just in time to allow the participants to go view the Dance events. The evening was titled ‘MTV’s KYY Night’, and the cast of the show ‘Kaisi Yeh Yaariyan’- Charlie & Ayaz- were there to judge the event and add a dash of glamour to the dazzling evening. The Dance events- Bailar (Solo Dancing) & Promenade (Group Dancing) - saw a large number of exceedingly talented performers. Right before the dance events began, a couple of informal games were held- the Paper Dance which was extremely enjoyable and the Mad Pie event- which involved eating 4 cupcakes in under a minute, no hands allowed! Surprisingly, a lot of guys did manage this feat which I’d already deemed impossible. Bailar saw so many varied dance forms being staged- from classical to hip-hop, everything was on offer! Promenade saw very well-coordinated teams, some even offering progressive stands on social issues. An interlude saw a duo perform a street comedy style dance- their coordination was so good that it was scary.
Mid-night saw the beginning of Round#2 and Round#3 of the Game of Shadows- one was a Blind trading round, which had 12 teams of 5 participating and the other was the ‘Electoral Chairs’ and saw 25 participants.
The Blind Trading round was very interesting. There were 5 different types of goods, each of which had a different value. Good A had the maximum value & least quantity in circulation and Good E had the minimum value and the maximum quantity in circulation. Each team was given a set number of one type of good. The objective was simple: Trade, to maximise your set value & make sure to have at least 20 of each type. One member of each team was put into a room, with 11 others (one guy from each team); each member would be trading with no knowledge of what or how his team-mates were doing. One large catch was that the players were not told the value that each type of good carried! This was mind-boggling & interesting!
The chair round saw 25 chairs scattered in a set area. The objective was simple- to find a chair in the allotted time (8 minutes). At the end of the round, a leader was to be elected who would then eliminate two chairs. And, anyone who did not find a chair was eliminated. This continued until it was down to 4 people- the finalists. The best part of the game is that anything on the Rules that is not explicitly forbidden is allowed. Deciphering what that meant was entirely up to the participants!
Personally, I found the event rather intriguing.
The event ended well past 2 a.m. A treasure/scavenger hunt had been flagged off at 1 a.m. It was a fun team event, with 3 members a team. A list of clues had been given; instead of having to collect the items, photographs of the answers had to be clicked! I must admit that the clue-designers did a pretty good job of them!
And, late night( or well early morning) was spent on the lawn in front of the library, where the food stalls were, eating leftover Mad Pie cupcakes!