Alma Fiesta Theme Launch - A Card Well Played

Life is full of ‘Gajendra Verma’s concerts’ and ‘Aagman’s performances’ (read ups and downs), but what defines this life is how one gets through them and strives forward. Alma Fiesta, the socio-cultural fest of IIT BBS, started the new academic session with the same motivation for improvement.

‘Inadequacy in the number of associate team members (1st years)’ was one of the major drawbacks they had faced last year. Cometh the new freshers batch, cometh the strategies of fests to lure them into joining them. The rival fest, Wissenaire, had won this round of the competition last year, and it was payback time. The best move to win this part is to organize the ‘Theme Launch’ and 'Auditions' before the other fest does; however it didn’t seem to be working out for Alma. When Wissenaire announced its theme launch date of 16th of August, it became a general opinion that things aren’t going to change for better for Alma, as they were yet to announce theirs, leave alone organizing it before the other fest. But, with even less than a week before the Wissenaire theme launch, Alma played its last hand, a sure trump! Without any prior hints and as a surprise to even the most penetrated sources of grapevine in the college, on 10th August, Alma announced its Theme launch date- 12th August! Win!

The big day arrives. As the audience entered the dim lighted auditorium with the Alma Fiesta logo on the screen and a melody playing in the background, the first thing that would have crossed any 1st year student’s mind must have been - ‘for sure not an everyday event.’ While the newcomers were excited about the things that the evening had to offer, the more experienced were betting over how well the fest teams will pull off the customary introductions.

The event started with the introduction of the fest; name, history and everything. A video showing interviews of current 4th year students about their experiences while working for Alma, inculcated great enthusiasm among the freshers. The video was well made and edited, and was a great hit. With a risen tempo, it was now time for the different teams of Alma to introduce themselves to the freshers and invite them for auditions; an exciting time especially for the 2nd years to watch their friends pull off the crazy skits, speeches and events that they had been preparing for the past few weeks.

It began with the sponsorship team giving a strong speech about how being a part of the team has made them better than others. However, the invitation for auditions, which was supposed to instill a provocation among the freshers to prove themselves, by the use of the words-“Would you dare to audition for us?” was delivered in such a loud and crackling voice, that it sounded more like a threat, and was thus followed by an awkward silence rather than the expected roar of claps and cheers. 

The web design team’s presentation was all boasting about the fancy software's they have mastered and the website, mobile applications and other technical stuff they have created or done. Even though it was plain but was effective enough to attract the attention of computer geeks; motive’s achieved. All in all, the presentation was good and well executed.

Probably the biggest fail of the evening was the publicity team introduction. They had planned a skit which showed an interview scene of campus job placement, and was supposed to portray how the eloquent and confident publicity team members of Alma Fiesta were an easy pick over others. However, the biggest of the ironies occurred when the person, who was supposed to play the ‘fluent’ publicity team member, forgot his lines and ended up in dead air. And right when one would have started thinking that it was the worst that could have happen, the microphone caught the interviewer’s prompt to remind the interviewee of his lines. The auditorium split itself in laughter, and nobody remembers what followed. 

Every night is followed by a sunrise; and the latter in this case proved to be the Design and Decoration team which came up with the best presentation of the evening. They started with a couple of guys taking the stage center with their nose dug in a piece of paper, reciting a write up in a monotone; oh the horror! But to everyone’s relief, it turned out to be a part of the skit. Another two members came up the stage interrupting them with the cliche line “beta, tumse na ho paayega’ and the Telugu version of the same for the other half of the audience, and gave a very well presented introduction; a job well done. The Events team’s presentation was the same as last years, where they prove themselves experts of organizing events by conducting a well-rehearsed event in the name of ‘planning it on-spot’.

It was now the time for theme release video, the most awaited moment of the evening. The video seemed a mash up of game trailers and animation videos with occasional pop-ups of enthusiasm inducing words like “are you ready?” and “brace yourselves”. The video was fast paced with strong background music and thus, it very well served the purpose of exhilarating the audience. The video ended with announcing the theme- “Quest in the Wilderness”.

In spite of the flaws like ‘publicity disaster’, lack of innovation and an excess use of Hindi in speeches, the show was enthralling and indeed impressed the freshers. Even the theme makes much more sense than the last year’s, especially when the college has moved to the Arugul campus this year; coincidence? I think not.

A Quest in the Wilderness

The sun is about to set and the night is approaching to replace the dusk. The institute bus is moving on its normal route via Argul village. Suddenly a drunken man approaches with a stone in his hand. Moments later, we have a cracked windshield, a bunch of youngsters worried about their safety and a looming threat of things to come. 

The above paragraph might be an exaggerated description of the events that transpired that evening but the way things stand right now, the students of IIT BBS need to be loud and dramatic for their voices to be heard. But, how did we reach to such a standstill? 

On 18th July 2015, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar did something which no one from the whole student population thought will ever happen in during their stay here, we shifted to our permanent campus in Argul. As expected, there was lot of buzz and excitement around because finally we had a place that we could call our own. 

No more rules set arbitrarily by outsiders, no more restrictions on our every movement and finally a sense of belonging to our institute. 

Or, so we thought. 

In 1981, the director of IIT Kanpur in his convocation address had talked about how if someone would have visited the institute in its early days, circa 1965, all they would see was a conventional country side scene of rural India. As we stepped into our permanent campus nearly 50 years later, we saw the same scenes as above. Only thing is even with all of our technology, it still took us more time to reach this stage of development than IIT K, no thanks to the hostility of the local population around us.

Once here, the students were welcomed by poorly finished rooms, bathrooms without working lights and flushes and an acute shortage of drinking water. Certainly, no one will say that a first year asking a senior about the need of personal water filters in rooms is a sign of adequate facilities provided by the authorities.

Having shifted to a rather remote location, we are in-arguably “closer to nature” and thus occasional sightings of snakes, scorpions and insects that many of us have never even heard of is going to be pretty common. All of us expected this and took precautions accordingly, but what none of us expected was that our “great” mess food had scope for more “improvement”. Since, no caterer obviously wants to leave his business in the city to come search for enlightenment in the wilderness that we call our hostel, makeshift arrangements were made for providing food for us; because it’s not like food has any major effect on our health or general well-being. Some of the dishes prepared in the mess make students question whether they are cooking food for us humans or for those infinite cows that keep on roaming outside the campus.

Of course, we have alternatives to the mess food but then most of them are only a few hundred miles away. The one alternative that we have inside the hostel in form of the canteen has been trying its best to outperform the mess right since its inception. The girls are actually better placed without the canteen than with it.

It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon; everyone is lying in their rooms and contemplating the meaning of their lives or just watching a movie, whatever. The students are passed a message that there is sports practice in evening. All of them are confused about the location of the practice as there are no grounds here, only rocky areas and grasslands. As they reach outside, they are told that the rocky area which they dismissed as wasteland is their sports ground till an undisclosed amount of time. There is dejection all around, but all authorities talk about is the intent to play but not a single word is said about the facilities. 

Murphy’s Law is an adage which states that, “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”. This has probably been illustrated numerous times in the last few days to the students of the institute.

As if we already didn’t have a big problem in our hands with the never ending commuting time between the classes and the hostel, many of the rickety buses in which we spend those uneasy hours are best suitable for junkyards rather than roads.

Moving into this remote location, not many students expected lightning fast internet facilities or excellent network coverage. But, as the continuing trend shows, we ended up getting a LAN connection with the internet speed capped at a value which makes even downloading PDF’s a herculean task.

There is an air of dissatisfaction around; a meeting has been arranged between the authorities and the students. Some people raise their voice about the slow internet connection and how internet is really important in today’s world to get a complete education. In reply, it is made known to them that internet speed will be the same for next four years if they don’t stop bugging the authorities about the same issues again and again.

The above is a just illustration of what the students have been facing since moving to Argul and how the authorities have been reacting to the issues raised by the students.

In spite of all the numerous problems in the last few days, many of the students still believe, and probably rightly so, that shifting of the hostels is the much needed first step taken by the authorities on our way to become a fully functioning, respectable institute of learning.

All we can do now is hope that the lofty promises that were made to us on the very first day after moving here are kept by the authorities and only then we will able to feel a sense of belonging to our permanent campus.

INTERNET: CONCERNS ABOUT SECURITY AND PRIVACY

Life without internet has become unthinkable. A day without it can become quite a hassle for the modern-day man. Unless something drastic happens, it is safe to assume that internet will be prominent in the lives of a majority of Earth’s citizens for the next 10 years. Like the proverbial Damocles sword, internet has a darker side to it: Cyber Bullying, Child pornography, drug trading. Therefore, not having a set of precautions or guidelines for the usage of internet set by a government authority is unthinkable.

The concerns about private details of individuals being made available to the public have never been this grave since the concept of internet had been conceived of. Let’s take an example. Ubisoft, the company known for producing games like Prince of Persia, Assassin’s Creed etc., recently launched a website (wearedata.watchdogs.com) which mapped unprotected social data. It gathered urban and unprotected personal information to create an interactive real-time map of 3 major cities, namely, London, Berlin and Paris. Geotagged Flickr and Instagram pictures popped up, as did geolocalised tweets. Even train schedules and stuff like the location of a particular railcar at a point of time showed up. One can imagine the kind of alarm it created, and Ubisoft were at pains to point out that all the personal content in use on the site was publicly available via site APIs and other sources.

Now, Ubisoft was operating well within the legal framework. Still, it was able to get so much information about the workings of a city (details about subway, hospitals, and traffic lights) that one cannot help but wonder what would happen if trained hackers- the ones adept at taking down websites and accessing private records of unsuspecting people, would decide to take up such an enterprise. These hackers could be working for international terrorist groups, who could use this information to carry out unmitigated attacks on independent nations. Social networking sites like Facebook have been used by mischief-makers to co-ordinate wide-scale riots. This implies that even seemingly innocent sites can be used in a malignant manner. The threat of global terrorism has never been this real before.

Initially, the governments were hopelessly outmatched and outmanned in this fight against cyber terrorism. The need of the hourwas to set up new tactics and waysto counter this threat. This could only be done if there was some form of internet snooping and profiling of suspicious people. If one might think rationally, a certain degree of online surveillance appears to be inevitable. States already regulate other forms of media that can be used perniciously. Even we, as people, set boundaries on “free speech” ourselves. For example, we endorse an individual expressing him/herself as long as it does not impede the ‘protection of other human rights’ – specifically, the right not to be abused. Speech involving racism, stereotypes are deemed to be outside the boundaries of free speech. So, it is hypocritical not to even consider the regulation and censorship of internet.

But, an excess of anything is deplorable. This seems to be the case today whenever we think about this topic. Newspapers and News channels are filled with reports about the misuse of power by central intelligence agencies like NSA, CIA etc. These agencies have been accused of mass surveillance and taking private details of individuals who have no criminal records. Even private companies have been shown to be in league with them and are releasing private data given to them. A case in point is PRISM- a top secret NSA surveillance program, offering the agency access to information on its targets from the servers of some of the world’s biggest technology companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo. UK’s spy agency also had access to this data.

In this age, some form of censorship and regulation of internet is necessary. The activists campaigning for a totally free internet, where nothing is regulated, are starry-eyed enthusiasts who are out of touch with reality. But, the current stance of the governments of the world on this issue is tending to totalitarianism. Both the extremes are rebarbative and an effective common ground needs to be struck. The internet may be a global resource, but if information on it can have a detrimental effect on a particular country, it is that government’s responsibility as well as right to tackle it. But, instead of banning websites outright, a better way to tackle derogatory and prejudicial speech can be to engage with it in a public forum and point out the flaws and ignorance it embodies. In this way, the victims would feel as if the government is actively protecting them. Also, it would be more effective than banning websites and desperately trying to hide information from the public eye. Also, intelligence agencies need to have stronger rules and regulations regarding public snooping so as to ensure that the unsuspecting, ordinary citizen feels at ease as well as protected. An overhaul of the security system is an overwhelming need and only if this done will the interests of everyone, be it the common man or the policy-makers, be served.

Enchanted by the Bamboo Flute and its Devotee

The maestro of the bamboo flute, the magician with the hollow stick, one of the greatest flutists of the century Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia had an unbelievable connection with Odisha.

The Allahabad born UP boy took his first tutelage from Pt. Bholanath inspired by whom he shifted to flute. He had his first job in his late teens in AIR Cuttack, which brought him so close to Odisha and its culture.

When I agreed to volunteer for SPIC MACAY, I knew I will get chance to meet and interact with such artiste but never imagined such an evening.

In his heavenly Vrindavan Gurukul situated behind the Khandagiri hills, in a silent neighbourhood lived quite a few blessed souls who worshipped flute and were tutored by the greatest of teachers.
A special recital was arranged for Pandit Ji to interact with students and youth. SPIC MACAY in association with NALCO arranged event with just 200 students allowed. All SPIC MACAY Chapters were allotted few seats and IIT Bhubaneswar got 20 seats.

I knew this from a month ago and spread a word throughout the music enthusiasts and SPIC MACAY volunteers.
I got a bus arranged for the event. Arranging bus to go for a concert was a rare feat but I have done quiet a few firsts until now in IIT BBS.
But the juniors ditched again. I was expecting 15 and just 11 turned up. Facing the boulder of unexpected absence we started off to the special recital at Vrindavan Gurukul.

After couple of wrong turns and U-turns we reached the serene school of flute. The recital was outdoor in a lawn carved out like an Open Air Theatre. Accompanying Pandit ji on tabla was Shubanker Banerjee, and Pandit Ji had a senior student of his for support, an Israeli named Amosh.

Irony or tragedy of Indian cultural art forms evidently comes out in situations like this when foreigners are seen respecting and loving, mastering the art much more than its own citizens.

The maestro kissed his bamboo stick and a melody flowed out. It was raga Madhubani to start with. He was in a great mood and interacted with kids, asking them about music and rhythm.

It was a great treat to watch him play a melody on flute and quickly a kid from SAI International School recognizing the raga to be Hamsadhwani. Pandit Ji was in jovial mood of all and wanted to interact more and more with the kids. He asked someone to volunteer and a small Bengali girl jumped on and sang ‘Payoji Maine’ mesmerizing even Pandit Ji.

A young lad from XIMB sang an alap and left the crowd gaping with the harmonics of his voice.
Pandit Ji was happily interacting and answering questions as he talked in length about bamboo sticks used for making flute and the stories of people offering him golden flute to play.
He talked about the current Bollywood and cinematic music trends; the embarrassing times when his students ask him to teach them ‘Lungi Dance’ for parties.

The evening ended with Krishna Karthik, our General Secretary So-cult asking Pandit Ji for a final rendering of Khamaj raga on flute. He serenaded with the music disseminating in the ambient air.

There were very few people so we had all time to meet him and get clicked with him. Babita Mam of SPIC MACAY had a chat with me and gave me some souvenirs to give to Pandit Ji and Shubhankar Sir. We all went later and got clicked in leisure, and also had a free chat with the maestro himself.

It was experience of a lifetime to be standing with such a renowned talent, a self-made man, one of the greatest flutist of his times. It was an evening to remember forever.           

AGHAAZ, curtain riser ALMA FIESTA

When beauty meets attitude a star is born.

The platform of Aghaaz- the Cultural Theme Show of IIT Bhubaneswar was one such arena. The handsome hunks and lovely ladies from colleges all around Bhubaneswar set the stage ablaze as the curtain riser event of Alma Fiesta 2014 rolled out at Reliance Trendz, Shaheed Nagar.

Aghaaz- the Cultural Theme Show was a prelude event to Alma Fiesta 2014, the annual socio-cultural fest of IIT Bhubaneswar. The cultural theme show was an effort by team Alma Fiesta to bring the glamour of the youth and the colours of culture together.

With over fifty participants from various colleges, Aghaaz was one of its kinds. The show was judged by eminent faces of fashion world, Shagoon Satpathy; a popular name in Mumbai for creativity in fashion and an actor himself. Amongst other judges were Chabbi Mahali winner of Navy Queen 2007; an actress in Odiya movies and an active member in the drive for uplifting tribals. Accompanying her was Sunita Garabadu, one of the state’s top anchors in television and an actress herself.

The event was being hosted by Dhananjay and Surbhi of IIT Bhubaneswar who carried the audience through a thoroughly entertaining event. The competition had three different rounds of casual wears, formal wears and party wears with question-answer round at the end. Each round was followed by elimination.

The crowd was kept hooked up to the show as in between the mesmerising ramp walk of models there were small competitions. A small game ‘Jaane tu ya jaane na’ brought out the essence of friendship present in the crowd. The Dance Society of IIT Bhubaneswar won many hearts as they hit the floor to the party beats. The crowd joined in with them and festivity began as Aghaaz, prelude Alma Fiesta 2014 turned out to be a complete entertainer.

The event serenaded with the winners Bidya Misra of OEC and Svetlana Mahapatra of IIIT Bhubaneswar being crowned Mr Alma Fiesta and Miss Alma Fiesta. The winners received gifts worth seven thousand rupees including a portfolio being made by Cliquers Group. The gifts of the evening were sponsored by VLCC. Team Alma Fiesta also thanked their associate sponsors Honda, IMS and UCO Bank for their support.

Following the successful beginning to another edition Alma Fiesta 2014 scheduled to be from January 10^th to 12^th is being anticipated to be a complete package of fun. Once again Alma Fiesta, IIT Bhubaneswar has kept up to its motto, redefining festivity.

   

All that is good or bad ends

You know, all those instances when you have an epiphany, for a moment you think, Eureka! I have found the truth, one of the absolute ones but a minute later you realize it’s just an adage which somehow your sub-conscious fed you as a Deja-vu. Yeah, I just had one of those. So it has been raining cats and dogs here and the chill during the morning is not all that pleasant when I think of taking bath and thus I get myself a bucket full of steaming hot water. The sheer joy that I get while pouring each bit of the water is much like the tender rays of morning sun in winters. It’s warm, oh yes it is warm and caring not blatant but strong enough to fight the cold. It’s also like a compendium of springs of past all put altogether. I remembered my mother, in that one fine summer morning when she was running behind me to get me dressed up for school and there were these most warm parathas that were waiting for me. But even before the bucket was half empty, I started to have grief that it would soon end and all I’ll have will be the chill of the rain. All that springs of childhood is long gone.
In that moment, that short-lived moment, I had the epiphany. Anything that is good or bad, that is dead or alive, that is material or idea has an inevitable destiny to meet. That it will end, is sure. And what I have at hand is me, young, oh yes young and exhilarating but soon will this end. Don’t take me as a cynic but I am not sure what to take out of this, is ‘moving on’, man’s righteousness? Sure it is that of the dead because they don’t have a choice.
You know, what else is like summer? Raghav Sachar’s Gulaabi Aankhein. I have been listening to it as I was writing this piece and highly recommend it. Best part, you can always replay it! No end to that!

Not Just Another Friday at IIT Bhubaneswar.

Inspite of our personal favourite debate on the irony behind Women Empowerment programmes (I’m pro, just in case you were wondering), the Workshop held this Friday on the topic felt as fresh and impactful as it could be. The speeches and the videos probably had the desired effect it could have asked for, but what stole the evening’s limelight was the cultural programme that followed it. From the Dance Society’s medley, to the Music society’s melody and the Dramatics Society’s portrayal of the malady, the evening turned out to be a HUGE success. I mean, literally, huge. The auditorium was filled with more than it could accommodate, for which we should maybe thank the High Tea arrangement. But even if it was the food that made the calling heard, the cultural societies must be grateful that they were watched. And appreciated, for that matter.

The evening’s first programme, the dance, was a pleasant variation from the usual matter (of girls’ dance that is) that we have been made used to in the last 2 years that I’ve been here. The choreography was beautiful, the song choices were good, and the boys paired with the girls couldn’t have been any more cuter. Just the one suggestion though, please have the costumes fit done before the show. None of the girls were looking comfortable in that horrendously tangerine thing. Thankfully, the overall performance more than made up for it. So, cheers for the feat.

Next, the music. It is funny how before every music production, the whole audience is filled with the only chatter, “This sound check is going to take forever.” Pleasantly, this time it didn’t. At least relatively. The songs that followed were nice to listen to, but the music society had definitely seen better performances than that. Remember the Independence Day performance? That was more like it. But, they delivered the message the evening had been set up for, with some lovely, lovely songs, and for that we are thankful.

The Stage Play, Humne Kuch Nai Dekha, basically stood out to be the star of the whole evening. The direction, the acting and the whole screenplay, deserved great applause. The use of the lightings on the harassment scenes, and the imagery of the female destroying the root cause of the violence that held the reins of the society, was beautifully executed, though a teeny-tiny bit amiss was the background score that should have supported the tandava dance. But that little mistake can be dusted off, thanks to the wonderful execution of the whole play. Kudos to the Dramatics Society on that.

The programme ended with the food of course, the call that was heard. I don’t know how it was, cause I didn’t wait in that ridiculously long queue that you met right out the door of the auditorium, but it did the wonder that none of the however well managed cultural society programmes could do. Filling the auditorium up. Have a good day.