Ragam '09 and all that jazz- Part 1

Ragam '09 was as promised bigger, better and all that, inspite of the Salsa Workshop getting canceled coz of some silly prank by some of the students( they put up a notice stating they are the Shiv Sena and if we're going to have a salsa workshop, we're all gonna be in 'Big Trouble'. The Director and faculty took it pretty seriously). Goes on to prove my theory(Chennai Chronicles 2, pt 9) about the curse.

So here's like a Ragam '09 in a Nutshell (albeit a big one, considering it's me who's making it) :

For starters all the proshows were awesome. Packed crowds, no glitches, security was pretty good and was very well-organized. Everyone danced their heart out and there were no incidents as far as I know.

I had heard Shanker Mahadevan was a great 'performer' and 'knew how to entertain the crowd' but never quite got what that meant. I mean, I knew that not all singers were good Live on stage, they don't quite have Ze Charisma and all that, but wasn't until Shanker M performed that I fully grasped what it implied.And I found myself telling people after the show 'Shanker M , yeah, he really knows how to entertain the crowd.',lol.



Benny Dayal although proving to have a slightly eccentric wardrobe(a checked pyjama with a shirt , a tie and pullover. no kidding. and yeah, with every song,he kept changing his headgear...which ranged from skull caps to rainbow coloured hats.)packed in quite a few songs in 2 hours time.Was great fun.



Breathe Floyd was super cool too. And especially enjoyed it coz...umm..well, I kinda have never attended a Rock show before. Yeah, well, in my defense, I do not like heavy metal/metal rock and most of the bands which played during the past ragams belonged to that category. Of course, I do enjoy the occasional growling when I'm in one of those moods(which frankly are quite rare), but listening to over two hours of metal, growling and screaming - not my idea of a good time.


Anyhoo, a tribute Pink Floyd band, was something i was willing to try. I haven't listened to too many but the ones I have, me likey.So off I went. and am sooo glad I did. The sound system, more than anything else, floored me.Was like I had my headphones on. And from as far as I could make out it was pretty much Pink Floyd ( and if u want a more expert opinion, bro, who had come down for this show, said most of them save for 2 sounded like the original). The stage lights were awesome too..all bathed in pink light (the lighting guy sure had a sense of humour ).


The guys were actually pretty old, all in their 4o's. Could just picture them in their backyards in their bermudas mowing the lawn, humming a happy tune. :). But man, they sure can play and sing. Must have ben quite a challenge for them to sing in the hot, sultry weather. Poor guys kept drinking bottle after bottle of water and wiping their faces with a towel every now and then.



Liked the decorations along the Rajpath, was simple and somehow interesting.

Hated the monstrosity they made in the Centre Circle, although at night it wasn't so bad.

They were two informal stages this time: The English ('Who needs Idols?') and the Malayalam (' Echusmi edhu collegilla?') which were pretty good. As in the mal one was in the Rajpath and the other a bit further off, so they were more things happening at different places;kinda helped the crowd wander about a bit.

Was even a 'Carnival' Stall this time, like a mini game arcade ( mini golf, darts etc). was new for this ragam, so it had only a few games, but were good fun and did attract the crowds (and from what i heard raked in quite a lot of cash too.) They had the comp flash game called 'helicopter', u know the one where it's all green and black and you have to guide the helicopter dodging all the obstacles and go the max distance. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why I suck at it. I mean, it's just moving your mouse up and down to move that silly helicopter but no matter how early i move the helicopter up when there's an obstacle down, it never goes up in time and manages to crash right into the rock thingy. I once made it to 1000 mts(?) but that's after, I don't know, such intense concentration, it'll put any yoga practioner to shame. Must say something about the state of my limbic system and the prefrontal lobe (things which i didn't know existed in my brain till I read(partly) 'Emotional Intelligence'. got bored one day, went to the bookshop and bought it. Don't ask me. i have no clue either why i thought reading 'emotional intelligence' could alleviate my boredom then.)

And oooh, the food ensemble was definitely better than last time. Cafe Coffee Day, Subway, a My Roll Junction along with the usual Broast, Oasis etc. I had sooo many Cool Blues, that my tongue was perpetually blue during those three days. I never had it from ccd before coz usually it's quite cold inside already, so i end up with a nice Hot choco-latte accompanied by of course, Ze Chocolate Fantasy or the Chicken Tikka Sandwich. But the heat was so bad that the thought of anything hot was enough to get one sunburned. Oh yeah, and there was Baskin Robbins too. All of which were great hits in the hot and humid Calicut weather.

Ok,This post has gotten way too long and I'm feeling way too lazy now:). Ill leave the rest for the next post. Toodles.

Photos Courtesy Bharath N.A and Vineet Sam John

The Day After Ragam

According to Neethorian Calendar, The day after Ragam* is Cleaning Day. Akin to the day after Christmas being known as Boxing Day (which is so called because of this and not because it's the day when you put all the xmas decorations back into their boxes and pack them away for the next year, as yours truly had previously thought and coined the term Cleaning Day. See how blogging(and reading other ppl's blog) helps you increase your knowledge of the world and all that?). Its origin dates back to the time when Neethi was in her first year and was in the Ragam dance team. The practice sessions which usually start around 3 weeks prior to Ragam extends upto midnight everyday (and during the last few days even 2 a.m) as a result of which Neethi could hardly make it to her room after it (she often used to be able to only make it to the third floor, first room(her room was the third), and flop onto the bed perpendicular to the actual sleeping position. The inmates were usually kind enough to turn her around and wake her up in time for a bath in the morning before college.),let alone worry about how clean it is.Of course, she used to (very)occasionally dust it and all to make sure it was fit for human inhabitation, but could not afford a full fledged cleaning. Come Second year, history repeated itself, save for the reason for being unable to clean being that she was part of PC (Program Committee) for Ragam. And Third and fourth year, it was Drama direction.So the day after Ragam always saw Neethi with a broom in her hand, dettol-ed water in her bucket, clothes being folded neatly and kept back in the shelves etc. Whence was born Cleaning Day. And this year, I broke the sacred tradition. got up mid-morning,went out with friends for lunch, came back late and started blogging. Ah well, there's always tomorrow. was time for a new tradition anyway. and for a new post. A ragam '09 post is also under construction. will be putting it up in a day or two.See,I'm a good girl, I am,lol. :D.

*NITC's Cult Fest

Arrghh..Ouch...Grrrr.

Yesterday was one of the most stressful days ever. To top it all, one of the guys in the drama team chose that exact day to play a prank (with supposedly genuine intentions to lighten my mood). Our main actor got chicken pox, and with just one week to go for the competition, we had to find a substitute or scrap the drama. I was going for the latter coz there's really no point putting up something which is going to flop on stage, but the juniors were so enthu about the whole thing, and they said they'll call up people to come and audition (and they did). So in the middle of all this, i was about to sit down, when the aforementioned guy pulled the chair out from under me.I was pretty preoccupied hence all the reflex actions,subconscious thought processing and other products of human brain evolution were on standby mode. So i just kept going lower and attempted to sit. and of course, i fell. And it hurt. soooo badly. it definitely hit a bone. and the pain kept getting worse. i was past anger at that point, so i just glowered at him and he kept a safe distance from me for the rest of the evening. I got more irritable. esp when i realised i can't climb up and down stairs without getting sharp jolts of pain (Although i finally figured standing on your toes while climbing reduces the pain.).Anyway, finally we did get a substitute, who was actually better than the original guy. So we're going to have the drama after all.After getting back, I discovered that that tiny part of the ass, completely unnoticed by me before, actually plays a big role in human movement (sigh). Like sleeping. I have to lie on my stomach. and turning to the other side, is a three-step process. and sitting down.I can only sit down on chairs with arm rests, coz i need to hold onto them. same goes for standing up.and sigh, Bathing. So much for wanting to Workout this weekend (we got a new gym in the ladies hostel. pretty cool stuff. wanted to workout while the equipments are all brand new - when it's still The Treadmill and not oh,a treadmill ).Today morning,pain's slightly better and im hoping it'll go away by monday. Never thought it'd turn out to be such a pain in the ass.

Sun(through the clouds), (lots of) Sand and Sea.

You know, how some people get really, really excited about a trip to the beach? 'All that sun and sand! Sooo much fun!' they say. Well, yeah, yours truly - Not one of them. I'd go ' Uggh..All that Sun and (shudder) Sand! Sooo not fun!'. But not today. A few of us classmates, decided to go to Kappad beach. We've been talking like forever about going for a trip, but never got around to it. Today being a pseudo-holiday for some of us in the branch, coz our exams finished earlier, we decided to just impulsively go somewhere. Not only was the trip fun, but i feel oddly calm after coming back. Like All warm and fuzzy.I'm actually smiling to myself occasionally too (am soo glad i have a single room now.:)) The weather's beautiful. Moon, wind, rain and all that jazz. Perfect weather to do the whole drink a mug of hot chocolate, curl up and read a book or listen to music thing. Which is what i did, although had to make do with Nescafe strong 3-in-1 coffee satchet instead of the hot chocolate. And all that new-found sense of contentment has made me patient enough to write this post too.

We decided to leave at sharp 11:45 am, go to Zain's ( a restaurant with awesome biryanis) for lunch, then to kapad. So at sharp 1:00 pm the guys arrived at the bus stop, armed with a perfectly valid excuse for being late .That they were "searching" for a volley-ball. I mean,im sure it's not downright impossible that one day all the volley balls in college decide to disappear together (perhaps to a parallel universe even, while we're at the not-impossible things that could happen.). Anyways, after a sumptuous meal at Zain's, we headed to the beach. There i was, on the beach, all jeans rolled up to the knee , trying carefully not to get the rest of me wet when a big wave decided to do me a favour and almost swept me off. Now that i had became fully wet anyway, the rest of the day was a lot less bothersome. We then played football (or some crude version of it.). Was fun, even though the probability of me being picked again by any team next time is kinda close to zero. I'm ,well, not all that good at it. (My team mates kept saying stuff like 'You do realize that the point of the game is to block the other team not your own, rite?' and ' I'm in your same team!' :)). The best part was, after a while, it looked like it was going to rain. The sky got all dark and gloomy. But it didn't rain. It rained in college. and At my friend's place (in calicut itself). But not in kappad. Like as if the Raingodguy, after it was done 'Let there be rain'-ing the other places, turned to kapaad, brought out all the dark clouds and then got bored midway or went to attend a phone call or something. The result of which was that the weather was just Perr-fect. :). If you looked towards the horizon,the landscape was brilliantly divided : A bright white strip of sky sandwiched in between the omnious dark clouds and the grey sea. Plus, one of us had an awesome Sony camera ( ok,9 mp is all the tech info i can give you. and no,i don't know the model number.can never remember them and just can't get how some ppl go 'oh u mean the 1524? its whatchammacalit is good but 123XY5E got way better whatsitsname. but the AC675-XE, now that's got...' .) .You know the sort of camera, which no matter how drab a pic you take, just comes out Wow. ( My 2 mp mob cam on the other hand, manages to make even a dazzling display of fireworks into a weird abstract blob.) So of course, there were a lot of Wonders of Nature Pics and Posed Pics ( Dil Chahta Hai Pose, the Let's all look Serious Pose,Heads In a Circle Pose and of course the most common the Single Photo turned Everyone scrambling in to be in It Pose). Someone kicked the ball a lil far off into the water while playing and while everyone was debating on who should swim to get it, the ball, tired of being kicked around, kept going further away. Unfortunately (for the ball), it was caught before it could make its escape. Then everyone just bobbed up and down in the water,catching the waves for a while. Of course, most of us kept getting swept away, often bouncing backward on and off the ground( ouch, not too gently). After everyone had swallowed enough salt water and ugghh..a bit of sand ( well, yeah, some of us sorta had a sand throwing fight) it was 6:00 and time for us girls to get back (yup, the NITC LH is one of the hostels which still has a 7pm curfew) and one of them gave us a ride back. The return journey was well, besides being a race to get back to the hostel by 7, cold. Had rolled down the windows and the fact that we were all soaked to the bone didn't help.Anyways, reached hostel in record time : at 7:05 pm, had a nice bath and then's when the feeling of calm came over. After which i went on to the whole mug of coffee thing and the rest of the first para.

There, my second day of consistent blogging. Tiny pat on back to self. Weather's still nice, btw. Still all Warm and fuzzy :).

I'm Baaaack!

Yup, done away with sessionals. Can finally push that away as an excuse not to blog.Thing is, I get all these fantastic ideas just when i get down to studying.Actually, more than ideas , i come up with these cleverly-phrased sentences (which i mostly forget when i actually get down to writing the post so don't go all one-eyebrow raised and 'Cleverly-phrased? didn't see 'em anywhere.' and all.) It's like my brain, normally lazy and content with generating random, not particularly clever thoughts(not to mention highly repetitive, like on a recursive loop. 'Makes my job easier. smart,huh?' quips brain.), suddenly faced with it's owner's attempts to actually make it work by Gasp! Studying tries to fight back the only way it could think of : Generating a lightning-quick succession of some awesome sentences all tumbling one after the other, while the dazed owner tries to take it all in. This distracts her for a while, and the brain, relieved(and quite smug), returns to it's comfortable RTG (Random/Repetitive Thought Generation) process. Buuut, you say, surely, generating such a quick succession of sentences, must require the brain to work (esp since they gotta be all awesome and stuff too) which umm..kinda u know, defeats the whole purpose? Aaah, You and I would.Not my brain.See, If you actually manage to study,it goes on to explain, I've got to work continuously and for quite long periods of time, while in the above-mentioned case, I just need to work a few microseconds, generate a few sentences and then repeat this process every couple of hours or so, (have put that on a recursive loop too. Highly efficient, i tell you, though it's applicable only to the Cause of Work Avoidance.) when i detect the owner's eye moving back to them blasted textbooks. And come post-sessionals, no longer faced with such a crisis,I switch off the Creativity button (to conserve more energy of course).
and What's the point of this post? I'm not quite sure myself.A simple 'I'm back.shall be posting more soon.' was all i had in mind. Ah, well, I was never known for my brevity anyway.

Note To Self

I just thought of at least five different topics/stuff i could blog about. Must write them after sessionals. There. Now i have to blog them 'cause It Is Written.
My apologies to all ( howsoever imaginary) who got an RSS feed about this post.I shall (try to) make it up to you. Promise.
Toodles.