Mission Chipkao
"Out of sight means out of mind", this maxim is very much applicable to the MGIT junta.
We were done with the shout fest, now it was time for the visual treat.
Mr. Resourceful Ravi Shankar came up with some nifty, eye- popping, bindaaz posters for the main promotion part, the 55 words contest and the abstract arena (posters in previous post)
We all (the edi board) awed and more awwwed at the digital images. But our college printer had decided to play a cruel trick on us. As the first draft was eeking its way out of the printer our hearts were racing faster than a Ferrari Mc Laren-F1 and...Crashed into a wall the moment a copy landed into our eager hands. It looked like nothing on the screen before us. It resembled something which I would call ....(I'm short of words to describe my horror.)We were clueless and stood rooted in our places.
But the kind hearted gentleman [God bless him] (whom I had managed to soften up a bit, by being too eager about his contribution to the mag) said we would try out an another printer was enough to set our blood pressure shooting up again.
This is Team Musings mate. This ain't a place for the weak hearted and Futoo people (Jiski bahut jaldi fatt jathi hai.)We court adversities at every front.
But again disappointment courtesy red-tapism and too many hurdles (instead the hurdles event at the Olympics would have been a cake walk for us.)
Moral: Never pin hopes on the official office printer.
But our Nice guy refused to give up. Being an ex personal assistant to the head honcho he still calls the shots. So he just rings up the stationery in charge (MGIT has one incase you dint know) and ordered a hp DeskJet color cartridge pronto.
I salivated on seeing the beauty which held within it the magic liquid to transform the digital imagery to a visual delight. A line from Eminem's 8 mile road struck me “look if you had one chance, one opportunity, would you let it go?"
No, never.
So I watched with a subdued breath as his hands gingerly placed the small box into it's righteous place....I was about to do a 'Theen Maar' when...
"Houston we have a problem" (oh draconian devil not again!!!)
The images are on a cd and the system we are working on doesn't have a cd drive
(damn these cheap assembled pc's.)
Dilema again....? (ab kya hoga?)
Mein ney chabyee minto fresh aur dimag ki batthi jalayee.
Cd drive nahi hai to kya hua windows networking hai na. Just type in a few password strings and we are game. Thank you Mr. Bill Gates.
From our past experience we were not so expectant this time. We stood there grinning and giving each other idiotic glances.The print quality this time was better if not excellent. We stocked up and left thanking Mr. Nice guy profusely from the bowels of our stomach :-)
Now the second most important part of the campaigning; we had to home upon the hot spots where people's eyes would naturally travel (no pun intended) and find our posters there. We had four different posters this time around(a rapid increase over last year where we had only one; happens when you have a chief editor who answers to the title 'creative shocker')
We struck off the loo's and waiting rooms from our list of hot spots as people would be in an hurry to relieve their tension rather read about an artistic outburst and overflowing of creative juices.
Finally we hit upon the idea that we would plaster the posters on opposite sides of the wall in every classroom so that guys will be looking in the gals direction and vice versa leading to exchange of meaningful glances and stuff for gossip mongers ( Da Vinci is our guru; every action of ours serves a double purpose) creating positive vibes which will be good in the interest of the mag because to be creative on the spur (what we need from our contributors to the mag) your romantic life has to be hip-hop and happening.
Maidan-e-jung :
The warriors of the edi board were ready to break into fortress MGIT armed with posters, rolls of cello tapes and scissors. The male regiment was lead knight Gandalf n field commander Chee-tan kumar. The female brigade boasted of two firebrand dynamic ladies Kal and Trinity who were prepared to the hilt. It was time for running from pillar to post.
Wait, did I hear you say where is the rest of the 'zine' team? Well we guys believe in 'divide and don't work'
Our chief mentor is cooling his bum punching away keys relentlessly on his new AMD machine in the comfort of his Neverland, probably with some Metallica composition blaring out at full blast.
Adi n Spurthi (sincere, studious folks these) are trying to make sense of compression ratios and suction volumes in the thermal engineering class.
And our celebrated designer Mr.Shiv Aditya a.k.a Chanderpaul is meandering away to 6 days of bliss at IIT Chennai.He has been given strict orders not to flirt with the girls there as he may occupy a podium place next to actress Kushboo(moral policing in full swing there) and we don’t want to loose good talent to thambi's and mapullai's down south.
Shift back to ground zero. We had breached the walls; MGIT spread out its arms welcoming us into its fold.
Time for some action, "girls take to the left and guys take the right," I barked.
[I have a thing about directions in which the ying- yang must work in order for successful completion of the work]
The guys are fast but the girls are efficient. Between us the job was over in 20 minutes flat.At B-block Kal left us due to some prior musical commitments. So now down to three we hit the stairs taking five at a time and are done with the B block in a jiffy cos only three sections are taught in this entire mammoth block. Triveni did
the cutting, Chetan did the rolling and I did the plastering.
The reaction from the people on spotting the posters near the library...
“It’s a bird, it’s a pane. .It’s a musings poster!”
Here I must mention what a cannibal this guy Chee-tan is..he doesn't waste any time in cutting the tape with scissors just runs a layer of it through his razor sharp teeth and presto we have a fission.
Dude Chetan....take a bow.
People gave us stares as if we were on some kinda 'around the college in 80 seconds' trip. But balls to stares the task at hand is more physically demanding than ever. Whosoever came up with this architectural wonder (MGIT) should have put up some escalators and fly-overs between the blocks which would have made life a lot easier for us folks.We scaled peaks 'B-block' and 'C-block' in succession planting our flags (posters) rigidly.
Triveni and Chetan left after C-block. I was left alone to challenge the final frontier the monstrous D-block. I sweated and pretted. Repeated some powerful motivational sloka and decided to take the plunge.
I heard a voice calling me..mebbe my soul had slipped out..I must be dreaming or freaking mad..suddenly a hand landed on my shoulder..I had a mild heart attack..whoa it's Adi.
He sez," Koi tension nahi lena ka boss support system (read juniors) is here."
D-block was also scaled. I felt on top of the world (literally)
Adi has learnt the ropes of the trade (human wealth management) very well. He has taken off from where I left last year. Watch this guy he'll make it big in HRM/HRD of an MNC someday.
We celebrated the completion of our chipkao mission over a bottle of appy fizz and dispersed.
PS: I return to my haven tired, hungry and worn out. My legs aches like hell.Painkillers have no effect. My pal suggests a shot of a 'strong' soft drink. I guzzle down a pint and slip into a deep slumber. I am neck deep into ecstasy romancing my favorite heroine when my mobile goes off. Due to the indiscernible state of my mind (guess the soft drink was too hard) I mistook my Dad's call for one from my pal's and say “eh maamu apun abhi full load pey hai baad mein phone karne ka." I heard "okay son" and the other phone clicked.
I awoke with a start all my tiredness disappearing in an instant.
Last spotted my dad was seen on a flight bound for Hyderabad.
Pray for me people....Amen
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Hmmm... Nice... So the wheels are moving.
man sid youre just awesome ra!!!
and guys... articles... compensate our input !!!
you are too good to be an engineering student sid !! you are simply amazing....eagerly waiting for your next blog.....