Days 152,153,154: 27th-29th Nov, 2009 - INDEX'09!

Woah!! 3 super hectic but super memorable days. Words really wouldn't be able to capture the feelings that run behind. After all, this was the grand culmination of all the efforts we were putting in since the last few months!

Started 27th by going out to get some more new stamps. Went to a closer, more recognisable place this time. And also had the (happy?) realisation that I was overcharged two days back :-p. Bought A LOT of stationary items for the events team.

Had some little work here and there when I came back to college. Trucks had come by now, to carry teams' props to the ground. Helped a bit there. But left it to someone else as I had to go to the fair venue.

The setup looked nice :) . My personal favourite was the huge backdrop to the stage. Anyways, didn't have time to pause and admire anything after that.. work work work was all I did. Right from arranging food for the support team to raising curtain lengths to providing carpets to fighting for the loo arrangements (becoming legendary in INDEX circles for years to come :D). Went to the local police chowki to inform them... had to go to this whole new area called 'Naya Hyderabad' (in Lucknow :D). It is right behind a very important city road but still it was totally cut off! Was running with the tent wala to ascertain things were perfect. I remember dozing off and swaying even as I was standing :-p , but there was no way I could go and grab even 4 winks. And chilllllllllyyyyyy cold all through! Finally at around 6.30 am, I slipped into a razai in the ops tent and slept for an hour.

28th, day 1 of the fair, had finally arrived! And being an Ops guy is tough! Murphy's law invariably had to come true to mock at us. There was a power failure just as the fair was supposed to open. And there was apparently not enough diesel ! Spent the entire afternoon going with the electrician (which involved finding him out first!!) to get additional power points at multiple stalls. Without getting into specifics, let me just say there was a lot of running around for the rest of the day. One awesome sight which I had not been .. how do I put it.. exposed to before ;-) . Of course, things got better towards the end as I grew in power ;) and learnt to make phone calls and get the work done :D. The Sufi Nite event in the evening was pretty good! We would have liked more numbers, but can't complain! Ended the day bargaining with a local food stall vendor, more for the fun of it than for anything else :-p . Went back with Saurabh, first to GnB to grab a bite. Just couldn't feel my legs!! I somehow dragged myself to my room and was flat out sleeping probably even before I hit the bed.

Woke up on 29th and realised I had slightly overslept past the 7am target. A few calls later I realised same was the case with other first year Core members :D. Got dressed quickly and went to the ground. Things were pretty much in place though. The tent wala had even put carpets over some dusty areas as I had asked him to. Came back to college to deal with the small stomach upset I had :-p (which in itself was surprising considering my lunch comprised of oranges). Even getting work done was easier today as the labourers were all familiar with me and I didn't have to tell them things twice. Had another good set of events today. Saw the crowds grow up, especially towards late evening.

So that was INDEX'09 for me. Couldn't even watch the final few events as I was still.. yea.. running around..! Ordered pizzas for the support teams, which was only a small appreciation for all the hard work they had done! Jumped around a little over the last 2-3 songs being played by the Rock band. Got a few photos clicked. A couple of random videos (which I am yet to lay my hands on). Bumps for everyone!

And then my last bit of work for the day. Packing stuff, getting them loaded on the trucks and have them back to college. Leading the truck, then waiting for it to come into visibility, then realising the truck was far ahead (Riza should really be beaten up :-p) and then coming back to campus before the truck :D. Unloaded stuff. Spent some time in the INDEX room.

Finally pulled off INDEX '09 :)

Hip hip hurray!!

Day 151.5: 26-27 Nov, 2009 - Night out in the city !

So this is a special night you get to enjoy only if you are in INDEX Ops! :D As the last leg of publicity, we have a night out in the city where we just go around putting INDEX posters ALL over the city :D.

We had two vans, one headed by Riza and the other by myself to cover different spots in the city. As it turned out, the space in my van turned out to be a little insufficient to seat all the Ops support team members and the workers. So in that freezing cold, I took out my bike to ride in the city :D. Definitely armed myself well for the cold, multiple layers of clothing, including two pairs of gloves :P.

Went around sticking posters at a lot of places. We had to only cut down because we ran out of the glue. Were stopped by an inspector in between. Told him we were IIM students sticking poster for our fair. Worked like magic :D

Stayed out till around 4am sticking posters. From there, myself and Jayadutta went to this place where they put handouts inside newspapers. Waited there for sometime while the guys inserted/stuck our pamphlets on the newspapers. Pretty fast those people are, I must say!

And from the there back to my room. Time to hit my bed for a couple of hours. Lots of work left in the day. 1 day to go for INDEX! :D

Day 151: 26th Nov, 2009

Waiting . . .

Waiting . . .

Waiting . . .

This is exactly what I did for most part of the day today!

Now ... I am gifted with an incredible amount of patience, but I am not particularly fond of using it. Especially when the mistake is not mine!

So ... the day started with a visit to the Army Printing press to get some printouts for the INDEX entry tickets. Point is, I was supposed to collect half those tickets since I had to take them to the entertainment office for some stamping or something. So this fellow there was sent an email informing him about the same. But no, he didn't read the email and his man already started out on his journey to the college :-S . So there I was, WAITING at his office early in the morning, for the man to come back. And the promised 20min waiting time turned out to be a boring 45min! And NO, that one cup of watery tea did no good.

Next stop - a government office. No wonder all the officials there were bald... the place is so full of laziness that even the dead cells in your hair would not want to be pushed up above the scalp. I went up to that office and asked where I was supposed to get the permission from. First of all, no one, absolutely NO ONE, wanted to answer. Then I went to specific individuals, got diverted to a couple of other tables before finally reaching an individual who incidentally was right in front when I first asked my question in the room :-S .

Just a few permissions were what I needed after all. So now that I got the person, work should be simple right? HAHA! :-S . What happened next is reason enough for Riza to be bashed up black and blue. Apparently, one extra thing, a tiny detail, about the split up of entertainment tax, needed to be included in the ticket! And this we missed out! Bamm!

So there I was, out of the office, hunting for a person who makes stamps. As I went to new roads and areas I had no clue about (Aminabad or some similar sounding aabaad :-S ), I finally hunted down one shop doing this. And here came my second round of WAITING ! Well, atleast I had opted for the more expensive - but faster to make - stamps so that I can hurry back quickly and finish off the work soon. Or so I thought.

Part 3. I reach the office back around 1.15-1.30. Man in question missing. Out for lunch.

1.45 pm. No sign yet. he'll come back soon now.

2.00 pm. No sign yet. official hours must be over now. he'll come back soon I guess.

2.15 pm. No sign yet. why isn't he back yet?!

2.30 pm. The two officials next to him put stamps for some new people! When I asked them to do it for me, they replied saying they can't interfere with what some one else has started! why the $#^& is he not back yet?! kitna khaega?!!

2.45 pm. No sign of this person. I try to use some logical arguments to convince the neighbouring officials. They countered me with some illogical arguments. Trust me, it is damn difficult to fight those weapons. The remaining officials sat around discussing whether a bakri should be cut or not. WTF! What about me getting halaal-ed at that very moment?!

3.00 pm. I am going to shoot this man when I see him. Sudden realisation - Wait a minute, is he coming back at all?! :-O

3.15 pm. He finally comes back. Some festive lunch apparently somewhere! And he says - "aap abhi tak yahin ho? woh stamp kyun nahi lagaya abhi tak?" mujhe kya pata.. aakashvani aayi thi kya koi !!

So finally I get out of that place at close to 4'0 clock, eating a couple of bananas for lunch. And after lots and lots of WAITING.

Had a very heavy bag thanks to all the tickets. Went with that to a few local vendors and distributed our invites. Came back with a couple of hours to spare before dinner. I need rest. Have a night out in the city!

Day 150: 25th Nov, 2009

Went to check out this new kids play area with Shruti. Rather went there midway since Praveen had to go out on some urgent work. All the way to Gomti Nagar. Saw some new areas though :D , including a circus :D. Didn't get to see any animals though :-(

Thankfully I got my thermals yesterday. It gets a little chilly even with that, but then what would it be without that :-/

Slept off early today! No one called me up for the late night meeting, or maybe they tried and I didn't respond :D . Either way, the rest will serve me good - few VERY hectic days coming up!

Day 149: 24th Nov, 2009

Was super sleepy yesterday night as well. But had to urgently make another couple of designs. So dragged myself to spend yet another night at the CC. However, this time the sleep sacrifice was at a price.

What happened is that accidentally, while making the 2nd poster, I overwrote it at the location of the 1st poster with the same file name! :-( .. Fortunately I have a jpeg version stored, but still.. it leaves me without a psd. I hope no change comes up in that poster!

Went to the city alone today. Especially to get the flex prints for those designs. Did quite a bit of local spons work. Highlight however was my first encounter with the newest car on road ! And what a memorable encounter it was. I was going along at a usual speed and suddenly the vehicle in front of me puts on the brake. I do the same thing, but still my bike ends up kissing the rear of the car ahead. (mini GPL :-p) . As I look to see which vehicle, I realised it was nothing less than the TATA Nano ! Luckily, nothing major or even minor happened, damage wise.

Day 148: 23rd Nov, 2009

Post midterm we have this prof for MANAC 2. He is the proper character-sketch strict prof types. Always comes on time. Shuts the door. AND the worst part... asks questions to hapless students.

Now my seating in class is in a pretty noticeable position, due to which I NEVER put my nametag. But this guy, in a typically expected behaviour, forces us all to place our nametags on front. And immediately after that, catches me and asks me some fundu question on the case which 50% of the class hasn't read, and 90% of the remaining half hasn't bothered to solve! :S .. Anyways, I am taking refuge in my usual stoic and stony non expressive face mask.

Was super sleepy in class nonetheless. I don't even remember much of what happened. My kinda hangover :-p

Had to go to the city with Shruti. Some more work here and there. The awesome thing was that I was going on MY DISCOVER now! Yippeeee!!

Day 147: 22nd Nov, 2009

Sundays are really pointless if you don't get to just waste the entire day. So you can imagine how much more boring mine was considering I had to get up early morning, attend a class AND give a presentation. Well atleast the presentation went off fine, thanks to three team members being ex-employees of the same company which we were supposed to analyse ;-)

We had a 'European nite' celebration on campus, organised by the Stex (Student Exchange) committee. Different menu items such as garlic bread, pastas, salads were prepared. Was pretty nice actually! Don't understand why the bloody mess workers make crappy food on other days when they can very well bring out some better output :-S. Of course, there was also one ultra delicious cake, which only became infinitely more yummier as I got to share it with some others ;-) , evoking strong feelings of jealousy amongst some others :D

Had our first Ops support team meeting for the night. Just a small briefing on what they are supposed to do. These guys have some good (amount of :D) work coming up.