Saarang '07

Due to some other commitments, I was almost going to miss Saarang this year. In any case, I wasn't worried, been there done that and all. Plus, I had just been to Mood I. However my bro did not have a teammate, so I ended up giving him company at Saarang.

Day 1:
I managed to reach a day late, on the 27th of Feb. So I missed an apparently good inauguration. Instead of the usual classical stuff, there was a Global Music performance by a group of firangs. Oh! and I missed the Word Games prelims, cos of some screw-up in the schedule put up on the website.

Day 2:
Anyway, so I reach Chennai after a huge traffic jam delayed the departure from Bangalore. It was a short ride to the IITM main gate, from where I decide to walk to the room. That took an hour! Meanwhile I saw about four groups of deer in different places, including one with antlers. Not sure if that's called a stag, a male spotted deer. Anyway.

So the first thing I do is have a bath and then head out to do the daily crossword. Husain had single-handedly won the previous days, and we did that days and won it too. After that there was nothing much o do, so watched a lot of Powerchord, where there was this bang from Xaviers, with a pretty good (two separate adjectives) lead vocalist. The bassist was talented too. They ultimately won, and got to take part in the semi-pro finals. Other noticeable acts was a band from the Chitra kala Parishat, with a guitarist called Sylvester who looked like some guy in a dingy, cramped shop in an arbit village lane in Tamil Nadu. Quite a guy.

Thereafter is the crossword pre-lims, which we finished somewhere between first and third, depending on whom you ask and who's ego is at stake, I guess. Meanwhile I managed to watch a bit of the main quiz elims in the morn, as well as some of the JAM sessions. the JAM was terrible, with a pathetic crowd laughing at every silly lewd joke, and slapstick Jammaster's delights and what have you. Some of it was good, no doubt, but it wasn't worth enduring the rest of the show.

In the evening I stood in line to catch a rendition of Five Point Someone by the Madras Play something-something, a theatre group. It was nice, the story is decent and all. There were a lot of people wanting to see the show, and the line was huge, but we managed to sneak in hrough a side door no one else thought would be open. It wasn;t supposed to be open, but they couldn't chuck us out once we got in, so we slyly managed to get front row seats.

After that I just loafed around the stalls area, talking to a lot of people, waiting for the Sports ad Entertainment (SpEnt) Quiz to start. I met Mithun who took me to the music room where he was practising for the Host Show, a nice fun event full of old rock.I left soon though, for the spent quiz. It started at about 12 pm. These guys have started this fad of LVCs. That's a Long visual Connect, meaning they show you twenty to thirty images and you've got to connect all of them. Painful. They also have a whole section based on Absolut and Mocktials. Sadly there wasn't any vodka being handed out to the audience, not that I wanted any but just for the sake of it.

So I was headed to the room to sleep, when I met Mithun again and we went to get some coffee, but no luck. So I inally decided to crash.

Day 3:
Got up and went to do the daily cross, but messed it up with a spelling mistake. that's ok. The real pain was when Sonal asks me to fill in for Sab who's gone home and left her without a debate partner. The topic was ' Is the media justified in altering the course of justice by arousing public opinion(/sentiment)? ' More pain, embarrasment, and some pretty women. Oh well, you win some, you lose a lot. Cos I missed the whole of Decibels morning.

I rush out of the debate and we leave to go to the mosque, Husain and I. My Dad's friend stays in chennai so we were going to her place to change, as it was close to the mosque. She has a daughter doing Visual Comm. After the evening prayer, we go back to their place, and stay for dinner. We chat a lot, and she's quite interesting. The daughter, mind you. My dad's friend drops us back in IITM after having coffee, and we part ways. Nice time.

So the light music is going on, where people either play tamil or those standard indi ballads of late. 'Aadat' and all that stuff. I missed the decibels finals. Boo hoo. So I leave, and Atul and I chat for a long time around Bindaas Park and the stall area. In general discussing college. Finally we head back by around 12 pm for the main quiz finals, in which Husain qualified. It was decent, managed to stay awake till 3:30 a.m., but I decided to sleep cos I might need it.

Day 4:
We get up, try the crossword, and don't get one word (!). Apparently Logorrhea is a disease where one can't keep one's mouth shut. Oh well.

I pleasantly watch acoustyx all day, which was nice, and loaded with pretty women. Some really talented performances went on. St. Joseph's College was really good, and as I guessed they went on to win the event. Cute singer.

Soon after there's western solo. the instrumentals are amazing, pianists, guitarists and a harmonica. Wow. Sylvester showed up with a funky tune. I want to watch the vocals, where Aditya would be takin part, but I have to leave for the crossword finals.

The finals is delayed, and I'm just generally waiting around. It start after about half an hour. The grids was too small, so soon a lot of the words could be guessed by filling in obvious letters. We were tied for first at the end of the first round. The buzzers don't worrk, so we have the third round, which was similar to the first. It's going well, clues are simple and most people are getting them. We slip to third place cos there weren't enough clues to complete the third round, before the partly uncovered clues become written clues.

finally the buzzer proves to be unreliable. We then go with a show of hands. And we rip. We get the first two buzzers and are back in the lead, and finally way ahead. Avi and Sathya finish second, after a points screw up initially declared them behind Bofi and Basvi. Initially I was scared Bofi and Busvi would prove too strong for us, but we managed to win.

The rest of Saarang went in collecting prizes, packing and then reaching the bus station. Husain lost the ticket, and we had to buy our own seat again.

On the whle, a pretty average Saarang. Forgettable in mos parts, I already struggle to remember the people and faces. Mood I was a whole lot more entertaining, though there'd never be a crossword there. Oh Well. I regained a title I wasn't too bothered about initially, and now it does feel good to have won.