Not many people including the college administration know this, but the domain name of our college website xavierengg.com is going to expire on the 19th of February.

After that, although the website will remain online, nobody will be able to access it by typing the domain name. You’ll need to type the IP Address to get to it. Let’s see if anybody realizes this (heh heh)

Speaking of IP Addresses, we’re also thinking about getting a new domain name for the Transmission website. As of now we have none and you have to type in the IP Address to access the website or you can click here but soon you’ll either see a completely new domain name or something like xavierengg.com/transmission

It’s worth the wait to see how things turn out.

As I’m writing this post from my toilet seat, I’m having this warm fuzzy feeling inside about last night’s event, Spandan.

Unlike all the other events that I cover, I couldn’t really take pictures of stuff happening behind the scenes thanks to my stand-by phone (Asus P320, don’t buy it…ever) but that’s never really stopped me from posting.

Before I write about stuff that happened at Spandan, I’ll take you through life during Spandan’s planning days.

When college reopened on Jan 21st, two committees were quickly formed and got to work that very day itself. These two groups were those managing Spandan and the Techfest respectively. To make things roll a little faster, the sponsorship committees of Spandan and Techfest were being tested on who gets more/better sponsors during this time of economic slowdown. Although it did result in everyone working their asses off, it also took a toll on their ethics. Everyone started creating hurdles in the other group so that they could have the upper hand. The guys managing Spandan ended up so frustrated that they started ’demanding’ companies to sponsor them instead of requesting them and man, you can imagine how ugly things were at that point.

Luckily, as days passed Spandan was getting closer and everyone mutually decided to tone down the rivalry. Since Pratibha Ma’am was busy with the TechFest, Meera Ma’am had a lot on her hands. She also had to look for comperes for the event and what better place to look at potential comperes than at extempore and debate competions, right? Since Parul, Robin and I were regulars at such events we all got roped in. Linson and Conell were added to this clique very soon. Conell backed out and chose to handle music which in retrospect I think was a pretty good decision. He probably had some kind of a fortune-teller who told him about the misfortunes that would lie ahead.

Initially, we were told that we’ll be comperes for the entire event and since most of our work wasn’t our problem (such as managing participants, chief guest details, lighting of the lamp stuff and other formalities) we were told to write a few fillers for the event. Meera Ma’am wanted the fillers to be better than the programme itself and we pretended that we didn’t hear that just to have a little less pressure on our backs.

We all tried the usual stuff that always gets the audience entertained such as asking people to do stuff on stage for which they usually get ragged off-stage. We tried roping in Sherwin and Harshad to act like their usual selves and we knew it would be a guaranteed hit but these guys wouldn’t do it for obvious reasons (would you do it? )

A filler always has a usual flow :

• Curtains close.
• 2 guys enter on stage.
• They crack some lame-ass joke or sing something that’s even more lame.
• They realize that they need to waste more time so they babble about how the crowd is feeling to get some audience participation.
• They leave the stage and the next programme begins.

I thought that instead of doing the usual stuff, it’d be a lot more cooler if we had concept fillers. Concept fillers are fillers which are connected by a single storyline which means that all the fillers are based on an underlying story. The idea was imbibed well by everyone and we got to work. We also knew that this was going to be difficult because the sequence of fillers in such a setup is crucial to maintain the storyline. Since the awesomeness of a filler also depended on the story, messing up the sequence would mean messing up the entire thing. Still, it was worth a shot.

We decided that there would be a ’bhoot’ who would roam around XIE during spandan. To find and defeat the bhoot, we introduced another character and their confrontations would be staged as fillers. The introduction of the person who defeats the bhoot was made into a Matrix parody where James Bond is chosen over Neo to find the bhoot.

Finding James Bond was a difficult task. We roamed around college searching for people but that didn’t work. Then something clicked and I wondered how it’d be if Harshad was James Bond? It’d be funny as hell and Harshad would love to do it as well so he was signed up as 007.

The Bhoot’s identity was to be revealed as Joker during the end and Linson promised to do it well if he was given a kickass facepaint and although none of us were sure if Linson could pull it off (although he had the perfect hair for the role), we agreed.

The rest of the fillers had a similar approach and we managed to get a few neat fillers for the final event.

But just 2 days before Spandan, we were told to find out who the chief guest was, find out her work experience and resume, write the vote of thanks, find oil for lighting the lamp, compile the list of winners and put everything on paper in the form of the script. What was worse is that all these things came one at a time, at an interval of a few hours.

We wanted the flow of events which Anupama was supposed to have, but she was dependant on some more guys who weren’t doing their work so I couldn’t blame her either. Unfortunately, I was the only one who wasn’t playing the blame game while the rest were just throwing shit at people under them in the hierarchy. It starts out with the Director raising a few questions to the Principal. The principal yells at Meera Ma’am, she yells at us and the chain stopped there so I really felt like taking out my anger someplace. Luckily the Tug O War competition was being held the same day and I was about to participate but I had to talk to Fr. Reggie at that very moment.

FINAL DAY – 9TH FEB

We were a little relaxed today ’cuz we got the final event list at 6.30pm yesterday and shweta had got the list of winners as well. None of our props were ready, our scripts were still messed up, speeches missing and tensions rising but for some reason nobody felt it. My group was selected for the treasure hunt and it hurt to see everyone having a nice time trying to crack the puzzles while I was working with the details of Spandan. I shaved my head for this day as I was playing Morpheus (lol) and I had loads of guys coming up to me asking if I had one of the clues from the treasure hunt ’cuz one of the clues read "find the bald mad scientist" lol.

Some guys were practicing for their band performance and I jammed with them for a while and they seemed pretty enthusiastic about their performance today.

We were working with the final details and rehearsals when one guy comes up to me and says: "Dude, it’s 5.30. You’re on stage anytime". Linson and I rushed to Robin’s place and changed there and ran back to college.

True to her word, the chieft guest arrived on time and Salil sir cancelled the band performance which pissed them off. They’ve been practicing for weeks and I completely justify their feelings when they were told they couldn’t perform. The mikes weren’t ready and we got off to an awkward start. There was barely anyone on the ground, it was hot as hell, the mike was covering my speech on the podium, so I messed up a few parts until I got the mike placed properly. I was also supposed to recite a Sanskrit prayer and my speech had something else on it. Fortunately, I knew the prayer by heart and was able to recite it correctly.

Things seemed to be going pretty fast and Robin forgot to announce that there was a ’bhoot’ in XIE. Still, we performed the Matrix filler and the crowd didn’t know that I had shaved my head for playing Morpheus and that Harshad was playing James Bond, and they had a blast. The slow-motion fight sequence went on flawlessly and I was glad that my idea was executed well by Robin and Harshad.

Most of our fillers were made up on the spot, cuz the programme was being sped up so that the chief guest could see as much as possible before she left (the reason why she came at 5.30 was because she wanted to leave early). Linson’s face was being painted by the one who earned first prize in face painting and after seeing his face, I could see why she won the first place in the first place. (pun intended, but too bad I don’t remember her name).

I had given Linson 2 Joker cards and someone equipped him with a pocket-knife and he used them perfectly. He spoke with the exact Heath Ledger accent, acted eccentric and the background theme song made it even more awesome. He scared the crap out of everyone, entertained them and gave enough time for those backstage to set up the stage for the next act. His confrontation with James Bond (Harshad) was even more awesome as Harshad had two bond girls with him and got the audience excited once again.

I don’t have any pictures of him, but many people do and I’ll upload them as soon as I get them. But honestly, Linson stole the show with his Joker performance.

The tech-fest Transmission was also being introduced today and they did pretty well with the falling scroll, transmission video and the fireworks. Truly spectacular and chic.

Sudhir played the Slumdog really well for the Slumdog Filler and he really became the Slumdog Millionaire when he was crowned as Mr. Xavier along with Shwetha Krishnan as Ms. Xavier in the persona competition. Both of them deserved it, although some wondered how Sudhir won the tie-breaker against Francis even though Francis bent on his knees to woo Shwetha. Too clichéd, I guess.

The show went on and was concluded by Linson and Robin at around 11.30pm.

Now for the stuff that never made it on stage.

1) THE SHERWIN RECONSIDERATION FILLER:

Sherwin was asked to prepare a speech and informally introduce the audience. As he would speak, the crowd would boo him (we had planted a few people in the crowd) and 4 guys would just run up on stage, pick him and get him off stage. The best part was that Sherwin had no idea that he would be picked up and thrown out from the stage.

Too bad that didn’t work out because the chief guest arrived on time.

1) THE ACTION-BEHIND-THE-CURTAINS FILLER:

This is how the filler was supposed to start. The curtains are closed. Suddenly everyone can hear loud screams "Ooh…Yeah….Come On….Harder…You can Do It….Yes…Aah….Give it to me….Oh Yeah!!" and after about 15 seconds, the curtains open. And no, you don’t see a couple of guys having sex on stage, but you see one of them trying some push-ups and the other guy encouraging him. This was supposed to be a shocker, and would have been offensive to a lot of people, but we decided to do it anyway but couldn’t because nobody needed much time to set up the stage and by the time we could do it, it was time for the persona competition.

I’m pretty sure I’ve skipped a lot of stuff in this post, but I can’t help it as I’ve got up from the toilet seat and I feel really sick. Yesterday’s food sure tasted fine, but my stomach begs to differ. Loose-motions, Food-poisoning, call it what you want, but it’s difficult to think and write at this point. Perhaps Robin can fill in the blanks for me with his post.

Overall, I think we did our job well, entertained the crowd and kept people asking for more. Sure, we had a few screw ups as well such as no background music during the prize distribution and persona but it wasn’t that bad without it as well.

Kudos to all the guys who put in their efforts for Spandan which include Parul (had fever but didn’t let that stop her), Robin (he also had Fever but he still pushed himself), Linson, Namrata (ever wondered where those slick lines from our speeches came from?), Conell, Sudhir, Harshad, Shwetha, Janice Ma’am (for helping us out with the formalities), Meera Ma’am (for tips n tricks), Chopre sir (for giving us time to prepare , only a few know what that means), Viren Sir and Jaychand Sir (stage would have been a mess without them) and last but not the least all the dance performers and singers who made me run after them everytime just to get them backstage

Hope you guys had a nice time at Spandan and enjoy the weekend!