Independence day @ IIIT

How did you celebrate the Independence Day in your school? Remember all the kids in neat, fresh uniforms and the PT-guy with the weird voice shouting at them? Remember the compulsory attendance, and the teachers being all tense and hyper? Remember the flags, sweets and what-not they distributed? Remember the boring speeches made and the whack cultural program put up by your classmates? And if you were important or unlucky enough, remember the march pasts and the “guest of honour” too?

I am not complaining, mind you, just wondering – whatever happened to all that? Now the Independence Day means just one thing to me – yet another holiday, a day where I can sleep at six in the morning and wake up at two in the afternoon, just in time for lunch. No doubt, someone or other would be cussing at me right now, calling me an unpatriotic lout, and trying to associate their most profane profanities with my name. But hang on a minute, will you?

Does being “patriotic” mean waking up early in the morning, listening to some random dumbasses delivering a few boring speeches and saluting the flag of your country? Respecting your country and being proud of who you are – isn’t that enough? I have no idea what it means to be a part of a freedom struggle, and if im lucky enough, I never will. Days like the Independence Day and the Republic Day exist more in history text books, and less in reality.

Anyway, I was jobless enough to attend the evening function in iiit, a small overview follows, purely my views, with an overdose of criticism.

The Telugu Play

Yes, there was a play in Telugu. I understood only two words of the whole script, and those were English words. So there I was – sitting there like an idiot, putting on a typical Jose Moaninho face, twiddling my thumbs, praying that this was just a bad joke, and that time would pass quickly. The general audience somehow seemed to like the play. Why? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that while they understood the dialogues and the story, all I saw was a few buffoons on stage talking utter gibberish. But still, I can’t really judge the play. People who understood it actually thought it was a very funny play. I can’t really argue with that now, can I?

“The Fusion Ensemble”…

… to quote Prasanna, who played the violin with surprisingly few mistakes (if any, of course). Well, can’t argue with the “ensemble” part, but “fusion”? The guitars seemed unnecessary, could barely hear them at the back, and the drums appeared unnecessary as well. But all in all, a pretty decent performance, by any standards. The guitar seems to have a glam-factor associated with it, doesn’t it? Atleast given the number of people who would prefer learning a guitar over a violin, that would be my inference. No, I don’t want this to lead to a guitar vs. violin flame (not that I would care either way, of course).

The English Play

It is difficult to put up a play – I know that, and I can say so from a couple of personal experiences. Once in eight grade, I wrote a decent script for a play (decent given I was thirteen at that time, dammit!). I actually managed to convince a couple of people to enact it out along with me. I would rate that experience pretty high among the most disgusting things I have done in my life. The same script which I thought was reeking with humour, wit and sarcasm (I said I was thirteen, didn’t I?) turned out to be a Z-grade play, given the way it was acted out. On another occasion, during the rehearsal of a play I was in, even after a fortnight of practice, half the cast could not deliver the dialogues properly.

Like I said – I know it is difficult to put up a play, and no offense to anyone who put effort into this thing. But SERIOUSLY! A play like that after three whole months of training in the dramatics club!! (If such a club existed for that long, of course, I wouldn’t know). A crappy heard-it-a-million-times-before script, bad acting and choppy dialogue delivery – not really an ideal combination for any play. I have a pretty decent vocabulary when it comes to insulting people, things or events. But even I find it pretty difficult to come up with enough words to express my disappointment. Of course, I doubt I could have done a better job than that. But atleast they had the balls to act on stage. Have to give them that.

The Faculty Speech-ing

Well, all the faculty members were called out to give their standard “well done, do better” speeches. This was followed by Professor Ramancharla singing. Yes, you read right – singing. Despite my ridiculously low knowledge on Hindi films, I could make one thing out – he was clearly a fan of Amitabh Bachchan movies. At first, it was all in good fun. Later however, the situation got a little … embarrassing as he stretched the songs a bit too much. (I know speech-ing isn’t a word. heard of a poet-ic license? this is a prose-aic license )

I have seen a mime-show-thing just once before, and I thought that was weird. No comments on this.

Honest to god, I am a critic of the way some things are being handled on campus, but credit where they deserve it – gg cultural council and the people who came up with the summer cultural camp thing. I enjoyed the view sitting on a dozen stacked-up chairs at the end.

-> Badrinath.S

P.S. : forgot to mention before, the fachas now have the misfortune of having me as the C-programming TA. Which moron didn’t want ug3 to get half-TA-ships? But with an average estimated pay of a hundred bucks an hour, I can’t really complain.

P.P.S. : gg new deputy-speaker of the parliament cum cultural-whatever samba.

P.P.P.S. : Stratovarius *worships*

Next Posts (hopefully) Include -

The Freshers
(as and when it is held)

The Literary Club Meet One
(despite my uncanny ability to talk utter crap for as long as I can, on absolutely anything at all in BC-sessions, my excuses for why I did so miserably in JAM)

Prof PKRs mail – what was all that about?
(I don’t know, just have to make stuff up. im pretty good at that sort of thing )

The month of October – the most awaited games of the year?
(Imo, of course. im still slogging my way through Heroes of Might and Magic – V *down on his knees, worships*)