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Chief Editors: Anubhav Mangal, Suman Rao
Mailto: insight@iitb.ac.in

Correspondent – Anant Kekre

A short introduction

Advitiya Sharma
Aerospace Engineering Department
IIT Bombay 2007-’12
Co-Founder, Housing.co.in

What were your expectations when you entered IIT Bombay? How would you say the first year treated you?

I remember myself entering IIT with a hope to meet amazing people who would inspire me, and influence the way I thought of things. I come from a small town in Jammu & Kashmir, and was hoping IIT Bombay would make some of the best years of my life. And boy, it did.

I have always loved playing football, and my freshie year ensured I loved it more than ever. Having also played at the national level, I jumped headfirst into the team preparing for Inter-IIT that year – the one to take place in IIT Bombay itself.

During the countless practise sessions I observed this whole bunch of people sweating themselves off for days, not only because they loved the game, but chiefly because they loved being part of a team. In particular, the Captain of our team, Sumeet Malik – who was also the General Secretary Sports Affairs that year – inspired me to a large extent. In addition to handling the responsibilities of a General Secretary and organising the Inter-IIT in the college, his commitment towards his team was extraordinary. This taught me one important fact about people here that I will never forget – they did things not because they had to, but because they wanted to – and were deeply passionate about them. And I was likewise spurred to achieve the same dedication to my path through the coming years. Our team, after a drought of 7 years, finally won the Inter-IIT Football Trophy, and I am proud to have scored the winning goal.

I was awarded the Sports Freshman of the Year that year. My first year turned out to be the best I could have ever imagined. And my passion for football was deeper than ever.

So you had a deep and enduring passion for football. Can you tell us what else you did to work towards what you loved?

I had been devotedly playing football for the past two years, and I felt a strong attachment towards my team. I felt that working for things I loved, and for people who believed in them would be an amazing experience. I became the Institute Football Secretary in my third year.

I always like to imagine how one person through a well constructed and thought-out vision can affect several people and events simultaneously. The efforts get magnified. Being at the forefront of change which is brought through your efforts is an amazing feeling to have.

Being the Institute Football Secretary, I felt the same, and getting to change and modify the football scenario was great. I was awarded the Best Office Bearer for that year. I had proved to myself that I could indeed do things, and my will to do more was stronger than ever. This led me to contest for the post of General Secretary Sports Affairs.

The elections would have been an experience in itself. What did you feel after the results? How did you deal with the loss?

(almost stunned) The election! You ask me to compress so many of life’s experiences into a talk so little! But let me try. If I could say there was one event in my life at IIT that changed me drastically, it would be the elections.

I had been an introvert in school, and the election saw to it that this changed. During this time, I interacted with a variety of people. It was a stark change in my personality that I experienced in a short span of time. Even though the competition was tough, I kept myself strong and stood up for what I believed in. The elections are testing times, and I came face to face with my strengths and my weaknesses.

The results came out, and I had lost. I had been eager to follow my ideology through this path, and realising that I wouldn’t be able to do so by being a GS, was quite disappointing. But there were other avenues that could offer me the chance to work and learn. At that moment I realised that “I had been rejected, but I was still in love,” and rather than dwelling on my failure, I decided to get back up, brush the dust off and find other opportunities to pursue. In the next two years I served as a Mentor, Contingent Leader for Inter-IIT, Hostel Ward nom. and Captain of the Football team.

It turns out the experience indeed strengthened you and taught you a lot. Tell us about the entrepreneur in you, and about your company Housing.co.in.

It was in my fifth year that me, along with a bunch of friends, decided to work on a housing portal that would make home-search hassle-free. At that time we engaged in countless discussions about how it could be brought to life, how it could be designed to become a strong tool for people searching for homes. And it was an amazing phase.

It also gave us the chance to shape something using our own ideas and do things the way we wanted to and felt fit. And I believe all the experiences I’ve had during my stay at IIT help me shape Housing better every single day.

My experience with this company has been extraordinary. To be at the center of things and see them move, and to see so many end users benefiting from your ideas, is a thing in itself – it’s an unrivalled feeling of joy!

Being at the helm of affairs must be a powerful feeling indeed. You got yourself a job at A.T. Kearney, but you left it later. What can you tell us about your job days and your decision to give it up?

I worked with A.T. Kearney for 6 months. During this time, I practically juggled with two jobs at once, the one at my own company and the one at ATK. But I soon realised, as I had thought earlier, that the job did not give me as much pleasure as working with my own team at Housing. In this job, I was doing stuff others had planned for me, and there was little room to dream and change things. And although it would’ve been a great experience, I could not see much value in it.

But in contrast, Housing offered a chance to analyse the system, tweak it at the proper places and time, and see the company grow tremendously. Not surprisingly, I left the job at ATK and dived full time into our venture.

You have had a wonderful journey through your years in IIT Bombay. What is your message to your juniors who are still to make it big?

I have always been fascinated with vectors. A zero vector is one with no magnitude and an indeterminate direction. Early on, we are much like a zero vector. We have little or no experience – the magnitude – and no sense of direction we want to pursue. What is important is to figure out what you love doing, what you dream yourself to be doing several years from now, and get a sense of the direction you’d want to go ahead with. Because even a slight change in the initial stages can deflect you far away from where you intended to be. The focus today seems to be on the magnitude of things – the medals, the PoRs, the job packages – rather than the direction. I would urge everyone to spend this time trying out all the options they think they are crazy about, and decide on a particular direction that should shape their lives later on.

I remember once talking to an alumnus of our college, and we discussed about a general difference he saw in students back in his day in the 80s, from those in the institute today. He said, “Back then the focus was on gaining enriching and valuable experiences in life, instead of achieving a few certificates and medals, which I feel depict everyone’s priorities today.”

So follow your passion, and keep the hunger for gaining amazing experiences always alive.

Thanks a lot! It has been a wonderful conversation, and the readers will definitely learn a lot from your thoughts.

The content on this app is strictly the property of InsIghT and the Students’ Gymkhana IIT Bombay. Reproduction in any form of mass media is strictly prohibited.
Chief Editors: Anubhav Mangal, Suman Rao Mailto: insight@iitb.ac.in
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Correspondent – Rahul Maganti

A short introduction

Zishaan Hayath, IITB: 2000-2005
Dual Degree Civil Engineering
Overall Coordinator, Techfest 2004

Now and Then

We oldies are entitled to a bit of “now” and “then”, aren’t we?

A lot has also changed between 2005 when I graduated and now. I have recruited from IIT Bombay between 2007-2012. I can say with a fair degree of confidence that the quality of a median resume in 2011-12 was way higher than that of the top resumes of 2005. I have also recruited at IIT Kanpur and BITS Pilani. I can also say that the bottom 25% of IIT Bombay resumes are better than the top 25% of IIT Kanpur resumes (it was a nightmare for me and my colleagues to sit through the IITK pile of applicants). Not to say that either institute has the better students – I think IITK~IITB – but IITK resumes really need improvement. This all leads me to believe that placements now have become extremely competitive. And anything that can differentiate you from the crowd or provide an edge is closely fought for.

Back then, we had it easy. McK and BCG were the only two consulting firms. ITC was the third company to come to campus. No banks. One or two foreign placements. Back then, we called them “insti posts” and barely used the word “POR”. For example, in my placement resume, my work as Techfest OC, Techfest Manager etc. was bundled in a section called “Extra-Curricular”. We also had far fewer posts (no ISHA’s & ISAA’s, no department fests, no convenors, no cells). The desire for the insti post came less from that “resume bullet point” and more from what we liked to work on.

How was it to lose out on an insti POR?

In 2002, I contested for Insti Lit Secy during my second year. I really wanted to be the Insti Lit Secy. I campaigned hard. My opponent campaigned hard too. He was a friend but a weird temporary rivalry crept between us during the elections. I lost by a margin of <100 votes.

When the results came out, it hit me that I didn't completely control the things I wanted in my life. People consoled me that my opponent had 200 more people in his hostel and that it made all the difference. I felt I was okay and will handle the defeat.

I went back to my room to sleep. I couldn't sleep. So at about 2AM, I went to H9 to see a senior friend. He was not at his room (I think he decided to spend the night in his CS lab). Then I suddenly started crying.
I realized I never wanted anything this bad. And this made me cry more. Around 6AM, I fell asleep in his room crying. The next few days, I moved around like a zombie - eating less, smiling less. It always feels like end of life when you want something bad and don't get it.

Parts of the above text is from my Quora answer.

My key takeaway was: The world doesn’t care about your notions of what is fair, right, and should be yours. Deal with it.

What happened next?
Well, life moved on. One night, I was walking on the road between H5 and H8. A bike braked beside me (yes, students had bikes on campus) and the guy said, “Chal baith.”

I asked, “Kahan?”

“SAC.”

It was my Techfest manager chat (now it’s an interview, I guess). I joined the team and had a thrilling third year organising Techfest 2003. I made a great set of friends. At the end of third year, I was talked into becoming the OC by my team-mates (like pretty much all OCs before me were talked into taking up the position). I had a fabulous fourth year and made another great set of friends. Insti colors and citations happened. In my fifth year I got recruited by ITC and I’d like to believe that Techfest helped me get shortlisted.

But it did not end there. Beyond campus, I’ve stayed friends with my Techfest teams. We’ve attended each others weddings across India. I started a company with another Techfest OC (and we had no overlap on campus). I’ve invested in startups along with my team-mates. In the mornings, I run with 3 guys who were team-mates. Our spouses are now friends. We meet for dinners at homes and I get to play with their kids. They occupy substantial space in my life. And my life is more beautiful with them around.

All this is 11 years after I organised a college fest as a 20 year old.

But the fact is: I never expected to be the Techfest manager. In my second year, all I wanted was to be the Insti Lit Secy. I did not see Techfest coming.

Arey kehna kya chahte ho?

Wait for serendipity. I have a few regrets from my IIT years. Not scoring a higher CPI is one of them. Losing out on an insti post is NOT one of them.

So here’s what I am saying:
1. Don’t work for the sake of resume (too short-term)
2. Work for experience and love
3. And life will take its own course; be prepared to go with the flow

Chief Editors: Anubhav Mangal, Suman Rao. Mailto: insight@iitb.ac.in

Correspondent – Rahul Maganti

Pritesh Mittal

A Short Introduction:
Pritesh Mittal,
Dept. of Energy Sciences.
2009-’14.
Internship Coordinator with Rakshak Foundation.

My Story – From Mood-Indigo to… Who knows?

Like many of the students here, I joined IIT Bombay because I had heard that this is the coolest IIT among all the other IIT’s. If one was not interested in academics, the there are a lot of other activities and clubs to get involved with. Among them, I found Mood-I to be an extremely glamourous platform. During my initial days here, when I attended the orientation of Mood-I, the aura of the then Mood-I coreteam really impressed me. This was when I realized that I wanted to be a Core Group Member for MI. I worked in the hospitality and public relations department of Mood Indigo in my first and second years, aspiring to become a Hospitality CG. My feelings and desires for MI grew stronger day by day. In my sophie year, when my seniors asked me to take up a secy post, I used to tell them, “ Mai MI me ache se fight maar raha hun aur main use compromise nahin karna chahta”. (I know that was stupid but still…)

In the book ‘The Alchemist’, Paulo Coelho says, “When you really want something to happen, the whole world conspires to help you achieve it.” Unfortunately, the bitter fact is that this is not always true, and I learnt this through my own experiences.

I still remember the day the results came out. I was in SAC working for PAF when someone told me that the results were out. The OC’s were calling the selected candidates. I was eagerly waiting for the call…waiting…waiting…but I never received the call. I checked the network but everything seemed to be fine. After waiting for nearly one and a half hours, all my hopes got shattered. I felt like crying but my dignity controlled my tears in front of everyone. I left the SAC and went to my room, where I cried for an hour. At that time, I didn’t know what to do. It felt as if I was in a tunnel with no light. Everything that I had aspired to for two years had suddenly vanished. I felt as if I had wasted my two years at IITB! Till then, I had done nothing except MI. Expecting that I would become a CG, I had also not left nothing for third year. The period that followed was the worst time of my life. Despair and hopelessness is all I can recall from that dark phase of my life. I felt so aimless that I went along with two of my friends to Main Gate daily just to roam around. I cut-off myself completely from MI. I unsubscribed myself from all the MI groups I was on and even un-liked its facebook page!

This terrible phase of my life continued for one month until I stumbled across Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford. I found his stories very inspiring and motivating. I was fascinated by the way he build PIXAR after getting thrown out of APPLE. (Those of you who did not know this, I heavily recommend you go and find this video). I realized that MI was not that important, and consequently not that big a loss for me, that I spend the next few months regretting not making it as a CG! Steve Jobs once said, “You’ve got to find what you love”, and that was the first time I found myself really asking myself about what I wanted to achieve in life. I realized that my motivation to become a MoodI CG was merely my lust for fame and power. I had never felt attached to MI or what it aimed at achieving, nor was I cult senti. It was just the desire to become someone famous in the institute which kept me going for two years.

Some say that failures teach us more than successes, and that’s precisely what happened to me. I now had a lot of free time which allowed me to think about what I really wanted to do. I thought I was interested in finance and somehow managed to crack an intern at an investment bank. But later on I realized that investment banking wasn’t my cup of tea. By this time, Although I still was not sure about what I really loved, I was getting a more and more clear idea about what I didn’t. It was during this time I realized that I felt very strongly for society and wanted to contribute towards its’ betterment. I was searching for the right opportunity but couldn’t find any until one day my senior (Rohit Agarwal, one year senior to me and a hospitality CG of MoodI) called me one day and gave me a chance to volunteer for Rakshak Foundation, a non-profit public policy think tank. Unlike other NGOs, Rakshak Foundation does not work at the ground level but strives to bring about a change at the policy level. Initially I was skeptical about joining since couldn’t associate myself with the cause. But later on, when I realized the importance of it, I decided to get associated with it. I helped organize an internship program where we introduced some of the finest minds of India to the basics of citizens’ participation in governance and to the framing of public policy. Both of these are crucial in the current social scenario and for participative democracy. At the foundation we are continually driven by our mission to have a responsible, informed citizenry to strengthen the democratic process and citizen participation in governance. We believe that citizens across the nation must be able to understand and appreciate different prevailing social issues and related government policies. Through their proactive participation and research the efficiency and efficacy of the system can be bettered.

When I initially joined Rakshak Foundation, most of my friends were just not able to digest the idea of me joining a NGO. They used to ask me why I was doing this and I never had any answer. I guess that doing the work I was doing I felt good and energetic, which is why I never took my friends’ concerns seriously! I personally feel that most of us at IIT Bombay have started pursuing things only to build our resume and to secure a job at an investment bank or a consulting firm of our choice. We never explore things to try and find what we want to do, to find the things that we love. There are a lot of opportunities out there, we just need to identify our interest and grab the right opportunity. Ever since I joined Rakshak Foundation, my life became totally different and the kind of exposure and experiences I have had are amazing.

I also attended the Jagriti Yatra which is a 15 day long train journey which inspires the Yatris to undertake social entrepreneurship. As a part of follow up, I along with few Jagiriti Yatra friends went to Gram Vikas, a NGO in Orissa to study their model of sanitation to implement it in Deoria, UP where there are no toilet in villages. We built a project utilizing the government funding for constructing toilets in Deoria district. We also conceptualized the awareness campaigns to make people understand the importance of sanitation.

I was also selected as a student mentor in my fourth year and now I am a part of the ISMP cabinet as well as D’AMP coordinator. I know that the achievements I have mentioned might not be very great, but they mean a lot to me, especially in hindsight, when I look back and remember that period of desperation in my life.

Also, its not that working for Mood-I for two years was in vain. It was harrowing and confusing then, but now that I am in my fourth year, I can totally connect all the dots. Had I not worked for MI, I would never have met Rohit Agarwal. Had I never met Rohit Agarwal, I would never have found out about Rakshak Foundation. Had I never heard of Rakshak Foundation, I would never have gone on the Jagriti Yatra and probably would never have become a mentor. Today, even though I am not that famous in the institute, I am glad that I managed to find what I loved and am now pursuing it. A part of me now has the courage and the belief to tell me that the path I have chosen to pursue, will lead me to my ultimate aim in life. What more could I ask for?

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path.”

- Steve Jobs.

Chief Editors: Anubhav Mangal, Suman Rao. Mailto: insight@iitb.ac.in

Correspondent – Rahul Maganti

A short introduction

Abhishek Agarwal (Monty), IITB: 2007-2012
Dual Degree Aerospace Engineering
Currently working with Deutsche Bank
GSHA, IIT Bombay, 2011-’12

Tell us a little bit about the thoughts of Monty as a freshie.

When I entered this hallowed institute, way back in my freshie year, there were too many different people around me. Except for a couple of batch mates from my hometown, everybody else was a stranger. I realized quite soon that one thing that I can take back from this campus is a rich experience of knowing people from diverse backgrounds. My objective since then has always been to interact with as many as I could. During my freshie days, I was involved in the Cult scene on campus, with MoodI. As an active resident of H4, I participated in all activities. This made me come across a lot of students everyday. Now that I had made a lot of friends and relations in H4, I was very reluctant to go to H13 when the hostel allotment was out. I was so attached to H4 that I worked for H4’s team in the PAF instead of H13. I really wanted to stay back in 4 and I put in a series of efforts towards that, but in vain. But then I dropped the idea after my friends made me realize that going to H13 will only expose me further to a different set of people, which would be in-line with what I expected to do in campus.

The second year is when most students think about giving a decent shot to some PoR. Tell us a little about how your sophie year treated you.

My initial idea of a POR was a platform for interaction, not only with people you are responsible to but also with members of your council. I got elected to the post of Hostel Dramatics Secy in H13. During the time, I also worked as a Coordinator for Competitions in MI. Apart from this, I was an active member of Vaani too. So, I interacted with completely different circles during this period. In the fourth semester, I had two options for my third year POR – MI CG and Institute Dramatics Secy(IDS). My priority was always MI CG and I opted for it and eventually backed out of the race for IDS. Just a couple of days before the elections, MI results were out and it just happened that my name didn’t figure in the final list. I was rather emotional about this and went to the CG’s and OC’s, wandered here and there trying to find out the actual reason of what went wrong. I was unable to digest this for a long time.

After discussing with a lot of people, I convinced myself that there were no reasons except that the two people who had the power to choose felt that the other person was better than me. And, this was PAF time. I was immersed in PAF and decided to forget about MI selection. Then, the IDS contestant became a CG and he backed out of the elections. Now, the post of IDS fell vacant. I was interviewed for the IDS post along with another batchmate, but again my opponent was chosen over me for the post. Since I was in a momentum for the upcoming PAF, I didn’t get much time to think about this. We won 7 out of 9 trophies that year. This was a boost for me, a small moment of happiness. The two things I wanted to do pretty much didn’t work out, but surprisingly I was no more sad about them. I was rather happy that I had my share of learnings and now would have new things to explore.

Meanwhile, I was asked by Department seniors if I wanted to interview for the marketing manager post for Zephyr, the annual festival of Aerospace Dept, and this time I got selected. I was also a member of the newly set up Institute Radio and because I felt that this was a bit closer to my home turf of Cult, I took the charge to manage the broadcasting team to take this idea ahead. Before this, a lot of people asked me why I hadn’t chosen to contest for Cult Co of the hostel. However, consistent in my thoughts, I replied that the hostel was an already explored area. I now wanted to explore some unknown terrains. This fourth semester turned out to be a very poor semester in-terms of academics, probably owing to the multitude of things in my head at the time. I scored a 5.7 though being a 7.5 otherwise. I spent my 2nd year summers and fifth semester on Zephyr and Radio with complete dedication. I also used the time to take part in all the Inter-Hostel Cult GCs for my hostel.

An election is always an exhilarating experience. Tell us about your first Institute wide election.

In the sixth semester, I contested for the post of GS Cult. This was something that I had been thinking over since I missed the opportunity of becoming the IDS. Having been involved with Institute Cult Scene for quite some time now, I had my own set of ideas about the Cult Scene on campus and wanted to share them with others. The other reason to contest for a GS links to my original idea of getting exposed to more and more people with decent diversity on campus. Had I been in the Institute Cultural Council, things would have been easy, but even then I decided to go ahead and I started the groundwork around the beginning of the sixth sem.

Because of a couple of debacles a year ago, I prepared myself for both the sides of the coin. So, I decided to contest, but thought of not taking the result to heart. I decided to earn ‘X’ number of votes. Winning was never my aim. All I wanted to was to increase ‘X’ as much as I can through my campaigning and by defending my radical manifesto. My manifesto provided a new outlook to the cultural activities in the institute. I started from zero and earned 1728 votes, but fell short by 361 votes.

After the results were announced at SAC gate, I started walking towards my hostel. After reaching H5, I told my friends that I would again contest for GS Cult the next year. People thought I was speaking off the spur of the moment with a gambler’s mindset who would keep playing till he wins. But I was mentally prepared to do this all over again the next year. Had a good sleep and went to PAF practice next day, picked up my dialogues and started practicing. Surprisingly, I was hardly moved by losing the GS Cult election. Infact campaigning in front of over 2000 people had given me a lot of confidence in defending on a public forum. For me this was a win-win situation. But we lost PAF badly that year.

How did you come about to become the GSec of H13?

Since the inflow of sophies into H13 had stopped after my batch, no one was keen on becoming the Gen Sec of the hostel, because of the difficulties in forming a council without juniors in it. During PAF practice, some of my seniors and friends advised me to contest for it. According to me POR is also a position of authority for taking a decision. Whether I can be a good decision maker was still a question because till now I had never got a real opportunity to work in an influential POR. I decided to contest the Hostel GSec election. Though, opposed again, I won an election finally. This was the first winning moment after a long losing streak. The journey had actually started now. Now that I had taken the challenge of becoming the GSec of a hostel with only fourthies, fifthies and PGs, I had to prove myself. If I failed to work well, after taking a post, then I would justify the prejudice of all the people who were against me in all my previous debacles.

I took up challenge and by July, I had a council of 40 people working. With a team of 40 council members, I can proudly say we pulled off one of the best hostel councils in the recent past. The renovated sky-bridge of Hostel-13 stands a witness to the achievements of this council. Even being a hostel with skewed demographics, it was the most socially active hostel that year in campus. So, by beginning of 8th semester I had done by my job well. The Institute Elections were coming up and I had two options in-front of me now – GSHA or GS Cult ?

Haha we all know what you chose then. Tell us a little bit about what lay ahead.

After giving a considerable thought, I decided to contest for GSHA, because from a learning point of view, GSHA had more to offer for me during the election than GS Cult , as I had observed it in my year as a GSec. And moreover, GSHA covers a wider range of students in campus. I again set out to campaign and made it with a decent margin this time. We also won the PAF that year. So, it was a double bonanza – winning the election and the PAF. The Academics also were better and I managed a 8.8 in both seventh and eighth semester.

You were quite appreciated for your work as a GSHA.

I worked wholeheartedly for the whole year trying to deliver more than what people expected. In campus, I have never done things for the sake of doing them. I haven’t done a single internship and spent all my summers working for the POR that I was on in that year. My diverse learning and understanding of people during the stay in campus, helped me a lot working as a GSHA. This was one of the best years of my life. We also won 9 out of 9 trophies in PAF in my last year. I was also awarded the Institute Organizational Roll Of Honour, which is my one and only Gymkhana Award in all my 5 years of stay at IIT Bombay. So, all is well that ends well.

What would you like to convey to the students who, similar to you, have missed out on PoRs this season?

I am sure this is time of the year when a lot of students in campus will be going through the same experience that I had in my 2nd and 3rd year. The best way to get out of this is to move on. If we start appreciating the learning from failures, we would be making the most of them. Such jolts only make you strong for future. Campus is not the end of your life. Trust me once you move out of campus, these things may seem very petty. So, move on and make the most of this amazing campus and amazing community.

Cheers.

InsIghT: We all know that there are some differences between the student community and you with regards to using loudspeakers and amplifiers in events like PAF and Valedictory Functions. Could you please elaborate on the issue and tell us your point of view?

Prof. Joshi: There are certain duly deliberated laws created by our government which all citizens of our country must obey. At an institution like IIT, it is our moral responsibility to produce good law abiding citizens. Since, the use of loudspeakers has been banned by our government after 10 PM, we must ensure that the law is not violated by our students. The students must realize that law is above convenience, enjoyment and even religion. An individuals right to quiet surroundings is much more important than other peoples right to express their feelings.
I have no issues with the concept of Valedictory Functions and PAFs. However, we must make sure that these events are organized within the limits of the law.

Prof. K.D.Joshi

InsIghT: Given the fact that these events happen in the hostel areas and the sound does not affect activities in the staff quarters, don’t you think that the students should be allowed to continue with this culture?

Prof. Joshi: Any logic based on numbers doesn’t work in situations where the law is involved. I cannot speak for the other staff of this institute but the sound has definitely affected me. If I assert my constitutional rights then the mob cannot stop me. A lot of students have this misconception that since we live in a gated campus, we have our own set of rules. I would like to tell them, that IIT cannot permit unlawful activities in its campus but can impose its own set of extra restrictions.

I would also like to clarify that a complainant cannot be denied the right to complain even if the majority is against him. Take corruption for example – an officer might take bribes believing that so many other people are doing the same thing, however that doesn’t deny people the right to complain against him. The law breakers have no right to argue in these situations. There have been complaints that have also been lodged by people from The Renaissance Hotel. This is no longer a small issue. The reputation of IIT Bombay is at stake here.

InsIghT: The law was primarily created because loudspeakers disturb students, elderly people and babies in the night time. However, valfis happen only once in a year and the entire hostel enjoys this period. Don’t you think that since there is no particular group at a disadvantage, we could be a bit lenient here?

Prof. Joshi: I disagree. If Valfis and PAFs happen once in a while then the academic schedule should be adjusted so that the students can carry out these activities in the day-time. I don’t think that the institute will have any problems in adjusting academics if these activities actually happen ‘once in a while’. The axe should not fall on the law of the land in any case. As responsible citizens we must abide by the law.

Also, a lot of students have also registered complaints about Valfis n the institute as well. As far as I know, the profiles in certain hostels were being read till 6 or 7 in the morning. The loud noise prohibited students from both studying and sleeping.

InsIghT: The students have to attend classes and labs till 5 PM usually. The only time that they have left for cultural activities and socializing is night time. Don’t you think that this is a good enough reason to let them carry on with what has been done so far?

Prof. Joshi: As far as PAF is concerned, I have been suggesting that the PAF’s be held on Monday’s only. The students should be allowed to carry out their rehearsals on the weekends. The use of amplified sounds is allowed before 10 PM and the students should stop using their equipments around that period.
I have also suggested that all the Valfis should be held on one particular night. Since, this will then be a one off event, some amount of consideration might be given.

InsIghT: There have been occurrences where Mumbai Police has been called to campus for noise issues. Have you had some say in that? Also, do you think that we need to involve them in our internal matters?

Prof. Joshi: I have always tried not to involve the Mumbai Police in our internal matters. However, the CSO has told me that students do not listen to the hostel guards. The guards also do not have the power to arrest students if they break laws. They can only confiscate the loudspeakers or any such equipment. In such a scenario, I have been forced to involve Mumbai Police on certain occasions when matters were truly out of hand.

During PAF, I was surprised when students came to me with a signed letter from the DOSA allowing them to carry out these activities even after 10 PM. Even though the DOSA might have signed the letter in healthy spirit, such permissions cannot be given by any Dean. I took the letter to the Police Station, and they responded by sending a letter to the Director saying that these permissions cannot be given even by the Police Commissioner.

InsIghT: The student community would still like to have PAF and Valfis in the hostels. Would you like to recommend certain changes that we should make in the organizational philosophy of these events?

Prof. Joshi: First of all, the institute should own all the Public Address systems used by the students. These systems should be loaned by the institute to the Hostels at the time of events which have an essential audio component. For example, I don’t think that there is a need to play loud music at events like Swimathon. These equipments must then be returned to the institute by 10:30 PM.
Also, the security needs to be improved to keep a check on students and their activities.

If the students want to carry out valfis, then the hostels should either be further isolated from the campus or they must be held on the same night. However, I’d recommend students to carry out valfis in ways similar to the Department Valfis. Earlier, profiles of students did not extend for an hour. In fact, quirky one liners were much appreciated. The students have become used to doing things in excess and that needs to be curbed.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely of the respondent and need not reflect the views of InsIghT or the Students’ Gymkhana

Ankur Tulsian

I discovered my interest in Humanities in my final year when I took up courses Reading Fiction and Professional Ethics as Institute Electives. It was a refreshing change from the Engineering courses in that they added a whole new dimension to my thought process. From studying about machines, fluid flows and thermodynamics, I was now discussing how our everyday actions, including the use of technology, have implications on real people and the society around us, and challenging our knowledge and assumptions.

Not that all of these were blind spots earlier. But, an academic discussion around these areas took the understanding to newer levels. And, I was left wanting for more. Meanwhile, I had also gone on the Jagriti Yatra and had returned somewhat disturbed by the limitations of the perspectives that I had got used to as an IITian. However, all said and done, I had a job offer at hand and was fully prepared to take that up. That is, if I had not heard about the Young India Fellowship.

YIF promised an opportunity to take a year off to study courses from very diverse disciplines from some of the best faculty in the world with a peer group comprising of lawyers, doctors, psychologists, filmmakers, literature majors, economics majors and other engineers. It was the first year for the programme, so there was considerable risk involved. When I asked people for advice, they told me that if I wanted to take risks, I should do it while I am still young. Of course, it was easier because I was getting a full scholarship.

So, what is YIF really?

The Young India Fellowship (YIF) is a full-time one-year postgraduate academic programme with a focus on Liberal Arts. It is founded as a not-for-profit initiative by some of the leading industry professionals who are passionate about the higher education space in the country. The Founding Dean of ISB, Hyderabad – Dr Pramath Raj Sinha (Founder of 9dot9 Mediaworx, ex McKinsey Partner) – is also the Founding Dean for Young India Fellowship Programme. The programme aims to provide opportunities for holistic learning & perspective building among the young people in the country.

Education Philosophy:

The undergraduate universities in India don’t offer a lot of flexibilities in terms of coursework. Based on choices we make at a very young age, we end up specializing into narrow areas without having scanned the breadth of possibilities. I would say that at IIT Bombay we are one of the luckiest students to have the choices we get in terms of our Electives and Minors and in terms of the extremely vibrant extra-curricular culture on campus. However, loosely speaking, as an engineer, one develops a very strong objective analytical thought process, but there is little fodder (atleast academically) to appreciate the subjective viewpoints. Young India Fellowship aims to expose students to varied perspectives through a set of 18 to 20 courses from diverse disciplines. The belief is that the purpose of education is not to pick up skills for a particular job, rather is to inculcate a curiosity for learning and to develop perspectives that will help us grow as a person and add value in whatever it is that we decide to pursue.

Partnerships & Collaborations:

Currently, the Young India Fellowship is not affiliated to any university. It is a non-degree programme and it certifies you as a Young India Fellow in its own capacity at the end of the year. However, it has academic collaborations with Penn Engineering, Carleton College and Sciences Po which enables it access to some of the best faculty in the world, among other things. The Founders of YIF are also setting up a private university to offer programmes in Liberal Arts and Pure Sciences called the Ashoka University which is set to start in August 2014. The modality of how YIF will be associated with the University is being worked out.

Coursework and the overall Learning Experience:

There is no fixed curriculum of courses that YIF intends to offer year-on-year. Their belief is that learning is best when the faculty is inspiring and engaging. So, the YIF team tries to get a set of engaging scholars and professionals to teach about areas they are experts in, with the intention of covering courses from disciplines like Literature, History, Philosophy, Economics, Sociology, Fine Arts, Leadership, Communication and so on. Apart from the academic collaborations, the faculty members hail from various intellectual bodies including the likes of the Planning Commission. Each course is roughly 6 weeks long with ample reading and writing assignments culminating into an examination or a term paper. The classroom lectures are primarily discussion-oriented and the aim is not to make the Fellows experts in the subject matter, but to expose them to the broader perspectives of that discipline. For example, a course on History emphasizes on discussing the thought process and the ideologies of a personality instead of focusing on dates and events. The course asks you to move beyond the question of right or wrong, and encourages you to understand the context in which the different ideologies persisted. In essence, the courses do not try to give answers. Rather, they try to nudge you towards asking the right questions with the intent to leave you curious till the discomfort grows on you and you start being more comfortable with the ambiguity.

There are other components of the programme like the guest speaker sessions where eminent personalities from all walks of life share their experiences with you. It’s very inspirational and encouraging to have successful people tell you their life stories and lessons. Some of these sessions have stayed with me till date and have been source of valuable advice. There are also other aspects to the programme like Workshops, Experiential Learning Module and Mentorship, each of which is a very diverse and enriching experience in itself. However, among all the diversity that the programme offers, the mix of the batch stands out. Imagine an engineer, a literature graduate, a filmmaker and a lawyer working together on projects or discussing a particular topic. The breadth of perspective you gain is immense. You begin to appreciate where each one is coming from and begin to appreciate the various shades of gray.

Post-YIF opportunities:

All said and done, the obvious question that arises is what does the programme culminate into and what opportunities are available to Young India Fellows after completion. Given that the programme is still very young, placement opportunities are not the same as at IITs yet. But there is a team working full time to try to find the right opportunities for students based on their interest areas and skill sets. The Founders also put a word for you among their wide network for possible openings. The programme is not a substitute for an MBA for any sort of placement opportunities and it does not whitewash over your black spots. What it means is that the kind of opportunities you get also depend on what you have achieved in the past. Hence, being an IITian gives you an edge at times, however, most conventional and structure-heavy organizations view the programme as only an add-on to your undergraduation degree and offer opportunities at that level only. The scope is much wider when you are looking for unconventional career opportunities or continuing education. A lot of high-responsibility jobs opportunities are available in medium to large organizations if you are willing to look beyond the set of organizations that visit the IITs. While there is no guarantee, all I would say is that the effort from the team to get you placed at the right places is honest and sincere and it works out for the better in most cases.

Is it for you?

To put things into perspective, the essence of the programme is not in being the stepping stone to your next career move. It is in cultivating a certain level of curiosity within you and to help you round off some of the rough edges in your outlook. As they say, a liberal arts education does not prepare you for your first or second job, it prepares you for your 5th or 6th job. So, you need to evaluate for yourself if this is really for you. Are you willing to go through the one year of academic and intellectual rigour that YIF is, when the alternative is to work in your dream organization, start up or pursue another course with the promise of a secure and stable career?

On an concluding note, I have been often asked if this programme helps one to figure out what career options to choose from. My answer to that is that the one year helped me in understanding what matters to me. I became more aware of the patterns I operate in. Some of these learnings were eye-openers, some more subtle. I am not sure if I can say I found my passion at the end of the year. I think what matters is that I knew what I was getting into and why. Hopefully will find more answers along the way!

If you are curious to know more about the programme, you may contact me at +91 9920934439 or ankurtulsian@gmail.com. But before you do that, please go through the websites at www.youngindiafellowship.com and www.ashoka.edu.in

InsIghT: Hey Samanth! Congratulations! So firstly, tell us how you got into dancing?

Ironically, I did not dance until I came here. And now that I have found it, I am really happy and thankful to IITB for giving me the opportunity to start, improve and grow.

When I came to IITB, I was really enthusiastic about Physics. My choice of branch was Engineering Physics. But I discovered that what I had expected the branch to be and what it actually was were two completely different things. I was in a dilemma for 2 years. I did not know what to do. Then I found dance – and I loved it. It became my identity. I started dancing for Gyrations in my second year and got hooked onto it. I watched many videos so that I could learn the art.I even tried Bboying but failed. It required lots of time, a proper place to practice as well as energy. One particular video – Mr. Wiggles’ performance in France – got me started on Popping – a form of street dancing. It was mindblowing. The ease with which he danced and juggled entranced me and I started my journey as a Popper. I practised a lot. I wasn’t a natural, but this didn’t deter me from trying to get better at it. I was frustrated but I didn’t quit. I constantly strive to improve. You cannot learn anything overnight. And now here I am.

InsIghT: How much time do you devote on your passion vis-a-vis academics? Is your passion affecting your academics? If so, does it bother you?

I’ve never felt that dancing affected my academics. I’m able to manage Academics and devote the rest of my time to dance – my passion. Initially, I used to practise all day long, typically in the corridor of my wing in the evenings and the roads during the night. After 3rd year, I started practising regularly in the summers, about 2 hours everyday after dinner in the dance room. I even conducted Popping classes in the institute in December. Thrice a week, I taught 15 people for an hour and a half. But then I stopped teaching because this was something that could not be learnt in such a short while. From then on, I practised 1-2 hours a day.

InsIghT: How and when did you turn Professional?

Once I grew confident, I started contacting poppers and street dance enthusiasts all over the world. I sent videos to them. I found a group of Poppers online and I posted my video there. Some Indian guy commented on it. I contacted him, we met, practised and later I joined his crew – the Funky disodaz – during last year’s summer vacations. I then performed in various college fests (KC College, Umang, etc.) along with them.

After joining a crew and practising with them, I realised that practising alone had been my mistake. Exchange of ideas, camaraderie, learning different techniques and new moves were all part of being in a crew. It opened up more avenues. I had acquired better contacts. A Crew also takes parts in battles, performs at various places. One specific advantage this gave me was an opportunity to look closely at the intricacies of Bboying. I had also become more popular. Poppers in India started noticing me. I got an audition for Cirque du Soleil and got selected. They offered me a one year contract and here we are.

InsIghT: Has the environment at IITB been helpful towards achieving your goals in your chosen field?

Yes. IITB provides freedom. This was the main reason I was able to choose dance as a passion and make it my forte. If the same is implemented at the school level, more artists can come up. India, unlike Western Countries frowns upon arts and the like. But IITB is not so. It gave me a very supportive environment. I was finally doing something I really liked and the people here appreciated it. That encouraged me to keep trying harder and become the best.

InsIghT: Did you face any kind of obstacles while you developed your talents?

Indian Society does not accept dancing as a profession. All my well wishers asked me to take up something more serious, something which would better fill my pockets. Hence, I have decided to supplement myself through designing which I am good at (I have been doing it right from my first year at IITB). This way, I would not only keep dancing but also give my family and friends their peace of mind.

InsIghT: Tell us more about how you became a part of Cirque du Soleil!

It was through one of my contacts that I sent my audition tape to the company. They invited me to an audition along with 29 other Poppers. I was fortunately among the 8 that were selected. They said they would call us whenever needed. Just yesterday morning, I got a mail from them about a project titled Love. I am supposed to play the role of Krishna. We kick start the project in June at Las Vegas, the company’s base, and will probably go on a tour. The details are not that clear but I am probably the only Indian in the project.

InsIghT: Where do you see yourself once you are out of IITB?

All I know is that I will keep dancing no matter what. Things will happen of their own accord. The crew contacted me on their own. Cirque du Soleil happened similarly. My dream is to interact with poppers around the world, learn their styles, exchange ideas and become an internationally acclaimed Popper.

InsIghT: What is your advice to dancers here at IITB who want to make it big?

Every Dancer feels the same emotion when they dance and that is bliss. So just stop worrying and enjoy dancing. Be patient. Keep learning. Practice is the key to Success. I used to think that being best in one dance style was enough. But after experiencing several new styles, I would ask them to learn other ones too. After all, it is a huge plus to be versatile.

** Samanth’s video channel – http://www.youtube.com/user/samanthvinil

Ashay Tejwani

“T” in IIT. Tech! It has given to me the most versatile experiences which I probably wouldn’t have had in any other field – Participant, Mechanic, Electrician, Carpenter, Coder, Hacker, Team Leader, Mentor – the list is endless. Apart from being a great teacher, its become a way of life, changed the way one looks at the world and also the definition of impossible.

The most beautiful part of being involved in tech – you are the artist as well as the audience. It demands a lot from you – sustained enthusiasm, many failed prototypes before completion, loss of sleep and social life; however, the inner satisfaction you get once you see your project working after all the struggles, it is a reward in itself. And it is not restrictive in nature- music, art, sports, research, finance – choose any genre, there’s always some application of tech possible, often necessary. Tech is omnipresent, engrossing and ever changing, and the thought of such endless possibilities itself is very exciting.

Although my journey in this field started off at the age of 5 with MS-DOS and later VB and Java in subsequent years, what really got me glued to this field was my Electronics Club Summer Project – Hand Gesture Input Gloves (HGIG’s). HGIG’s was basically a venture into Human-Machine interaction – enabling the user to use his/her hand as a mouse and try to detect simple gestures for converting sign language used by the speech disabled, while avoiding Carpal tunnel syndrome as there is no stress on the median nerve. I’m currently working on 3 major Technovation projects (Parinat – a humanoid, Artificial Instrumentalist – a drumming robot and Non Contact Emissivity Finder – an industrial product) with 19 other finely talented individuals.

Parinat, one of the projects under technovation, along with Ashay, the Parinat Team Leader

How much time do you devote on your Technical Projects vis-à-vis Academics? Is your Passion affecting your Academics, if so, does it bother you?

Most of these projects have a sound-like flow – there are compressions and rarefactions. There are times when mainly project planning takes place, which are relatively chilled out, and then there are long continuous weeks of work – about 7-8 hours a day. If I said it wasn’t affecting my academics, I’d be lying through my teeth, however, it is more like a tradeoff. It doesn’t bother me as we generally factor exams in our project timelines, and try and complete all the work for a particular stage about a week before major exams, so with a supportive team and good time management, one can easily maintain a decent CPI along with these projects.

What are your expectations from IITB in terms of helping you in realizing your passion?

My main expectation from the institute in terms of help has been funding, workspace and recognition to the entire team. Initially this aspect was dismal at best. However, instead of complaining, I actively interacted with the STAB core team. The scene is gradually improving, though we still have a long way to go before we reach a level of tech that is at par with that of institutes abroad.

What do you see yourself doing once you are out of this place?

At present, this is a very blurred image. Ideally I’d like to pursue one of the many fields I’ve worked in further and eventually start teaching it (I found my niche in being a mentor + working on projects, this is probably the closest to that outside), but considering my department, CPI and the companies that come for placement, I’ll mostly end up in some firm where I can put my coding skills to good use and continue tech as a hobby at whatever level possible.

Right, so this is my first post on my blog after almost a year. I started off this blog in an attempt to rekindle my love for Kannada writing and literature. After a religious practice of writing one piece a day or two for around a fortnight, I had to pull brakes on it ever since I had to travel to Bangalore on getting the news of the demise of my granddad. The wound healed but the scars are still left behind. As my ‘hectic’ tenure as the General Secretary, Cultural Affairs at IIT Bombay (from Apr ‘12 to March ‘13) nears its end, I plan to restart blogging here in my free time. And not restricting to my views on life and the world through my writings in Kannada, I’m hereby opening up to penning down my thoughts on some of the notable aspects/experiences of my life so far. And I cant think of anything better than my musings now, on the day of handing over of the highest student office at one of most renowned institutes of the world.

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2. HISTORY:

I’m someone who didn’t know what IIT was (forget knowing about it, I didn’t even know what the T in IIT stood for) until I took up JEE coaching post 10th grade. And this was something I did not do by interest, but by sheer peer pressure. So yeah, engineering at IIT was never a childhood aspiration, but something that happened by chance. For numerous reasons, after not making it to IIT on my first attempt, I entered BITS Pilani before cracking JEE on my second attempt.

The one year at BITS Pilani has perhaps taught me some of the most important lessons of life (lessons learnt the hard way) – patience, composure, will power and most importantly confidence. Hitting rock bottom in life is sometimes very crucial. It only gives you the courage to face anything thats up ahead, since things can’t get any worse than hitting rock bottom. Life at BITS Pilani created a rough image in my mind of how I should plan and take up things at IIT, the optimum balance (for me) between the curricular and the co-curricular. Bottom-line, if I hadn’t messed up my first attempt at JEE and landed up at IITB, its quite possible my IITian life would have been totally different.

A fresher in his first semester at IITB is like an excited kid let loose at a fair. The platforms available to develop hobbies, better inter-personal skills, learn man-money-minute-material management hands-on is simply amazing. In my case, taking up dramatics as a hobby (sometimes more than just a hobby given the time investment) was triggered by an event. It was the Main Dramatics GC in early November of 2009, when I happened to see the play ‘Rafi Sahab ki Mayyat’ live.

It was a packed auditorium by the time I reached. I stood by the exit door, and being cramped up for space I almost stood on my toes to gain an extra two inches for better viewing. The cheering and applause for Snehil Gautam (the lead) was shocking! The adulation he received was something I felt then was surreal! (I guess, even today I’ll feel the same goosebumps to see him on stage as with watching, say Naseer Sahab) Its perhaps this culture of making cult/sports icons ‘GOD’ at IITB that catalysed my entry into dramatics, and further into cultural activities as a whole.

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3. BUILD-UP:

The dreams of becoming a General Secretary someday were evident right from the time I took up the post of an Institute Secretary. I did not have a clue about the work domain of a GS, but it was a dream nevertheless. Bas banna hai! I in fact opted for an Institute Secretary post in order to know the intricacies of a GSs work. I exactly cannot recollect how the seed got planted, but it must be the due to the culmination of the views of people around me that the most ‘powerful’ student office on campus is that of a GS. And if there is something I have tactically worked towards (since becoming the Institute Secretary), it must be this – to become a GS.

The process of elections is perhaps as value additive (if not more) as the tenure itself. (I’m sure once the tenure ends and things settle down, the positive/negative effects of the tenure will show up on my personality and my views on this point are bound to change) Frankly speaking, I never thought about victory or defeat. I simply cant recall a time when I critically analysed my winning chances. Two possibilities, either I was confident and didn’t want to waste time OR I felt I was in a losing race and didn’t want to lose heart by analysing the chances. The more I think about it, I feel the latter is a stronger opinion, that I feared defeat and chose not to think about it! (But the key was I didn’t overanalyse and panic/screw-up)

I cannot recall a time when I doubted my candidature. But yes, in elections the winner needs more than just a good candidature. He/she needs charisma to attract support (supporters rather). I don’t see anything wrong with that. Throughout my tenure, there have been multiple instances where getting people together for numerous reasons has been an important deal. And if thats tested in the process of elections, thats not detrimental for sure. But for someone who keeps to himself, doesn’t socialise much, and was called snobbish with attributions of an attitude problem, in hindsight, it was pleasantly surprising to make it through the elections.

And no talk on elections can end without a heartfelt gratitude to all the friends who helped me through the process. I have never seen in my life such selfless help from people around me, and almost all of them voluntarily. Its very likely that without their help I would have missed out on an epic adventure of my life – the tenure of a GS.

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4. CHALLENGES (of a GS Cult): (This is not an exhaustive list but those points which qualify as both non-trivial and significant) (In random order)

i. The work force: Surprisingly, a GS has the least direct work force of all the post holders under Students’ Gymkhana! My immediate work force are my seven secretaries and three nominees. Any work to be done on ground, has to be taken up by these ten. The challenge here is that the seven secretaries are elected by the people and not interviewed by me. They have their own vision + manifesto and may not have any correlation with that of a GSs. The rate determining step of a successful tenure will solely depend on how this team of ten is organised, controlled and executed by the GS. Though I have been majorly advantaged by a motivated set of ten, it was no simple task to ensure the system runs alright.

ii. Bias and fallacies: In the process of contesting and getting through an election, there are hands joined with some sections and ties broken with a few other. For someone who won by seven votes, I had a good share of both. Given the strong emotions that run during the elections, its very easy to resort to biasing or to take revenge! The power that the post holds does allow one to exercise this to some extent. But not adopting such narrow minded non-progressive approach is a challenging one, but something thats needed for a society to move forward. (In hindsight, no matter how hard one tries to stay unbiased, the fallacies amongst people continue to exist about a GSs bias. The job is such)

iii. Making things possible: Last year July, I happened to meet one of the key persons of Junoon Theatre. She was from MIT. I asked her what in her opinion was the difference between the Indian and the MIT setup of things. She replied saying that at MIT they believe everything is possible and all problems have a practical solution. Given the sarkaari setup of things here at IITB, ‘making things possible’ has a huge energy barrier to be crossed each time. Apprehensive authorities, stringent policies, bureaucratic paperwork, irrational staff – what not! My plan of action has always been to maintain a list of deliverables and one way or another to try my best to make them possible.

iv. Diplomacy and Ego issues: According to me, a GS is more of a politician at some scale than a bureaucrat. I find it extremely necessary to stay diplomatic and be politically correct. While being firm and bold are two of the most vital virtues, it is very essential to not remove the mask of diplomacy. Satisfying the egos of certain sections at various instances is part and parcel of the job, like it or not. A majority support at all times is needed to ensure a smooth tenure. I have seen egos hurt creating a butterfly effect of sorts to affect ones tenure adversely. Its a tricky point and a difficult situation to be in especially when one holds the highest student office. Being humble could be one way of making things easy.

v. Closed door meetings: The fun part of the tenure was to chair meetings where each of its members has their own agenda and prejudices. To me, the real check of a shrewd character happens here. I’ve always gone into meetings with my set of missions to accomplish and manoeuvre the meeting accordingly. Some went flawlessly smooth and some with high drama. But nonetheless, I cannot recall a single disappointment here. Be it meetings for PAFs, awards, council, collaborations etc, I have succeeded with my agenda hook or crook. The same doesn’t extend to meetings with the faculty though. The dynamics change here since diplomacy, respect and lack-of-leverage take a preference.

vi. Taking risks: The exciting part of being a GS is to be given the chance to dream big and all the requisite tools to realise those dreams too. In my own ways, I have experimented with the opportunities thrown at me. The exciting part of the tenure was always when I took risks. Be it with Roots, Vividh, InterIIT E-Weekend, The Indian Tempest etc. Some clicked and some didn’t. But the kick of taking risks is something that will always excite me to seek positive changes in any system I’m thrown into. Its always easy to work towards a safe manifesto and a non-controversial tenure. But then one will miss out on the adrenaline rush and of course the illumination that follows when one takes a risk.

vii. Staying social: Winning (sometimes even contesting) an election does give one the opportunity to make umpteen number of contacts across the institute. Since on many an occasion a GS interacts with people, it is expected of a GS to have an active social life. In my case this was a clear misconception. But I agree with the part that enroute becoming a GS, I got to know many people whom I wouldn’t have otherwise. A lot of times it has so happened that a walk from Main Building to my Hostel-6 has resulted in many smiles being exchanged along the way. But all these attribute to being ‘well known’ and ‘well connected’. My challenge was slightly different. It was about being available to the well knit friends circle amidst the busy tenure. There have been get togethers skipped, parties missed, treats postponed and even a simple email/SMS response to a school friend procrastinated. Its very easy to get trapped in the habit of getting too involved in the post and not think beyond the boundaries of the work domain. One has to realise that any PoR isn’t a 24X7 job; that posts are a part of life and not the sole components.

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5. OBSERVATIONS (by a GS Cult): (This is not an exhaustive list but those points which qualify as both non-trivial and significant. It can be apparent that most of the observations are indicating that our system is faulty. But I must stress upon the fact that the current setup is on the better side and these points are only to make things close to perfect) (In random order)

i. FOR the students?: In my opinion, the basic reason that IITB (IITs rather) came into existence was to pioneer the growth of science and technology in our country. To achieve this, there are numerous approaches that the institute can take. But whatever the approach be, the one basic target that the institute should aim at, is churning out a good crop of students who are equipped with tools to become the torch bearers of a positive change (say, at least in the fields of science and technology) in the nation. In order to catalyse this process, its very important on the institute’s part to maintain a balanced, healthy student life with all world class infrastructure in place (in-short without divulging into micro details of the parameters involved) To ensure this, its imperative on the authorities part to operate with this basic mindset that the institute primarily exists to groom students and all the plans need to revolve around the mantra ‘FOR the students’.

But going by the way certain issues were dealt with – accommodation issues, SAC grounds issue, Estate office work, below average living infrastructure – I have my questions on the institute’s way of working. I understand that ours being a governmental organisation, there are numerous bureaucratic policies that are difficult to deal with and hence a shift in ideology. But I’d still say, as in point 4iv above, everything can be made possible. During my short stay at a US university, if there was one major difference that I observed in the way ours and their administration works – it is this!

ii. Lack of aggression: (A continuation of the above point) As students, its important to retaliate/protest whenever we sight the points mentioned above in 5i are being violated. As a group we need to show the unity and the aggression to keep a check on the way our administration works. But the problem I cite is that we students are too passive in this regard. We get accustomed to things too easily. Be it the security issues, substandard living conditions, accommodation issues etc – I have been mildly surprised to see the lack of student protests. I have seen how a staff union’s protest has made the wheels of change move on certain occasions. There is a fine line between controlled+required aggression and reckless+random protests, and I must say that a firm minded union with a planned strategy can catalyse changes in the society.

iii. Challenges with setup of new systems: When I look at the tenures of the previous GSs and OCs, I must admit that a lot of us have failed to establish new systems (systems can mean – IITBBC, Career Cell, Guest Accommodation Booking System, Sports Mela, International Music Festival, Cashless Campus, Brewberrys) in our setup. Its essential for new systems to be explored, bigger challenges to be taken up, new ideas ventured upon – to ensure the agents of change exist at an optimum level in an evolving society. While I understand the challenges to meet the quantum of basic work by a GS or an OC are high, there is no one who can stop him from deleting whats not needed and brining in new systems for a positive change. The institute does suffer from ‘jo chalta aa raha woh chalta hi rahega’ and the lack of leaders with balls to create a change. But I must admit and acknowledge that the passing out GSs and OCs have done a much better job in this regard (collectively) over the previous years. A positive sign.

iv. Lack of extravagance: Without comparing things with the outside world, even on an absolute scale I feel the lack of extravagance is an issue to be addressed. (not many might agree with me on this) While I’m a firm believer of optimising resources and not wasting them, its to be seen that there is a fine line between liberally spending resources and misusing them. In order to establish and maintain a world class setup, the institute has to do much better. I’m given the reasons of challenges involved in running a governmental organisation and the tax payer’s money involved etc etc and what not! Be it the low quality food, average eateries, very few entertainment shows, lack of professional support (in certain genres) in extra curricular activities (and many more) – I have my cribs.

My hypothesis is that the big-shots who run show are primarily faculty members and don’t necessarily have the qualifications of running/leading an organisation (But I must admit some of them have managed remarkably well). On the other hand, the rest (staff) are sarkaari naukars who beyond a point don’t aspire much to create revolutionary changes. A GS has a limited time to work out his plan. In fact, his GS post is only a part time activity. He is constrained with his basic duties, and the initiatives that he does manage to pull off are few in number. But what an institute needs is more than just a set of efficient GSs. It needs a better administration that seeks change and people at the helm who can ‘make things possible’.

v. PoR centric mentality: The institute has more than 1000 PoRs (official or unofficial) handed out every year. One major perception amongst people is how certain students become resume centric and take up PoRs to create an impression of a well rounded personality. While I agree with the bit that there is a sizeable chunk that takes up PoR for a better profile, I beg to differ on the point that students take up PoRs for the sake of it (Its a small number in my opinion) I don’t see any issues with the former point. I took up a PoR to make a good profile. What people need to understand is that a good profile is a resultant of a tenure undertaken and thats inevitable. The larger picture is that one takes up a PoR to complete the aspirations of learning to manage man-material-money-minutes. Now where does one set the bar for the tenure is completely upon the individual. While most primary (GSs, OCs, GSecs) and secondary (Insti Secretaries, Managers, CGs) post holders complete their basic duties well, not everyone manages to set the bar high for their portfolio. I guess thats where people have a problem with. They fail to realise the work behind the scenes and simply look forward to spikes/populous work on most occasions. They need to understand that tenures come in – fucked up, bad, average, good and god.

vi. The image: Some of the common adjectives associated with a GS are rational, sensible, (street)smart, compassionate, bold, ambitious, achiever, disciplined, logical etc. (I’m sure I lack few of the above) But whats more important is that one has to make the best use of the tools available, and simultaneously learn the new tricks of the trade as early as possible. Being a GS does come at a price. Being in a public domain, right from a change of hairstyle to getting high in insti to breaking rules of security to getting into a spat – one is closely watched. It does run at ones back of the mind that a pretence to some extent and a change in lifestyle to a larger extent is needed to fit into the shoes perfectly. While this change in lifestyle was a little strange at the beginning, I’m more than confident now that its going to be a way of life. That, is one priceless change!

vii. The tenure: The tenure has been a roller-coaster ride where fundae about life has been rediscovered, philosophy on certain aspects revised. Looking back at my tenure, its difficult to comment on its success or failure. Its been a satisfying journey by being able to complete the majority of the deliverables I had on my list when I started off. While the discussions on parameters involved in judging a good tenure can get subjective and the conclusions made can go either ways, I will take pride in finally managing to have had a relatively non-controversial tenure (over my predecessors), fewer cribs raised and an award to cement the fact that the work done was indeed better as compared to previous years. I guess I have extracted what I wanted to from the post, but only time can tell if the institute got what it wanted, out of my tenure. (short and long term effects)

___________________________________________________________________

6. THE FUTURE:

I’ve been asked these questions on multiple occasions in the last one month or so:

i. Infi chill ho jaega tu. Nahi?: After two years of an active involvement in extra curricular activities and the subsequent two years being busy with Gymkhana posts, it certainly does appear that the next one year is going to be a new experience before passing out. What I’m really looking forward to is to renew the process of observing life, something that only an unoccupied/free mind can achieve.

ii. Ek aur PoR le raha hai?: Power doesn’t exist in the realms of a position we hold, its within the capacity of a determined mind. I’m sure there are other challenges to conquer, things to experience before passing out of IIT, other than taking up PoRs. I’m going to look out for those opportunities and experiences.

iii. To kya kar raha hai agle saal?: To begin with, I’m going to get this latch of my room door repaired. Its been pending since a few weeks. World has gone ahead and discovered Quora, GoT – some catching up is needed there. Discovering new music, cinema is definitely happening. Travelling around Mumbai is high up on the to-do list too. And if persistence persists, then getting back to fitness is on the cards. People around will see me online on all chats for sure. Some long lost love for Kannada literature is going to be rediscovered. Hmm.. these top the list for now.

iv: Kya plans hai aage?: In the past, I have sought redemption (re-JEE), adulation (entering dram), power (elections). Clearly, what we do in life depends on what we seek at that point of time. Liberation is the ultimate path to seek. But I’m sure, there are other worldly pleasures on the way to get distracted with.

We have been compelled to write this piece by the absolute, and quite frankly, appalling misrepresentation and sensationalization of an article we spent several weeks working on. Our article was a product of analyses on student behaviour and motivations backed by years of introspection by the faculty themselves about their own skills at pedagogy.

The ToI piece, however, begins with a bold title claiming that 88% of IITB students think that our Professors are ‘inept’ and that the survey was conducted by a group of IITians from the current batch who were ‘fed up’ with criticism about their “poor performance” compared to previous batches. How any of that could possibly have come out of our article, is a mystery to us and we’re sure would be a mystery to most readers. Neither are our professors inept (they are among the brightest minds we have ever encountered) nor was the article written because we were ‘fed-up’ of criticism being levied at us. The latter, in particular, seems to portray that the whole article was written in a spirit of vengeance rather than what it really was — an attempt to start a genuine dialogue among students and faculty.

If ever the reporter in question had somehow gotten the wrong impression, she’d have been corrected had she bothered to contact someone from the InsIghT team. In spite of the explicit copyright notice and message on our front page asking to contact us before reproducing any content from the issue, we were neither informed nor contacted before content was taken and twisted in sensationalist ways.

On speaking with the reporter in question, we were told that she had been too busy to call us for our consent before publishing our content.

There are other instances of factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations in TOI’s article that transform the entire tone of our message from a balanced critique of fallacies in the system to a collection of sweeping statements – but we shall refrain from nitpicking and we urge the reader to read the original article for himself/herself.

InsIghT exists to address student issues on campus. Our goal is to effectively capture the perspectives of different stakeholders of an issue and voice their concerns. We aim to be the platform on which these diverse interest-groups can come together and understand and discuss each other’s perspectives and come up with solutions. We believe that irresponsible journalism, like this particular ToI article, sets us back in our efforts and delegitimizes our intentions.

We are members of a student media body, working on internal issues of the campus. It is beyond us, why major national newspapers regularly publish details of minor occurrences on this little island that is our institute. But if they must, it is our humble request to them, that they at least be faithful to our message.

- Nidhi Shanbhag and Nivvedan S

[Nidhi and Nivvedan were members of the team that worked on the original article for InsIghT. The opinions quoted above are theirs alone.]

The actual articles is given in below. It featured as a two-page spread in InsIghT’s third issue for the year 2012-13.

The PDF embedded below may be downloaded here:
http://tinyurl.com/why-dont-we-study-part-ii

For decades now, the General Secretaries of various IITs in their annual summit have been trying to expand inter-IIT competitions to spheres beyond just sports. However, logistic issues which come with having to host 2000 people on campus was always a deterrent. To add to that, the fact that IITs have their own cultural festivals, unlike sports, always made it difficult to find a calendar slot agreeable to every IIT. Reportedly, the first major initiative to organize a full scale InterIIT Competitions, involving cultural and technical spheres, was by IIT Kanpur around August 2011. This proposal too ran into rough weather owing to logistical and calendar constraints.

With the necessity to battle these constraints gave birth to InterIIT E-Weekend – a competition for the IITS to battle it out in the cultural sphere. Entries will be solicited online, for Short Film Making, Photography, Comic Strip Making, Digital Arts, Creative Writing, Online Crypt Hunt and Original Musical Compositions.

The first InterIIT E-Weekend will be hosted by IIT Bombay and organized by its Institute Cultural Council. Beginning at 9pm on Friday, 5th April it will continue through the weekend. The detailed descriptions, rules and regulations may be found at rules and regulations – InterIIT E-Weekend

Also Read Ecell Review: 2013

Nikhil Patil, Ecell OC

InsIghT: What would you say is the “goal” behind eCell?

Nikhil: Our primary aim would be to encourage people – both inside and outside the institute – to test their entrepreneurial ambitions. Now, this is not a task that can be accomplished in 2-3 days. So, we conduct workshops and other events all through the year in order to get people to start thinking about business as a realistic option.

InsIghT: What were the most important events you guys conducted this year?

Nikhil: We break down eCell events into 3 primary categories – Eureka, the E-Summit and the EnB Club events. Eureka is an event for start-ups inside and outside the Institute, where they’re judged and short-listed based on the work they’ve done so far and provided mentorship in order to help them develop. The E-Summit is an assimilation of events we have in the first week of February, where we conduct workshops, lectures and competitions. The events of the EnB club are the ones that are spread out over the year.
We also print an annual magazine called EnSpace where we discuss news items that are relevant to the average entrepreneur. Within the Institute, there’s a misconception that E-Cell is only about E-Summit – but that’s simply untrue. We put in a lot of time and energy into events that we conduct all over the year.

InsIghT: So, the EnB Club was initiated this year. How did that go?

Nikhil: Technically EnB club was not started this year, though it was in a very nascent stage till last year. We’ve always had a large number of Insti-level events conducted throughout the year. This time, we decided to unite them under the banner of the “EnB Club”. The events we conducted could be broken down into two parts – the ones in the basic track were intended to encourage people to try out their hand at entrepreneurship by conducting light, fun business-related games and those in the advanced track were meant to be trouble-shooting and brainstorming sessions for people who are having problems with getting forward with their start-ups. We had around 15 events this year within the Insti. Almost all saw participants turn up in good numbers.

InsIghT: To what extent do you think start-ups benefit from initiatives taken by eCell?

Nikhil: Well, generally the biggest problems start-ups in the campus face are those of funding. Investors usually look for high-risk projects which could potentially give 600-700% returns. However, most people in the Institute are looking to earn some cash on the side. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – it’s just that these guys have different goals. The way we help them out is by handing out tips from people who have already gone through the same problems that they are facing right now. So, it’d be tough to quantify exactly how much value-addition we provide. Out of the 25 or so start-ups currently in the Institutes, I’d say atleast 7-8 are constantly in touch with us.

Also Read: Ecell Review: 2013

Keeping this the mind, InsIghT focussed primarily only on the current/budding entrepreneurs within the Institute, i.e. people already actively involved in start-ups and members of the EnB Club for this review. We gauged their responses via multiple surveys, the results of which are summarised below.

Eureka!

Asia’s largest business plan competition (accredited by Thomas Reuters and CNN) is named after the famous interjection almost synonymous with innovation. Eureka aims at encouraging people from across the globe to flesh out their ideas and form global enterprises that combine technology, vision and business acumen. It is a gruelling 5 month long competition which starts with a few workshops and moves on to the questionnaire submission. Based on this, the semi-finalists are selected and each team is put in touch with an online mentor to help them formulate a B-Plan.
This year, Eureka placed an increased emphasis on promoting entrepreneurship within the institute with a much publicised prize money of INR 75,000 for the best team IITB team. In addition to that, campus students were given heavy discounts on most workshops as well as a wild-card entry into finals with the event ‘First Pitch!’

The competition also got a large increase in prize money from INR 2.4 million to INR 4 million. Resultantly, the total number of participating teams also increased from 3600 to 5147. The “Eureka! Youth Award” was also introduced to promote entries from participants below 26 years of age. Tie-ups with numerous external agencies to sponsor free consulting hours and assured office-spaces as prizes for the winners of different tracks were also a practical and welcome improvement. One of the notable tie-ups was an opportunity to attend the Bootcamp at Stanford University and get an exposure to the Silicon Valley.

The overall response and feedback about Eureka was definitely positive though the lack of quality accommodation was cited as a problem by many.

EnB Club

The EnB Club is E-Cell’s new initiative through which they “aim to create an ecosystem for the budding entrepreneurs in the institute”. Several speaker sessions, workshops and online games have been organized by it throughout the year, and it has been successful in garnering adequate student participation.

In 2012-2013, among the many sessions that they organized, the most popular was one by Nandini Vaidyanathan, an eminent entrepreneur and Business Consultant. For the ones who missed out on it, the major issues were clashes with academic commitments, lack of publicity etc. Hence, proper scheduling of events and ensuring that (at least) all those who are entrepreneurship-enthu get to know about the events they hold are things that the EnB Club still needs to improve on. On a positive note, the feedback from those who attended even a single event has been great and they feel that the events were adequately informative.

Another out-standing initiative of the EnB Club was the Virtual Stock Market launched during E-Summit. It saw an amazing response with a large number of students jumping onto the bandwagon to exercise and hone their budding investment skills. Conducting more such games in future will not just lead to a rise in interest for things like the Stock Market, which seems an abstract concept to many, but will also go a long way in popularizing E-Cell even more among students in different parts of India.

On the whole, the EnB Club has done a good job during the course of the year. Although, improving on the publicity front would serve them well.

E-Summit

This year, E-Summit saw a considerable increase in footfall with over 1500 external entrepreneurs registering for the event. Until last year, the events for professional entrepreneurs and students were held on different days. This year, both types of events were conducted simultaneously in order to facilitate an exchange of ideas between the two groups.

The speaker sessions received overwhelming responses and excellent reviews for the enthusiasm of the speakers and the nearly flawless organisation. This year, E-Summit also featured panel discussions between experts in varied fields on fairly general topics in order to provide a balanced perspective to viewers. There were a few more mentoring sessions like BMH (Business Mentoring Help) and Trends Today where advanced topics of entrepreneurship were discussed.

This year, workshops were conducted for a limited number of people to ensure that all the attendees could actually interact with the speaker. But, this strategy made sure that the supply was significantly less than demand. Even more specific workshops were organised under the event ‘30 minutes’ where a speaker spends the complete 30 minutes with a group of five people selected on the basis of their SoPs which they had to submit far in advance.

Various start-ups were also invited to display the work they’ve done so far in stalls in order to enable them to get visibility and feedback from the diverse crowd present there. The more casual events included competitions like Idea blaze, Investors hat, Freshbiz and Bizquiz aimed at the development of the entrepreneurial skills. Participants seemed more or less satisfied with the organization and quality-control in the Competitions held this year.

Anuj Shah, PM (B.Tech.)

Anuj: Please refer to placement policy for students -> section 3 – Categorization of organizations. It is clearly explained there.

Anuj: CTC can be much more misleading than Gross as it may contain components that a student may not get ‘in hand’ (is not a taxable component).

Anuj: The verification of salary is done by the Executive Officer – Ms Rashmi Menon and not by placement team members.

Anuj: Primarily it is the job of the student to attain understanding of the different career paths and the placement office is responsible for providing job opportunities in a systematic manner. However, there has always been a provision made for having alumni come to the institute for giving “Buddy Talks” which are essentially talks about the sector, company and kind of job they are pursuing (have pursued) and what are their pros and cons. We have also allocated incentive points for attending these sessions so as to promote students to attend these buddy talks. These are conducted by the DPCs. Also, in my tenure, placement team in collaboration with the Career Cell also had many sector oriented talks that were aimed to educate students about working in diverse sectors/career paths. Hence sufficient effort is being put in there.

Anuj: Yes, there is an orientation session for all the pre-final year students in every department and program done in February-March. The aim is to acquaint all the pre final year students with the placement process and its timelines.

a) What according to you is the cause of this problem?

Anuj: To a large extent, it is the restlessness of seeing your batch-mates and friends getting placed while you still being in the process.

InsIghT: b) Is it an inevitable outcome of the placement process?

Anuj: If the placements happen pan-IIT in this fashion, I think the anxiety aspect amongst students is pretty much inevitable and common throughout all IITs. The most we can do as placement cell is give them a list of companies before December 1 that MIGHT be visiting the campus so they know that even day 4/5 there are ample opportunities left; However, this will also will be TENTATIVE as we do not get all confirmations and there are bound to be last minute changes in schedules of companies.

InsIghT: c) Is any solution being worked out to solve this issue?

Anuj: None as of now.

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InsIghT: One thing that most people wonder about not just Techfest – but all IBs is how the footfall is calculated. Your comments?

Anish: A lot of factors are taken into account in order to estimate footfall. We take into account all the registrations and confirmations we’ve received online, the total number of visitor cards that we give out to people at the main gate and an estimate of the number of campus residents. There are also a lot of media-persons who are annual visitors here. Based on what they see, they give us an estimate of the number of people on campus. We take all of this into account before releasing a figure.

InsIghT: What was the total footfall this year?

Anish: At least 95,000. But, that number includes 15,000 campus residents as well.

InsIghT: Why was Techfest shifted into the winter vacations this year?

Anish: So, the exact problem was that 3-4 co-ordinators got de-registered last year since they missed a few classes in their first week due to their involvement with Techfest. Since no-one wanted this to be repeated this year, the Dean AP originally recommended conducting Techfest between 31st December and 2nd January. Somehow, we convinced him to let us shift it off the slot and the best possible dates we could negotiate were from the 3rd to the 5th of January.

InsIghT: Didn’t the lack of time between Mood Indigo and Techfest bother you?

Anish: Initially, of course, it did. But, we decided to just compress our timeline since we knew, right from the outset, that we’d have very little time. We warned all our vendors and labourers about the time constraints this year well in advance. They hiked their prices a bit – but we got all the work done on time anyway.

InsIghT: A lot of people raise concerns that Techfest is becoming less and less “Tech” with each passing year…

Anish: That’s not really a fair assessment. This year, we’ve increased both, the quantity and quality of the competitions. We also hosted IRC – which had its elimination rounds in 8 countries. Clearly, there’s been a tremendous increase in the tech events that we’ve conducted.

InsIghT: Alright, let’s rephrase that. Techfest is hosting more and more “Non-Tech” events with each passing year. TNOQ was introduced last year and TIMUN this year and there were quite a few lit-based events conducted under Ozone. A lot of Initiatives and Ideate problems had seemingly nothing to do with Tech either.

Anish: Our first priority is always Tech events. But, if the team is interested in going forward with any kind of event that we think we can pull off well, we don’t hesitate to go ahead with it. Every year, we approach Techfest with the intent of creating something completely different from the past.

InsIghT: On that point, a lot of seniors have also expressed concerns about the repetitiveness that’s been creeping into Technoholix…

Anish: I totally agree with that. The difficulty that we face with TechX is that we never have sufficient funds to bring in the artists that we initially aim for – and that’s because we’re adamant about keeping the show completely free for anyone who wants to drop by. The really fresh shows that we think of always end up just a little outside our budget. I can see how a third or fourth year student might have found a few acts similar to previous ones, but we’ll be working on a different format for TechX this year.

InsIghT: Different format?

Anish: Every year we have about 11-12 acts lined up for Technoholix. We’re thinking about having just one long act every night. That way, we’d free up a lot of our funds and be able to afford far better performers. This was an idea that we had this time too, but we were only able to confirm the show after MI. We just couldn’t manage it at such short notice.

InsIghT: While we’re still talking about TechX, don’t you feel a little bit sorry for the non-Insti junta that has to wait in line for almost 3-4 hours? Isn’t there something you guys can do about this?

Anish: We ask them not to queue up. We really do! But, they have nothing else to do after 5pm – so they wait out there in order to get the choicest seats. There’s really nothing we can do. If even a single artist is running late, we have to delay the entire show for them. With an event like this, you have to ensure that they’ve all had run-throughs and invariably, there are always some last minute hiccups. Moreover, if we were to declare the scheduled time as 8.30, it would discourage people from waiting for the show.

InsIghT: Given that Techfest doesn’t have a “theme” per se, how do you go about planning the ambience?

Anish: Again, we don’t put that much thought into it. If someone from within the team comes up with an idea that is simultaneously interesting and executable, we go ahead with it.

Competitions
This year, Techfest conducted about 20 major tech-related competitions – officially broken down into 4 categories – Robotron (involved building machines meant for highly specific tasks), Xtreme Machines (creating slightly more involved bots), Dimensions (the not-so-tech competitions) and Code Czar (evidently, coding-based events).

An overwhelming majority of contestants were dissatisfied with the organisation and management of the events, with outstation participants complaining about the cost to quality ratio of the accommodation provided to them.
A large number of respondents applauded both – the quality of the problem statements and the quality of bots built by their competitors. Once again, the star performer was Robowars – attracting a huge audience that left the event extremely satisfied.
However, when it came to the prizes given out, dissatisfaction was a running theme. One thing Techfest could surely work on improving is the amount of prizes awarded to winners, especially keeping in mind the enormous cost of building bots for high-prep events such as Robowars and Blitzkrieg. In fact, the team that won Robowars had spent around 80 thousand in building their bot, while the prize awarded to them was only 50,000. Admittedly, anticipating the amount of money participants will spend on an open-ended problem statement beforehand is a tough task.

Workshops:

Workshops, an essential part of Techfest garnered over 2500 registrations this year.There were a total of 13 workshops and each consisted of 200-230 students either in teams or as individuals. The assortment varied from Twin copter and Auto writing to others like Climosignia and web development. The goal was to get students an overview of the best quality and the latest technical advances at low prices.

Exhibitions:

Exhibitions plays host to the technological avant-garde, bridging the gap between the technology in today’s world and the common man of India.
Automated and humanoid Robots from different countries were on display this year with the Major attractions being the HIRO robot, Nao robot from Japan, “One man one tree” from Paris and a 3D scanner from Germany. The digital art gallery and synapse art exhibits proved to be excellent amalgams of technology and art.
While the IITB’s home-bred projects displayed at Techconnect were no match for the professional ones, it was encouraging to see the best research-work in the Insitute displayed under one roof.

Lecture Series:

Techfest’s Lecture Series is a great opportunity for students to interact with renowned speakers from various fields that’s seen steady improvement every year, culminating in what proved to be the most highly appreciated aspect of this year’s edition.

Initiatives

a. International Robotics Challenge
IRC was conducted this year with the aim of making Indian students realize how far behind we are at tech events, in comparison to our counterparts in other countries – and the results acutely reflect this, with Sri Lanka bagging a lot of the top spots. With one-on-one battles being the format of the finals, it was potentially a very entertaining event – but found surprisingly little audience.

b. Techfest Green Campus Challenge

Another non-tech initiative taken up by Techfest this year was the TGCC – a program taken up to invite new ideas and implement the existing ones in campuses across India with the goal of making their campus as “green” as possible. They were graded over a period of four months based on the tasks they completed. The top 12 teams after this preliminary stage were invited to deliver presentations about the activities they conducted at Techfest.

c. Give a Coin:

Give a Coin was a public awareness campaign launched by Techfest in association with Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children (PCVC), a program run by Pratham, an NGO. The initiative, with the intent of promoting the idea of Financial Child Adoption, was fairly successful as it managed to reach around 20,000 students from 45 colleges in 18 cities all over India.

d. Techfest National Open Quiz:
TNOQ 2.0 was the second edition of an event that had proven highly successful last year. While the event saw great participation in the eliminations which were conducted in 11 zones across the country, the finals were plagued with a host of organisational issues and proved to be but a shadow of their former selves.

e. Techfest International Model United Nations:
TIMUN was the first MUN at this scale conducted at IIT Bombay, organised with significant help from the Speakers’ Club. The event consisted of 6 committees/councils – with each of them mimicking an actual Council of the United Nations. All committees were made up of around 15-20 participants from all over India. Despite a glaring lack of organisers, the MUN was an overall success primarily due to the spectacular quality of adjudicators.

Ozone:

Ozone, “the lighter side of Techfest” saw a large number of workshops, competitions and street artists this year too – with successful events from previous years being repeated or extended further. The flagship events including Lazertag, Paintball, Junkyard Wars and Gaming Zone received great participation. New competitions included ThinkQuest (a set of 15 quizzes over the period of 3 days), the Indian Sudoku Championship and Cube Mania (a national Rubik’s Cube Championship). ‘Share a Coke’ was cancelled due to low registrations, and Coke’s policy required that atleast 5 teams participate. Among the new events, the F1 simulator and bungee-jumping were popular but the silent disco was met with a lukewarm response. Feedback from students also suggests that the number of events conducted at the Ozone Stage should be toned down in light of the exceedingly chaotic atmosphere that prevails in the region.

Ideate

Ideate was an event that invited ideas and innovations in order to solve problems that pervade society. Competitions were conducted across 5 genres – Earth (environmental), Inspire India (social issues), Umeed (child upliftment), Utkarsh (rural issues) and Vidyarth (educational reforms). The top 15-20 idea submissions in each event were shortlisted to present their ideas to experts in their respective fields at Techfest. Some of the ideas are being followed through by the participants in collaboration with their judges and mentors.

Technoholix:

Technoholix – the night shows at Techfest aim to add the entertainment quotient to Techfest. The major attractions this year were Freestyl Air, Blacklux, Lords of Gravity and Pyroterra and Luxy Boyz. Technoholix started on a very low note on Day 1, but peaked on Day 2 thus managing to attract large crowds on Day 3 too. Zlwin Chew, initially invited a street artist, doubled as an excellent compere – being applauded for his stage presence as much as for his sleight of hand. Most of the performances drew major flak from senior students for being highly repetitive/unimaginative since they were only minor variations on acts that have already been seen at Techfest in the last 2-3 years. Even so, the single biggest problem with TechX has got to be the mind-numbingly long lines visitors have to endure simply because the event starts hours behind schedule – a problem that has persisted, despite being pointed out repeatedly.

Link: Part 2: Detailed review and a discussion of the existing problems with the Overall Co-ordinator – Anish Sankhe.

ROLL OF HONOUR:

Sneh Vaswani (Tech)
Mayank Gupta (Sports)
Rajesh Ghusinga (Sports)

CITATIONS:

Organizational -

Aakash Singh
Chandra Mouli
Rajesh Ghusinga
Vaibhav Tamrakar
Vaibhav Chaudhary
Siddharth Maheshwari
Bandana Singha
Ishan Shrivastava

Technical –

Mayank Porwal
Sanyam Mulay
Pushkar Limaye
Nimish Mehta
Mudit Danwate
Abhishek Kumar
Chintan Raikwar

Sports -

Ameya Sahasrabudhe
Satya Parneeth Repaka
Vivek Shivade
Tejas Puranik
Anurag Ravi Sharma
Tarun Meena
Swati Agrawal

Cultural -

Ajinkya Bhasme
Abhishek Padmanabhan
Vaibhav Pittie
Omkar Nene

COLOURS:

SGEC Colour -

Poorna Chandra
Ayush Agarwal and Nikhil Patil

HGSC Colour -

Kunal Verma
Gaurav Bharti

Organizational Colour -

Saket Choudhary
Ashish Saxena
Sravan Bonthala
Mani Saran
Aviral Bhatnagar
Manisheel Gautam
Devansh Chawla
Rishi Palan
Sumeet Wadhwa
Deepak Venkat
Saubhagya Singh Rathore
Ashwin Paranjpe
Omkar Nene
Mayur Kacholiya

Journalism Colour -

Yash Tambawala

Cultural Colour -

Abhishek Yadav
Badri Chavan
Souradip Sen
Aditya Shankar
Ashwathi Nambiar
Kunal Kumar Shelar

Technical Color –

Anay Joshi
Rajdatta
Vallari Gore
Shivendra Singh
Sant Kumar
Anil Shanbhag
Pradip Gatkine
Deshraj Jat
Rachit Agarwal
Puneet Arora
M Deepak

Sports Color -

Kshitij Jain
Samarth Bansal
Aijaz Ahmad
Mast Ram Meena
Surendera Meena
Kaushal Kumar
Suraj Kumar Sahoo
Pruthvi Kaveti
Pinkesh Malhotra Cricket

PERSONS OF THE YEAR:

Technical -
Ashay Tejwani

Sports -
Sumit Bhagat
Nishanth Dikkala

AMBROSE OTIENO AWARD:

Manita Kumari Raigar
Ketki Kulkarni

SPECIAL MENTION:

Organizational -

Dhanasree M.
Alankar Jain
Prasun Agarwal
Atulit Khanna
Achitha Jacob
Amit Kumar
Mudit Goyal
Yash Bhargava
Ashray Iyengar
Prakhar Khandelwal
Rohit Chhawchharia
Nidhi Shanbhag and Saideep Sudi

Journalism -

Nivvedan S

Technical -

Saket Choudhary
Hardik Godora
Anurag
Arpit Gupta
Sundaram Prasad
Urvesh Patil
Siddhesh
Lalit Patidar
Nilesh Kulkarni
Akash Khan
Dinesh Sain
Devesh Bharti
Manmohan
Somin Soni

Cultural -

Ashrit Tandon
Saransh Garg
Pahul Preet Singh
Ankit Khetrapal
Ajay Suryavanshi
Utkarsh Raut
Anshul Awasthi
Aditya Gangrade
Vighnesh Vatsal
Rahul Sharma

Sports -

Deepak Kumar
Shobhit Srivastava
Archit Gupta
Sushil Reddy
Amit Garg
Parul Verma
Ram Vivek
Shashank Srivastava
Anam Mathew
Hrishikesh Kulkarni
Shubham Gupta
Jaidev Shenoy
Kiran Lal
Devansh Chawla

FRESHMEN OF THE YEAR:

Technical -

Prateek Chandan
Sanidhya Gupta

Cultural -

Suraj Jog

Sports -

Divya Taparia
Abhimanyu Kumar

Sameer Mishra’s name stands tall when one talks about PAFs here in insti. Sameer has been scriptwriter-director of PAFs such as ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ (2011), ‘Arthur Road’ (2009), both of which won by a mile. He was also involved with setting up the premise of the PAF ‘Prime Minister’ last season.
Sameer has been involved with The Viral Fever (TVF), an entertainment group which has brought hits such as ‘Gangs of Social Media’, and ‘Roadies: Sab Q-tiyapa Hai’.
As brilliantly as the review is written, InsIghT stresses that the opinions in this article are Sameer’s alone, and are in no way endorsed by the PAF Committee or InsIghT.

Firstly, sorry for the late review. After the last PAF, I was told that the next one was not until this Monday, hence I had one extra day to write the review. Like your next iitian, I procrastinated to the last moment. Starting now…

Let me explain the title first, “What not to do in a PAF”. I chose this title because “Delhi Beats” did all those things. They chose a ‘cliché’ theme, wrote a ‘serious’ script on it, tried to show a “filmy” story, and the biggest mistake which they did was to do all these things in front of a foolish and insensitive audience. Not to generalize, but seriously people, what’s wrong with you. You claim yourself to be the creme` of India, to be the best brains in the country, yet you are so insensitive and so disrespectful that you dare laugh when a character playing a 10 year old girl tells her elder friend that she was being molested by her uncle! Seriously, grow up. If you don’t have the sensibility to empathize with such an issue, at least do inculcate the basic courtesy of respecting an artist and his/her art form. So the actual mistakes which the team of “Delhi Beats” did were to choose a ‘sensitive (not cliché)’ theme, write an ‘intense (not serious)’ script on it and to show a ‘different (not filmy)’ story to a bunch of people who only like to laugh while watching a performance. For one thing, I felt that this PAF deserved a better audience.

SCRIPT AND DIRECTION

The premise of the script was definitely ‘rape’. An issue which, after the 16th Dec Delhi rape case, is being discussed and highlighted so much in the media, that unfortunately to our ‘brainy’ youth, it has become ‘cliché’. But at least to me its not ‘cliché’ yet and even if it was, the PAF itself was not at all about “rape”. It was about its aftermath, its effect on our society and the ways to combat its psychological effects. I for one, liked the theme and the way it was shown, but at the same time felt that the script could have been better. Some of the initial scenes could have used a bit of editing and the dialogues could have been crispier. But I really liked the way some edgy scenes were written like the one where a girl tells her experiences in Delhi to Vicky (the protagonist) followed by the confession of the little girl which I have already mentioned. Another portion which was brilliantly scripted was the ‘documentary’ which was shown near the end. It really had a fresh perspective. I felt that there was enough maturity in the writing and for that, ‘Gaganjeet Singh and his script team’ deserve a special mention.

Primarily a PAF director has two jobs. The first is to visualize, plan and execute the overall flow of the performance and second is to extract top class performances from the acting, voiceover, dance and music teams. I would say that the direction team/director of the PAF, fared well in the first job and did a good enough job in the second. The execution of this PAF was almost puthcless and I credit that to the proper planning and visualization of the director. The flow of the story too was maintained well and the prod was utilized properly. As far as the second job goes, the direction team/ director was able to extract top notch performance from the voice over and dance teams but not from the music and acting teams. We will discuss these things in their respective columns but for now, lets just say that the direction of this PAF had a few flaws but without any doubt, it was far better than previous two PAFs.

Script – 7.5/10, Direction – 8.5/10

ACTING AND VOICEOVER

Acting was inconsistent. Not of the individual actors but of the team as a whole. By that what I mean is that some actors were very good but others gave a less motivated performance. The female lead, Aisha, was played very well by Deepti Dyondi, but I can’t say the same for the male lead, Vicky, played by Ronak Mayur Mehta. His body language was not suitable for this character and he looked under-prepared in some of the scenes. Ronak has a very commanding voice and could have been used better in the voice box (this is the direction flaw I was talking about). Rest of the acting team had a similar graph where a few actors delivered well but others gave mediocre performances. From the lot I would just like to mention Yudhisthir Satija, who played Vicky’s friend Karan and was exceptional in his short role.

Voiceover was really a highlight of this PAF. Almost all of them were authentic and the whole team was successful in making the audience believe that the characters are from Delhi. The accent was bang on and the modulation and clarity was exceptional. Best performances in this department came from Gaganjeet Singh who I believe gave several voiceovers including that of Karan, the voice in the documentary and the host of the marriage party who shouts after the generator goes off and from Mrs Bajaj. Hiteshi Sharma – giving the voice over of Aisha, Sankalp Kelshikar – giving voice over of Vicky and Ayush Mishra giving voice over of Mr.Bajaj, did good jobs too. In fact apart from the over dramatic “kyaaa??” from Sankalp during the break-up/metro scene, everything else was perfect from the voice over team.

Acting – 8/10, Voiceover – 9.5/10 (0.5 for the over dramatic “kyaaa” )

PROD

Needless to say, prod was the biggest let down of this PAF. The structures were big and stable but the FA work was very basic and had no detailing. The colors were dull and the combinations unimaginative. I felt that the prod team was over ambitious, took a lot up on themselves and in the end was not able to deliver. The central prod, residential colony, had no finishing and looked like a last minute work. I don’t understand why the color yellow is so often used to paint the exteriors of buildings in PAFs, when in reality I am still to come across a building painted yellow. Similarly, I would request these FA teams using dark blue color for the paint in the interiors of offices in PAFs, to show me a real office having dark blue color on its interior walls. I mean, apply basic common sense man. Else go to real locations and take inspiration from there. Do anything which keeps you from painting a building yellow and an office blue. The best part of the prod was I think the “moving metro” with sliding doors but again it didn’t look pretty because of the sloppy FA work. So overall the prod was a big disappointment.

Prod – 7/10

MUSIC

I think they read my last review and what I said about there being a difference between good music and good background music But I being the gentleman that I am , won’t take the credit, as they might be having a good music team who already knew the difference. In short, the background music was nice and did what it was supposed to do i.e support the scene and not over power it. I especially liked the use of violin in some of the emotional scenes which increased the intensity and effect of the scenes. The music used during the ‘documentary’ was good too. But I think they took my words too seriously and focused all their energies on making background scores and that’s why, as far as I remember, they had just one OC. However that OC was good with some nice vocals but it was not too impressive because at the time it was played, there was nothing at all happening on stage. So even the one OC made, was not properly used. So although the background music was very apt and very well made, the lack of OCs might cost them the music trophy.

Music – 8/10

DANCE

The dance team contributed a lot in taking this PAF forward. Almost all the high points or you can say turning points of the story were synchronized with a dance sequence. So they had a big responsibility on their shoulders and they did a good job. The first choreo on “dilli dilli” song was fast and energetic. The dancers were in sync and had the desired intensity in their steps as well as face expressions. But I felt that they could have chosen a better costume. Infact that was the case with all the choreos. Even if the choreography was good and the performance was nice too, they didn’t look very impressive because of the costumes the dancers were wearing. Coming to the next choreo on “laga chunari mein daag”, I loved Ajinkya’s performance in it. The sequence had a lot of innovation and was executed perfectly. The third choreo on “paani da rang” was a bit too long but ‘Deepti Dyondi’s ‘ solo performance in the end was a treat to watch. The final choreo on “maanja” was very well choreographed, with some very nice formations, however the timing of the “I M Dilli” formation could have been better. Overall It was a good show by the dance team and could have been even better if they would have put some thought in to their costumes as well.

Dance – 9/10

LIGHTS AND COSTUMES

I don’t think I need to write this, undoubtedly they had the best lights so far. Inspite of so many scene changes and simultaneous sequences, there were hardly any puthces by the lights team. Even the moon guy was up to his job. They did some scenes with on-stage lights only, like the initial autorickshaw scene and all the conversation scenes between the inspector and his wife, which gave a very realistic feel to them. The one scene on shadows was a good experiment too and worked well. All the transitions were very smooth and not even once did the lights guy (Swapnil Chichani) fail to light the right portion of the performance area at the right time. Thumbs up to the lights team.

Costumes were not impressive. I understand that there was not much scope for costumes in this PAF but still you got to be innovative and do the best you can with whatever you have. But that was not the case here. If you are setting the story in Delhi, then why not use its climatic conditions to include some scope of costumes in your PAF. e.g, everyone knows about the chilling winters of Delhi, so they could have set the story in Dec-Jan and could have dressed all the characters in different kinds of woolen clothes and jackets. None of the costumes attracted my attention and as I said earlier the costumes for the dance sequences were also not very well thought off. So the costumes of this PAF required some thinking.

Lights – 10/10, Costumes – 6.5 /10

VIDEO

The video element was very nicely used in this PAF. The news flashes before the initial titles were well synchronized with the beats of the song “dilli dilli” and the titles were flashy too. However the names of the characters and the actors playing it were not very easily readable. The second video was the “documentary” which was not only very well shot, but had a brilliant script, nice voice overs and an apt music. It was kept to bring out the theme and the message clearly, a job which it did successfully. The third video was used just to reiterate the message and I felt was not necessary. But overall the video element was used very effectively by the PAF team.

In the end, I was confused, because this PAF had done almost everything correctly but yet something was missing. They had a good script which was directed nicely, the voice over team did a superb job with decent support from the acting team, the music team was supportive and the dance team too went well about their job, but still in the end it was not that Impactful as one would have liked it to be. Something was missing and I really don’t know what. May be the nature of the script was such that it was meant to deliver a subtle impact and not a loud one. May be something else but overall I would say that this PAF still has all the potential to win but I think it could have been better.

Overall – 8.25/10

The AUV-IITB team, comprising around 25 students from different branches, were in the testing phase for their second vehicle Matsya 2.0. After testing the vehicle at the IIT Bombay swimming pool at around 7.30pm, the team is unable to trace the entire stack of electronic boards which form a very critical component of the AUV.

The stack was in a carton labelled “Digi-Key”, approximately 1 cubic feet in volume. If anyone has any clue about the whereabouts of the box, kindly share the information with the AUV team at any any of the following numbers. The AUV team assures a very grand treat to the finders, and solicits your help in spreading the word.

9324112772 / 9769340232 / 9867582871/ 8879006187 / 9820718028

Pic: The missing parts

Onagawa, a small quiet town in the Miyagi prefecture of Japan, some 350 kms north of Tokyo, was the centre of the local fishing industry till a tsunami struck it on 11th March 2011. A subsea earthquake of Richter scale magnitude 9 struck at 2:45PM and within the next 50-60 minutes the Japanese sea coast was facing a massive tsunami attack. These tsunami waves were so destructive that they rose as high as 40meters at some places and travelled inland up to 10 kms. What was left post this havoc were washed away homes, mountains of debris, missing people, either dead or lost and broken hearts.

A tsunami wave approximately the height of a 5 storey building travelled a kilometre inland and struck the beautiful fishing town of Onagawa. With all the localities being completely wrecked and having lost about a tenth of its population, the town of Ongawa will never be the same. Onagawa also has a nuclear power plant. But, thankfully it did not have any problems unlike a similar nuclear plant at Fukushima, another town nearby, which was quite devastated by the tsunami.

They say that in the hour of darkness someone brings a ray of hope and life revives, smiling back at you again. For this town, the torch bearer was one of its own men, Mr. Masaki Takahashi, CEO of local fish-cake maker company Takamasa & Co. Ltd.

He lost his grandfather in the tsunami. There was no immediate help from the government because of the scale of this disaster. He immediately decided to open the inventory of his company’s fish-cakes and water to local people. For a full week they survived only on fish-cake and water, just one fish-cake per person for an entire day along with 200ml of water. Soon, he decided to start his factory again, because cakes were needed to feed the people. So just after 8 days of tsunami, on 19th March 2011 he started the production again. All the fish cakes were distributed to local people, at no cost. Government help arrived by early April, but only in the form of pastries which are not a staple food for Japanese people. By this time around 200,000 fish-cakes were distributed by Takahashi. He also allowed rival companies to use the remaining production lines of his factory (free of cost) to manufacture and distribute fish-cakes to the locals.

As days passed and the situation improved, slowly many left the town to search for jobs or just to move away from the bad memories. By April 2011 only 6000 people were left in the town. Takahashi soon realised that this town will cease to exist as he knew it to be, if things continued the way they were heading. So he started working in the direction of a new factory which was opened in September 2011. This helped in creating jobs and stopping the outflow of people from town. Prior to the tsunami he had business contacts in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Now after the disaster when fish supply was reduced from Japan, these contacts came handy for fish supply.

It was not at all easy for Takahashi to rebuild his factory. He accumulated huge debts in this process and on the other hand his traditional market in Japan was reluctant to purchase from a disaster struck town, mainly due to fear of nuclear radiation in food. Although Onagawa nuclear plant was in perfect shape and nearest nuclear accident site in Fukushima was about 100 kms away, people were sceptical about using products from that area. Sensing and respecting the public mood, Takahashi introduced a mechanism complying with international standards to ensure that his products were radiation free. Japanese people were doubtful about the Japanese Govt. standards for radiation safety in food products, those days.

In the most difficult of times the best within us comes out. Takahashi proved it through his actions. He is not restricted to the fish-cake business anymore. He has been in talks with several travel agencies to introduce his beautiful town on the coast of the Pacific to tourists from all over the world. Takahashi is not only keen to retain his traditional business but also wants to explore newer opportunities to ensure that his town does not die out but instead smiles again. He wants to die in the same town where he grew up and where his grandfather took his last breath.

For more information about Mr.Takahashi, please view this video

Ashish Sapre
Doctoral Student,
Department of Civil Engineering,
IIT – Bombay
Mobile no: +91-9867654367

Sameer Mishra’s name stands tall when one talks about PAFs here in insti. Sameer has been scriptwriter-director of PAFs such as ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ (2011), ‘Arthur Road’ (2009), both of which won by a mile. He was also involved with setting up the premise of the PAF ‘Prime Minister’ last season.
Sameer has been involved with The Viral Fever (TVF), an entertainment group which has brought hits such as ‘Gangs of Social Media’, and ‘Roadies: Sab Q-tiyapa Hai’.
As brilliantly as the review is written, InsIghT stresses that the opinions in this article are Sameer’s alone, and are in no way endorsed by the PAF Committee or InsIghT.

Some PAFs are awesome, some are good, some are bad and some don’t even leave any mark. This PAF was none of the above things. It was beautiful, refreshing and absolute eye-candy. Let’s talk about the productions first.

PROD

I have never seen a prod more beautiful, more authentic or more detailed than this one. The colors, the textures, the intricacies and the attention to detail was unparalleled to whatever I have ever witnessed in the past. They stole my heart from the very beginning with the color-morphing house. The concept was not exceptional but the way they presented it, the colors they chose and the intensity of light they used was so soothing to the eyes that I almost didn’t see what was happening in the scene (and thanks to the light dept, neither did anyone else but we’ll come to that later).

Then came the right quadrangle, the village house. It was very authentic, what with the expertly painted backdrop and the roof made of ‘hay’ giving it a realistic feel. I was already very impressed with their effort and was eager to see what they had done with the centrestage. I didn’t have to wait much, soon the curtains were drawn apart and what was behind it could be only explained as a precious piece of art. It was so amazingly beautiful that it prompted an instant applause from the crowd. The peacocks painted on the central backdrop were ravishing (I am running out of superlatives here) The color contrast of the central and the side backdrops were, well, well thought of.

Coming to the structures and other ‘techgiri’; The structures were big and stable too and those “mashaals” (couldn’t figure out a name for it. Nor could the prod team. All they were able to come up with was, ”Woh mashaal jaisi cheez jismein upar kapda laga tha aur neeche se pankha aur light maar rahe the? Uska naam nahi pata”. So let me stick to mashaal) those mashaals were brilliant, and gave a royal look to the court. The only let down of the whole prod was the left quadrangle, the British office, the walls of which reminded me of my final year PAF (‘Golden Quadrilateral’) in which even posh office walls looked like they were made of clay But overall, the prod team did an excellent job and almost pulled the PAF on their own

PROD rating: 9.75/10. 0.25 for the office prod but it will get rounded off to 10/10

SCRIPT AND DIRECTION

It was not a script driven PAF, but was element driven. It wasn’t as if the script wasn’t good. It was good, but had many loose points. However, tough their intent was at the right place, they did not have much of a story to tell. They had enough potential in their characters to make almost all of them memorable, but they didn’t tap that fully. I am aware of what is going on at this facebook poll (click here to view) but frankly, I didn’t buy the final analogy. What they showed in the end about media would have been exactly analogous to the PAF script, if in the current age, all the media bodies were controlled by the government, which is not at all the case. Media bodies portray a certain event in a certain way just to get maximum TRPs and even if they are controlled by some force, there is not just one force controlling all of them. Different parties use different channels for their own propaganda, so a viewer gets to know about all the different point of views and makes his opinion according to what suits him best. So the analogy, although gave an instant high point to the PAF, wasn’t properly thought of. Infact they successfully did what they were blaming media for, deluding the viewer in to believing something which is not actually the truth

What I liked about the script was the absence of “fatte”, the structure of the scenes, the flow of the whole story and the way they wrote some scenes in rhymes. In fact I liked it so much that I am going to write a few lines of my own.

तुमने दिखाया खेल जो , सौंदर्य कपट का मेल वो
हर्षित हुए सब देख कर , मोदित हुए उस लेख पर
बाकि के दल अब डर गए , तुम काम ऐसा कर गए
प्रतियोगित घनघोर है , देखें अब कितना ज़ोर है
फिलहाल बस ये शोर है , कि ‘मंडली’ चारों ओर है
कि ‘मंडली’ चारों ओर है

The direction team of this PAF did a decent job apart from a few blunder. The first blunder was that they had a direction team rather than a single person directing it and that showed pretty clearly by the way same actors performed in different scenes. Particularly, the initial Durgesh Dingh, who appeared to be an all together different person when he came back for the pre-climax scene. The other blunders included the screen placed at the centre of the quadrangle obstructing the view of the audience of the scene happening in background, the selection of the background music for most of the scenes which were overpowering the scenes themselves and the transitions of most of the scenes which were not smooth. Another direction flaw which annoyed me a lot was the post mujra-sequence, where the ‘mantri’ was playfully teasing the dancer at the time when an important discussion was going on between the king and other ‘mantris’. That sequence was there just to get some cheap laughs, which it was able to garner but in the process it divulged the attention from the main story, which a director must always avoid.

But the overall flow of the story maintained by the direction team was good enough. The scenes were almost never lengthy. The prod was used intelligently and certain scenes were handled with great maturity, like the last scene where ‘Shiva’ tells the truth about mandali to the villagers with a powerful monologue accompanied by a decent visual depiction of it. Another thing which I liked was their attempt to use ambiance sounds like the “wine pouring in to glass”, the “breaking of the bottle” etc. although it was not in sync with the action most of the times but I would still appreciate the attempt. So the direction was good at some points but overall I would say that there was huge scope for improvement.

Rating: Script: 8/10, Direction: 7.5/10

ACTING AND VOICEOVER

There was inconsistency in both these departments. Some of the voiceovers – acting pairs were very good, specially that of Shiva, played very well by Shikhar Paliwal and voice over given by Abhishek Yadav, aka Mr. Unmaad (The cultural fest of IIMB) , the king, played by Kunal Shelar (whom I discovered during GQ ) and voice over give by Apoorva Maheshwari, and finally the master/mandali-director voice over actor pair. But apart from these three pairs, most of the others were inconsistent or misfitting. For example, the acting of Lord William Kripashankar by Sargun Gulati was vibrant and energetic throughout the PAF but the voice over given by Ankit Yadav wasn’t a perfect match for him. The way Ankit delivers his dialogues sounds impressive only when it is accompanied by his eccentric and amazingly different body language, which creates magic onstage, but here it was not apt. Similarly the voice over of the British officer was not convincing enough. His accent was fine when he was speaking in Hindi but his British accent never sounded authentic. The voice over of the old man was very good at places but the person giving it got over excited and start over doing it, as soon as the audience started applauding his effort. The voice over of Saguna too was over energetic for the body language of the actor playing it. So overall, it was a decent performance by the acting-voice over team with few sparks of brilliance and few mediocre efforts.

Ratings: Acting – 8/10, Voice over – 8/10

MUSIC

This PAF had a very good band or call it an orchestra if you wish, but not a very good Music team. The reason I say this is because the songs made by this band were awesome and highly impressed me, but at the same time the background music of almost 70% of the scenes didn’t gel at all with the scenes. They were too overpowering and loud and were meant to impress and not to convey. It didn’t support the scenes as such but tried to grab attention towards itself. There is a difference between good Music and good Background music. The music pieces which they created were brilliant as individual tracks but they could hardly be called background music. I will try to explain with an example. Take the case of the music piece created/plagiarized by Pritam for barfi’s trailer. Here it is.

Overall, all the songs composed by the music team were superb and the music pieces as such were well made and well executed. So if the judges didn’t read my review, the music of this PAF might as well win

Ratings: Music – 10/10 for the OCs but 6/10 for the background scores. The total comes down to 8/10

DANCE

The placement of the dance sequences were very apt (except the mujra which was not at all required). Though the dancers were not in perfect sync, all the sequences were very impactful. The Shiv Vandana in the beginning was awesomely executed and it was visually very appealing because of the fire and the LEDs in the natraj. The ‘neel’ choreo however was a bit lengthy and the dancers were totally out of sync, but it conveyed the message it was put there for, and took the story forward as well, that’s why I didn’t mind it at all. The mujra choreo, although very nicely done by Sumedh, I couldn’t understand its need. But it was far better than the “ladka naach” done by the first PAF The UV elements were also very intelligently used by the choreo team and the final choreo had the required impact. So overall I was very much impressed by the effort of the choreo team.

Ratings: Dance – 9/10

LIGHTS AND COSTUMES

So what was the blunder-count this time, 30 or 40 ? I stopped at 15, but the lights team didn’t. There were many putches and the lights weren’t at all properly handled It used to light up exactly at the time of transitions and didn’t go off until the prod guys were off the performing area. The only impact which came due to lights was the end of the ‘neel’ choreo where the moon tuned blue. Apart from that it was a bad day for the lights team.

Costumes were again a part where this PAF impressed thoroughly. The costumes were good not only for the dram part but also for the dance sequences. It was very apparent that they really gave thought to the costumes and didn’t simply wear whatever was available at the moment. Thumbs up to the costume department.
Ratings: Lights – 6/10, Costumes -10/10

VIDEOS

There was not much scope for videos in this PAF. The initial title-video was very basic and failed to impress, however the news footages and the facebook, youtube sharing and views part of the final video was very nice and added a lot to the overall impact of the PAF.

Overall, as I said earlier, it was an impactful PAF with many high points and a script good enough to hold the audience’s attention. The Prod of this PAF was almost invincible but that’s not the case with most of the other departments. The competition is still wide open but it will take an extraordinary PAF to beat this one. Will “Delhi Beats” be that PAF? Only time will tell.

OVERALL RATING for the PAF: 8.5/10

Look around the institute and you will find very few students who are actually engaging in technical activities. The enthusiasm for such activities is generally at its peak in the first year but then it dies down exponentially. This can be attributed to multiple reasons, the prime being that students cannot really connect themselves to real-world engineering/technical activities. Through this particular article, we want to clearly draw a picture of real-world engineering and innovation. Here, we have an established entrepreneur in the field of core-engineering who designs machines for a living. He enumerates his experiences and lessons in this article:

Harshvardhan Gupta

Why did I decide to design machines?

In his career, he has run more than 80 major concept-to-prototype-proving projects, with sustained hands-on experience of assembly and troubleshooting. 26 years ago, after working for five years as an employee, he started Neubauplan Machine Design Studio – one of India’s few, and the oldest Machine Design House in India.
Gupta is also a graphic designer, a connoisseur of modern art, and loves to cook Indian delicacies, especially after a long day of designing.
I was always interested in all kinds of machines. Even my primary school report cards say so. So mechanical engineering was my obvious choice of profession. In the very first year at IIT, I did an internship in a factory (arranged it through my elder brother – also a mechanical engineer) and then I had a clear picture of what I did not know, and set about learning it. The problem of most 1st year students is that they don’t know what they don’t know, and that leads to all sorts of uncertainties and wrong turns. From childhood, I was always good at drawing, and found a new medium to explore in engineering drawing.
Throughout my time at IIT (6 years – 5 year undergrad + 1 year backlog), I would never ever let go of any chance to look at any sort of machinery. If I could, I would open their covers and peer inside, take them apart if I could; and would then go to the Central Library to read up on the related theory and make connections in my growing knowledge-matrix. I would ride all types of locomotives, watch printing presses run, go under and study old British Leyland Tiger BEST buses which had a pneumatic gear shaft and had the engine in the middle of the chassis… basically observe a lot, then connect with theory. Everyone around made fun of me: “Oh he is just an engineer, we are IITians!”
In the 5th year, I got a couple of real design projects from a small industry. Finally, I took up a design and prototyping BTech Project to build a small machine-tool accessory. Machine design career just walked up to me after all this. I have never had to look for work and engineering challenges have kept on walking in from the front door ever since.

What do I do for a living?

I design all sorts of mechanical machines from First Principles. I do not start from concepts. I start from studying the problem deeply, objectively and widely, dig deeper and look behind my clients’ needs – often the problem is not what he is stating. Then I go on to conceptualizing and cook this for some time – at least a week usually. Then I start directly with a to-the-scale design from the known thing outwards. I avoid confusing a schematic diagram with a to-the-scale drawing. I work in 2D and 3D AutoCAD which is non-parametric – though now we are looking at SolidWorks. I pay a lot of attention to detail as “God lies in Detail”, and always design parts which are available / manufacturable from available technologies and vendors: Once the 3D detailing is done, we make manufacturing drawings and Bills of Material, then make parts, assemble the prototype, test, debug, and finally deliver a working and reproducible machine.

Three dictums for budding entrepreneurs

1. Do everything well. A job well done is reward in itself. Over time, you rise professionally (and monetarily too) because you do everything well. Don’t do any kind of Jugaad, and do not contribute even in the smallest way to The Great Omnipresent Indian Squalor.
2. DON’T yield to peer and social pressures to be a “budding” entrepreneur too fast. Be patient, learn, learn and learn more, learn as your employer pays your salary. Slowly develop a “profession plan” and work towards it, learning and refining your plans for a few years. You yourself will know when (and if) you are ready to be an entrepreneur. You can very well be a good practising engineer all your life without being an entrepreneur. That is far more important – that you serve your profession well. And good money always follows good skills.
3. Be honest and ethical, you may lose couple of clients, but you will never lose a client’s respect.

The concept of Jugaad: The weak link

Jugaad is popular among you because you are sitting in a technological vacuum, with no broad-based access to real engineers; real components / building-blocks / elements / tools / materials; real production facilities. You are like a group of intelligent kid left to fend for yourselves in a forest, so obviously you have no other resort but to do jugaad. And then you tend to glorify it because you made something out of that forest detritus. Those who guide you have lived in this forest for decades, and are unaware / afraid of the rich “technological cities” just beyond the trees.
What can be done? Plenty: Break out of this forest. Please realize that you can learn real engineering (and create proper things – not jugadoo stuff) outside the Institute’s perimeter and from people other than the academicians.

On Engineering
All engineering is an art – one practised within the boundaries of science; its manifestation and actualization is a science, not art. Learn this art and learn to separate the art from the science. Concept-generation, innovation, lateral thinking… is all engineers’ art. Building physical and virtual things, debugging, documentation… are all our sciences, not arts. Our professional aim is to amalgamate these arts and sciences. And any art CAN be learned, so don’t give in to the academicians’ argument that if it’s an art, then it’s innate and cannot be taught.

Shaping your future: Making a career choice
Work towards making a career choice from the very time you enter IIT; not wait till 4th year. Keep and nurture your curiosity and focus on identifying what you don’t know, then get to know it. Gather a lot of information about your

You can also read Mint’s coverage of him here:
Harshwardhan Gupta | A designer you just can’t bet against

http://apps.facebook.com/insightiitb

In our attempts at increasingly connecting IITB better with the institute through our web presence, InsIghT is proud to launch one of the first (if not the first) Social Readers for any student media body in India on the lines of the very successful Washington Post Reader App.

Developed in-house by our Web Master, Rahul Gupta and laid-out by our designer Vikrant Raj, this newsreader will aggregate new posts from our website and bring it to you on Facebook. The app will also show you InsIghT posts that your friends have been reading to bring to your notice posts that are perhaps most relevant to you.

We have taken care to ensure that the application will not post on your walls. Please allow permissions requested by the application for formality’s sake.
Cheers!
The InsIghT Team.

Sameer Mishra’s name stands tall when one talks about PAFs here on insti. Sameer has been scriptwriter-director of PAFs such as ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ (2011), ‘Arthur Road’ (2009), both of which won by a mile. He was also involved with setting the premise of the PAF ‘Prime Minister’ last season.
Sameer has been involved with The Viral Fever (TVF), an entertainment group which has brought hits such as ‘Gangs of Social Media’, and ‘Roadies: Sab Q-tiyapa Hai’.

As brilliantly as the review is written, InsIghT stresses that the opinions in this article are Sameer’s alone, and is in no way endorsed by the PAF Committee or InsIghT.

(In “tantrik” voice) Legend has it that no team in the recallable history (read last 10 years) of PAFs has ever won the competition whilst being the first PAF of the season. Its not like people have not tried enough, many have lost their reputation (read posts), glory (read girlfriends) and even lives (read grades) trying to do that, big names have come and gone, strong teams have tried it on, but none of them have ever been able to do, what people now call, the impossible. There are many stories related to the first PAF, some say that it is cursed, others say… oh well, they too say it’s cursed, anyway… so people say that its cursed and hence thou shall not even try to win it. But wait. Isn’t that a superstition. Wasn’t today’s PAF about the same issue? Oh crap, haven’t I learned anything from it. Shit shit shit. Lets start all over again. Ahem Ahem.
So the PAF season began today with the PAF of Hostel 3, 7, 13 and 14, a team which seems to be an ardent follower of Shakespeare. You see, they took the “what’s in a name” concept too seriously and named their PAF ‘Satrangi’, a name which had nothing to do with the theme of the PAF. In-fact they have taken it a step forward with “What’s in a story, what’s in a plot, just put in some jokes and you have done a lot” . What the hell, I again start to joke! Come on man, this isn’t done… be serious, control yourself.. but wait.. why should I , they didn’t control themselves.. they cracked jokes throughout the PAF, even during the serious scenes.. they took names and mocked many insti junta, which means that they have a sense of humor and won’t take the review in a bad taste .. after all they expect others to be sporting, so they must be sporting themselves.. isn’t it? So be it.. lets continue like this …

Well I think ‘Satrangi’ followed the path laid down by many Bollywood or more specifically, Sajid Khan and Salman Khan films. It was, as they say, a “no brainer”. Keep your brains at home if you want to enjoy it. And many people want exactly that kind of entertainment. That’s why all their films are blockbusters and very popular among masses, and so was this PAF. Most of the people laughed on the crass jokes and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Unfortunately (for me, not for them) I don’t belong to that section of the audience and hence most of the films which I like are either flops or average hits . Anyways lets move on to the details

Script and Direction
The script of this PAF, if not anything else, was funny. The jokes, although a little distasteful, were able to make the audience laugh. The humor was neither situational, nor even intelligently scripted, but was opportunist. It took advantage of the audience’s instant and natural reaction on hearing a familiar name or event and also of the current sentiment of the campus post elections. Most of the scenes were there just for the sake of humor and were not taking the story forward. The characters were not well sketched and their stories didn’t have any graph. Scenes were lengthy and the lack of screenplay made them boring at times. The latter half of it, specially the last monologue, where it tries to be a little serious about the issue was not well written and lacked the gravity and power it should have. All and all the script was unable to justify the theme and deliver an impactful message.

Coming to the direction, I think it was inconsistent. It varied from “good” in some scenes to “poor” in others. The few sparks of brilliance in direction could be seen in the scenes like the demolition of the palace, which was well thought off and left a good enough impression and the introduction of mosque with the authentic “ajan” and “tajia” , followed by the scene where the ‘maulavi’ harasses ‘Badri’. But apart from these scenes, the rest of the PAF didn’t have either a clear vision or direction. The prod was not utilized properly by the director and almost 70% of the PAF happened in the quadrangle without any backdrop. In most of the scenes the actors were doing nothing at all, they were simply standing or sitting and miming with some arbit hand movements and gestures. The director could have engaged them with some work like ‘playing cards’, ‘sipping tea’, ‘hawking animals’ etc. These things not only make the scenes more interesting to watch but also make them more realistic. Thus, overall the direction of the PAF was not impressive and lacked maturity and experience.

Acting and Voiceovers
It is said that an actor is as good as the director. And as the PAF had poor direction, so obviously, not much can be expected of the acting team. The actors were energetic, sometimes too energetic, but were not convincing. Their actions were too repetitive and at most of the times, they were clueless as to what they should do to emote the dialogues better. Apart from ‘Badri’, none of them were able to get into the skin of the character. The only commendable job from the acting team (barring ‘Badri’ who used a collar mic and delivered his own dialogues) was that they were able to maintain the sync with the voice over team.
The voiceovers team, as expected, was good. They had variations, fluency and clarity. They were able to deliver the jokes and punchlines with proper intonation. The voice quality and voice projection was good too. However, none of the voiceovers stood out, but they were all up to the mark and the effort of the whole team is appreciable. Badri’s dialogue delivery was impressive too, he played his character with conviction and gave a decent performance in the last monologue.

Prod
Lets divide prod in to two parts, the basic structures and the FA. As far as the structures are concerned, they didn’t have many. The biggest 3D structures which they had were the ‘vidhayak’s’ house and the mosque, neither of which were very extensive or extravagant but were stable enough and solved the purpose. I think the lack of big structures was due to lack of time which is very common and a genuine problem with the first PAFs. But I wont criticize them for not making such structures as they made what was required and didn’t waste their energy, time and money to make unnecessary structures.

As far as the FA is concerned, it was very neat and imaginative. The walls of the ‘vidhayak’s’ house were not simply painted in one color. It had the detailing which was required and looked good. The palace was nice too and gave the illusion of 3D backdrop. The FA of the mosque, although lacked detailing, but was good enough, considering the number of scenes to be performed there. The only place where the FA people faltered was in maintaining the color continuity of the backdrops. But overall it was a decent effort from the FA team.

Dance
The choreo team was big but still in sync. Most of the sequences (except the ‘tantrik’ choreo, which looked like an impromptu performance) were good as a dance performance but were not able to leave any impact because of their irrelevance and placement, which is not at all the fault of the choreo team. They choreographed the sequences well and performed them without many putches which is a commendable job. But where they lacked was the innovation and variety in their sequences. The first choreo on “bharat mata ki jai” was good but didn’t look impressive because of the unimaginative costumes. The idea of the ‘web choreo’, although not very new or original, but was still nice and was executed well. The ‘boy dancing like girls’ choreo was funny in a vulgar way. The track of the ‘mosque choreo’ could have been better and I would have enjoyed the ‘blind fold choreo’ more if my whole attention was not on that one dancer in the front row who didn’t care to wear the blind fold. Overall the choreo team didn’t contribute much to the overall impact but did a decent job with what was expected of them by the direction team.

Music
The music team didn’t have much to do either. I think they had only one Original Composition, which came in the end and was a decent composition. But apart from that, they were not asked to do much in the PAF. The scenes were mostly of similar nature, so it was tough for the music team to make different music for each of them. They had very less emotions in the scenes to play around with and were crippled by the constant humor being bombarded by the dram team. So in my opinion, if the music of this PAF was not impressive, it was not their fault but of the dram team which didn’t gave them any sort of range or variety in the scenes.

Lights and Costume
After watching around 20 odd PAFs and doing 4 PAFs myself, I have realized that good lighting in a PAF is a myth. No one has ever achieved it in the past and no one will ever achieve it in the future as well. And how can they, when the light setup is given to them just one day before the PAF. And please don’t get me started on the ‘moon’ (the central spotlight), that sonofagun arrives on the evening of the PAF and throws such tantrums during the performance that it becomes almost impossible for the poor guy, who has just met him an hour ago and is now supposedly in-charge of him, to handle him without any putches. So this PAF too suffered from the horrors of the light setup and the darned moon but I will still appreciate them as the number of light putches were just 20 or 25, which is still not much (what, don’t you believe me? Watch ‘Ramleela’, the 2010 PAF, and you’ll understand )

Coming to the costumes, I think they didn’t have the money to rent them from Andheri and were lazy enough to go to Nalasopara to get them cheaply. Very few costumes were used in this PAF. The villagers were wearing kurta paijama which they must have jugaadofied from their hostel-mates, and they didn’t even have a ‘gamcha’. The dancers were wearing whatever they wanted to or black chunnies. I couldn’t understand the rationale behind the dancers wearing T-shirts and capries/jeans in a PAF based on a village where everyone wears traditional Indian garments, neither was I impressed with the black garments, all the dancers in every other choreo worn. Costumes were a big letdown in this PAF.

Video
There were two videos used in the PAF. The first one used in the very beginning to project a live puppet show was not properly visible. The screen was installed too far from the audience and it was too small. I was sitting right in front of the judges and was not able to make out a thing that was happening on the screen. I think there was no need of showing that puppet show on video. It would have been better visible and would have left far more impact if done live with bigger puppets. The second video was the introduction of the ‘vidhayak’ in WWE style. The video was impressive with sleek editing and the background music supporting it was nice too. It was a funny and innovative way of introducing a character but added very little to the overall impact because neither did they use it to introduce all the major characters, which would have made that a part of the storytelling nor was it used to introduce the protagonist of the PAF. However the idea of the video was nice though it failed to leave any mark.

Overall, it was an average PAF. It was very less ambitious right from its conceptualization to execution. Although that’s understandable, considering it was the first PAF, but obviously that’s never taken in to account while judging a competition. Nonetheless it was a decent opening to the PAF season and I am hoping to see a lot better performances in days to come.

Ratings
Script – 6/10
Direction – 6/10
Acting – 7/10
Voiceover – 9/10
Prod – 7/10
Music – 7/10
Dance – 8/10
Costumes – 5/10
Lights – 7/10

Overall – 7/10

PAF III Preview – ‘Delhi Beats’, H2 – H8 – H11 – Tansa

Watch Delhi Beats on the 21st of March, 8pm, OAT

Trailer Video for PAF III, ‘Delhi Beats’:

Upcoming PAF: March 25: PAF IV – H4, H6, H10, H1

PAF II Preview – ‘Mandali’, H5 – H9 – H12

Watch ‘Mandali’ at 8pm, OAT – SAC, Monday 18th March

Trailer Video for PAF II, ‘Mandali’:

PAF I Preview – ‘Satrangi’, H3 – H7 – H13 – H14
March 15, 8pm, OAT

Trailer video for PAF I: