Tuesday, November 08, 2005

20 Days In Kochi... Footprints Recapped...

I spent a month in Kerala, doing this -

FOOTPRINTS - This is an annual series of media seminars that the students of SIMC organise. It usually happens in 10 cities around the country, and is conducted entirely by us. Event themes, speakers, sponsorship, and all that jazz. The college doesn't help (they're more of a hinderance really). And we have to do this, it's a module worth 50 marks. If you flunk, you don't get a diploma. We chose to go to Kochi.

IN KOCHI - 7 of us went to Kochi, all first timers, the only footprints team this year to not have any, well, natives, for lack of a better word. Three of them knew malayalam, so we could communicate around. We stayed in a rundown hotel, for free, friend's contact. Kochi is a very cheap city. Printing, travelling, eating. Ofcourse, everything shuts down by 9:30, so that suxx. But the city is fun. It's quite clean, relatively open, no over-population.
The buses are great, huge windows and canvas shutters, so it's never claustrophobic inside. It's a joyride really. These drivers apparantly use brakes only at the stops, and drive like maniacs at breakneck speed. Narain Karthikeyan fastest Indian my ass.

THE EVENT - Our theme was "Sailing On The Banana Boat - Where's the Malayali Media Headed?" Sounds a bit corny, but we came up with it in a crunch, and never got around to changing it. We covered -
  • The current status of the media in Kerala
  • Expansion across regional and national boundaries
  • What they see in their future
  • Upcoming career opportunities
We held it at BTH, Darbar Road Hall. About a 160 students attended. Good turnout. Our speakers were -
  • R. Pillai, News Director AIR Thiruvananthapuram
  • Kamal - National Award winning film director
  • T. N. Gopakumar - Host of Asianet's "Kannadi"
  • Sebastian Paul - Journalist turned M. P.
The event was on the 25th. I reached Kochi on the 4th night, and left on the 26th.

AFTER THE EVENT - Went to Roshan's aunt place, 4 hours from Kochi, forgot the name. Then went to Idukki, heheh, and proceeded on to the Periyar sanctuary. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, place. So green and lush!!

FInally, came back to bombay on the 31st night.

2 comments:

sudeep bhaumick said...

Ya sooooo greeeen and lush hmmmmmm ...

bottleHeD said...

Hahha, what are you smoking man...

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