Logic.

I've been working on some designs for our college fest all day, which is a good thing to day as it takes my mind off the fact that while the rest of my classmates are appearing for their sem ends, i'm home for some r'n'r, having dropped my second consecutive term due to low attendance.

Which normally would mean me not getting my diploma with the rest of the class, and missing convocation day. But our new admin wants us to be done by the end of the year. Which is good, as I won't have to come back next year.

But it also means having to appear for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sem exams all together in March. Which is a total of 'roundabout 51-60 modules. Which means i'm effectively dead meat.

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.

Pune to Mumbai.. I watched Coolie

Yup, this is so much like old times. It's 3 in the morning and i'm surfing the net, and it's just an hour since i got home.

Did i have a good bus journey? Depends upon what you consider good. See, i had some cheese pav bhaji for dinner before boarding the bus. I could have easily left off the cheese, as i got more than an overdose on the bus. They played Coolie. Atrocious. Appalling. Aggravating. Absolutely lousy. This crap showcases everything that's wrong with bollywood. Insanely bad acting (everyone's hamming it up like there's no tomorrow), cringe-worthy innanities passing off for dialogues, and a plot so contrived, it's incredulous that anyone could actually have watched this without laughing their guts out atleast once.

And bollywood's trademark middle-finger to sense, sensibility and logic. One case in point - Amitabh's character uses the hawk as his election symbol. When he's on stage giving his speech, the bloody backdrop is that of a bald eagle. A bald fucking eagle. Does nobody in bollywood know the difference between a bloody hawk and a fucking eagle?

I swear, if this kind of stuff was played in our screening, i'm willing to bet some of would actually take the effort to stay awake.

Not A Bad Day At All..

So it wasn't the best of starts. Kohinoor vs Kamasutra didn't get us the kind of response we expected, but we did learn we were arrogant and cheaters. Right, let nothing be a waste, always learn.
I got my conflict presentation done too. Saudi Arabia - Yemen border conflict of 1994. Crisp, short, and to the point. Not because I was concerned about audience reaction, but because I thought I was prepared, when I actually wasn't. So all I was doing was reading off the slides, and trying to find my way through the hard copy.
And the play. I slept through every alternate line in the first half. In the second half, I was eating some chinese in the mess. But I liked what little I saw nevertheless.
So another day, another lesson...

Faux Pass?

"Faux Pass" is apparantly "Fau Paa" ??

Redneck dad to son, "How many legs dat dawg haf sonny?"
Redneck son to dad, "Fau, Paa!!"

Yup, I still got it.

Screenings at SIMC

We have screenings three times a week at SIMC.

So far,
SERIALS
Chanakya ep 1-3, progressively better
Mirza Ghalib ep 1-3, ditto

MOVIES
Ankur - decent
Nishant - fell asleep after the opening credits
Charandas Chor - Damn funny for the first 20 minutes, then degraded and put me to sleep. Then saw the last 30 minutes.

DOCUMENTARIES
Jack The Ripper
Search For Atlantis
The Leopard Son

ROCKUMENTARIES
A Hard Day's Night - Unfortunately, fell asleep midway. Saw the beginning and ending.

OTHERS
U2 - Live - forgot where (actually it was a free lecture, not a screening really)

All these are in the afternoon, after food, in a room without a/c or proper ventilation. No wonder most of us fall asleep. Atleast, I do.

Week 1 - SIMC

Wow. It's not college, it's a bloody boot camp. No earings or tattoos for guys (I was the only one with an earing), my roomie got yelled at in front of the entire class and had to cut off his pigtail, plus, get this, no shirts or kurtas with any any kind of slogans/symbols/messages are allowed. I kid you not, these are official rules.

Oh, and we have no day off. Sure. we have no lectures on thursday, but on that day, we have to do our social communication project. Meaning, working with an NGO for atleast 8 hours.

Daily timings are 7 to 7. Yup, an hour of yoga/aerobics/gym in the morning, followed by lectures starting at 9, each for an hour and a half. Half an hour break between each and an hour for lunch.

Kinda saving grace - class strength is about 96, with only some 25 boys.

But what the heck, if it makes a better man out of me, shucks, i'm game.

Off To Pune!!

I'm leaving in two hours.

Two years @ SIMC, Post Graduate Diploma in Communication Management (Advertising).

I'm gone!!