Nostalgia Calling - 2

Day 1: Ground Realities

Finally they woke up around 7:30 dumbstruck to find me clad in formal dress as if I was going to attend an important interview that very moment. I try as hard as possible to refrain from blowing my trumpet. But when friends break promises they need to be reminded. Early morning suprabatham was inevitable. Not arguing much things went on till Men in Black or rather Man in Black (you see they had a black T-shirt with a hand print on back, five fingers representing five people…similar to that ‘Identity’ movie.) knocked on our room giving breakfast coupons to each.

Tiniest details like breakfast, lunch, dinner looks odd but this was quite special one. Hyderabadi’s are not called Latelatief without any reason. We proved that by going late again. Bread – the breakfast with some special conditions. You chose either butter or jam. Not both at a time. If you are one of those who care a damn about anything as long as there is something to eat then only bread was welcome. First I thought these guys were joking. But then seeing it that they meant every word they said, we were not able to hide our what-the-heck-is-this kind of faces. Moving on to the real purpose behind our visit we went into the hall allocated for the poster presentations. The entire event was split up into three sessions with 23 contestants in each session. Our program was scheduled for the coming day. So we were all eagerly watching the arrangements going on with the participants dutifully doing their work. It’s amazing how everyone has his own idea of displaying things. While majority were systematically placed with four spread out sheets in three rows, there were few who did amazing jobs like cutting and pasting only the matter in variety of shapes, some with photographic bases giving life-like quality, and there was this particular one who has put up his poster on a single sheet with myriad of colors occupying his center stage.

Time passed by and the judges arrived. Heat was all around us and with rapt attention we followed the proceedings. The judges literally tore apart our hopes of survival with their way of questioning. These were people who hated niceties. For them it was like a world of Matrix with no rules. They were not allowing the three-minute initial briefing time. If a particular participant was found hesitating in explaining they moved onto the next. Sometimes it was even simpler. Start with a question itself and make a move depending on the response. Three to four participants judging were enough for our fears to surface. We didn’t wait till the curtains dawned. The knowledge we had with our topics was enough to impress a first-time listener but this was unprecedented. By evening time all six of us were in the room weighing our options.

Dinner that day tasted like glass of water I mean we hardly cared what we eat. Like drunkards out of a bar laughing and jeering at each other we began our walk from mess to the rooms. Here we were displaying sadistic qualities in enjoying the other’s miseries. Oh! I forgot it takes fifteen minutes to walk the distance. That also didn’t matter much so intoxicated we were. Sanjay Dutt came to the rescue. Munnabhai was being screened and we reached the spot just waiting along with others to see who makes the first move to sit on the ground. Life me ek bakra hona hi tha . With that bakra everyone followed. Good thing that the movie drags after an hour or so, that’s when reality sunk in.
We came back to our rooms and decided to give our best shot and also prepared for the best excuse of our lack of knowledge. There were only few 2nd year participants there. So we were bound to look for one.