COLLEGE FESTS HAVE COME A LONG WAY, BUT THE DRAMA AROUND THEM HASN’T CHANGED A BIT. PALAK KAPADIA BRINGS YOU STORIES FROM THE HORSES’ MOUTHS
Fests are as synonymous to college life as bunking. People say your college life is wasted if you weren’t associated with a fest one way or the other. However, putting one together is no mean feat. More than 500 organisers put their noses to the grindstone for months on end to bring something new to the table every year. Despite the most meticulous planning, things can and do go wrong. While tiny, mundane issues are a rule more than an exception, others can be pretty appalling.
帮助！I have a Meeting in a Place I didn’t know Exists!
赞助商 - 爱他们或恨他们，您不能忽略他们。引入穆拉为您的节日加油可能是一项艰巨的任务。“我们必须在孟买周围旅行才能与不同的公司会面。其中许多像Hul，Mahindra和Starbucks令人兴奋。但是，在我们参加的1000次会议中，有990次在某个地方，人们不会想到自己最疯狂的梦想！从Shivri到Navi Mumbai，我们必须到处旅行。最糟糕的部分是下午在炎热的阳光下携带一台笔记本电脑。许多使我们等待很长时间的公司。我们必须至少被前50家公司拒绝，然后才能了解如何实际进行营销。”
帮助！我的节日被推迟了，我什至无法想象重新安排！
尽管我们大多数人都在2009年带来的为期一周的假日猪流感中欢欣鼓舞，但孟买NM学院的气氛却大不相同。由于关闭，他们的节日乌玛（Umang）被推迟了一个星期。Umang 2009年主席Raj Desai对这场后勤噩梦进行了第一手说明：“我立即参加了股东大会，并告诉我的团队，实际上，此类事件实际上是一个向我们的货物展示的机会。我们重新安排了几件事，从法官到听起来的人到展览，物流等。一个星期我的大脑很混乱。我认为这一事件给了我在处理不确定性的方面的动手培训，并让600多个组织者和5000多名参与者组成的团队参与其中，并热衷于节日。推迟的Umang的表现比我们预期的要好，并证明了一支热情而坚定的团队无能为力，这真是成功地执行印度最大，最好的大学节日之一。”
帮助！我的法官需要闭嘴！
名人法官带着自己的一套明星发脾气。从他们最喜欢的咖啡到他们用于评分的笔品牌，再到宣布到达的消息 - 一切都必须得到照顾。这可以管理，但是有时候，法官会做使您朝相反方向逃跑的事情（想想美国偶像的西蒙·科威尔）。Aman Jain, an Informals Committee Member at Vaayu, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) says, “In the question and answer round of our personality-based event, a judge asked one of the contestants ‘What is your favourite part in your body?’. The girl replied ‘My b***s’ to which the judge asked, ‘What do you like about your b***s?’ It wasn’t something we’d expected but there really wasn’t much we could do as he was the judge and had to be respected. Thankfully, the other judge interceded and requested him to ask questions keeping the decorum in mind. He didn’t cause any trouble for the rest of the event.”
帮助！My Co-member just Doesn’t Work !
The workforce has different kinds of people – there’s the workaholic, then there’s the miracle worker who rarely works but manages to complete tasks on time, and then, there’s the lazy one. “One of the girls in our committee was incredibly lazy. Basically, she did nothing at all. It irritated us but as a team, we had to co-exist. On the D-days, she abandoned an event and completely disappeared. Despite our own crazy workload, we covered for her in shifts. We had to think on our feet and ensure that everything flowed smoothly. Throughout the event I was coordinating on a conference call with my co-members. We somehow managed and I don’t think that the participants even realised that something was amiss,” says Urvashi Jain, a volunteer at O2, the Bhavan’s College fest.
帮助！The Media Might just Abandon My Festival!
Getting a star-studded lineup is a big challenge for all festivals. Living celebrities are known to give grief. Whoever knew that the sad demise of an iconic actor could be equally panicinducing?
Adith Anande, Public Relations Head at St. Xavier’s, Mumbai’s Malhar festival says, “We were to have our press conference and everything was in place. We were expecting a good turnout in terms of journalists, but sadly, that day in the morning we got news that Mr Rajesh Khanna had expired. It was something we never expected and we thought the conference might turn out to be a big fail. It caused a lot of us to panic to the extent that someone suggested postponing it. But we carried on. Luckily, a decent number of journalists turned up.” Help! My Fest Just Got On 26 July 2005, heavens unleashed their wrath on Mumbai in the form of torrential rainfall. The ground floor of NM College was flooded and about 100 organisers of its annual extravaganza, Umang were trapped inside with no electricity, no phone connectivity and very limited food. Without panicking, the seniors directed all the action while the juniors were only too happy to obey. The night was spent playing music and sharing spooky stories. The inundations, which were futile against the spirit of the fest, had better luck with the décor and artwork in the ground floor headquarters; they were destroyed completely. The team rebuilt their festival from scratch, quite literally, in just a fortnight. “The unexpected floods had been a blessing in disguise. After going through such tremendous emotional as well as physical pressure, I know confidently that there is nothing that we, as a team, cannot withstand,” says Tanya Rawal, Vice-Chairperson, Umang 2005, in their press release.
Volume 3 Issue 1
