and another..

well, jus a day left for sangamam. work is goin good. lost pf last minute errands and running arnd and req forms and huffin n puffin left tobe done. but its so much fun anyways. teh tickets saes have been really good. the guys have done an AMAZING job by selling close 150 tckest in messes liek RB... can ya bleev it? well... mb did good as always... and so did the other guys messes. t shirt sales though have been a lil less than expected numbers inside mb. and we r all left wondering why ... prbly co of the customised dopy t shirts that had mess sittings a day before we got out ours.

anyways.. its doin good never the less. all of thsi is i think a surplus to our account in any case. :-) pracz sterday was gaja bomb. all items were done in teh same order -- ( i shud add for the first time) and everything came out really good. and we were done with teh min runthru well before 12. so we guys vettifyd the perm extension with some discussion abt who is to do what in the next cpl of days.... artistes are arrivng from today onwards... neyveli is infact sitting thru ur runthru with sounds n lights today...

we have soumi's parents , shyamalas mom n archana s mom coming in today to spend sangamam with us. also our dear dear kari -- and another surprise guest ;)

so well ... most of us in super dooper festive mood. the posters and publicity charts this time arnd are OUT OF TEH WORLD. everythings is shaping out well. fingers crossed. cant wait for 6.30 tomo! :-) alumini -- u guys are being missed the most! :(

SAC !

This is the sac building thats comin up nest to mal behind mudh bhavan. this is the entrance in to the place. its got a gym,cafeterial, a mini auditorium,tennis courts, rooms for all clubs n depts,n loads n loads of other things! it looks amazing!

posters!

the first round of publicity charts are already up on the notice boards. they look awesome. the entire club (almost) has worked on it.



and personally i think these have been the best so far. the t-shirts arrived yesterday. we ll be having mess sittings really soon. and the t-shirts this time look brilliant. sure we ll hit close to 900 t-shirts sales!

we have plans of a new publicity stunt for sangamam. some of us are gonna wear the t-shirts and scribble sangamam over it and roam arnd insti. guess the regular class go-ers can do that for us!!!! this was ramana's brainwave!

shall click pictures of the mess sittings and the t shirts as such .. soon and post details as and when i can.

today is the first audi slot. brings back old memories. :)

"guys guys guys -- p lz try n make it for sangamam inaug. plz!" - raag.

as of now shit loads of work left to do. the invites look awesome got t done at repro. they are in colour as well. all pics shall be uploaded real soon. watch this space. and those of u who havnt chkd out apu's creation click on the link.

delhi trip

NOTe: I wrote half of this yesterday and the remaining tody -- so tense clashes are all over. adjust maadi

Jus got back after a long and tiring trip to delhi to meet a cpl of artistes regarding sangamam work. Have never been on a more unplanned trip al my life. N will never be on one again ;) was kinda scary - but was great experience nevertheless. standing outside saravana bhavan at janpath, when he was jus abt to close - trying desperately to use the tamizh senti to make him get us some food at close to 11.30 in the night..... this was awesome fun.
well, pat on our backs... we did manage to. the adi maavu dosai,14-idly basundhi, n coffee... (yeah we realised it was a bad combi of assorted dishes -- but who cares - it was good food after an incredibly long wait)
Mr.sundaram and Mr.vijaykumar -- 2 ppl whom i know very well now, managers/supervisors at saravana bhavan - really helpful ppl who resembled visu and my dad respectively. made us feel comfortable, wanted and cared for. helped us out in enquirin abt hotels where we could stay for the night... and well helped us thru the queue for lunch the next afternoon. yup fixed thaali - it was. i still feel full jus thinking abt it. the place and the food -- ROCK!
thanks :)

that apart - the auto hunt n money constraint n the "no credit" card at coffee day will forever be in our memories i guess. for once i had to accept my dad was right abt me and my money managing capabilities! :(( that explains the Rs. - 34/- on my hutch pre-paid. wonder how roaming could possibly be so expensive. freaking 10 bucks for a minute of incoming or what?

anyways, the money saving plans were more to get tickets at PVR for the ONE n only RANG DE BASANTHI/./. sadly --- we were there on a weekend n they were sold out. pretty much expected.. so the cribbin part there after got gusd!

we went around hunting all over KAROL bagh, cnot place, sadar bazaar,chandni chowk and finally came to prathap bagh -- which was after shit loads of contemplation.... cos until then we were dragging around the mridhangam that we got from mr.shreeganesh.

oh that reminds me.. the vist to mr.shreeganesh house was good fun. until then yb n ganesh were constantly giglling.. u guys can imagine how --- the sathal and the siripu combnation was almost successful in makin us go crazy ... and aprom thankfull we guys managed to reach ganesh's house. apparently he has his own band called dhwani. its like a percussion group. n he even played us a cpl of songs from their recent concert.. it sounded real good. so we gen put some more contis and lots of lacha and had a cup of coffee and left his place with the mridhangam - first thing in the morning.

then we tracelled almost across town to go to rama's house. the guys were puttin gaja buja enthu -- the rest of u know why :P well there we got a lot more to eat. that was great incentive... and we were doin gaja buja counselling for her daughter wrt acads n college admissions :)) i know... i know! but engalaiyum madhichu kekaraangale gara enthu la non stop for close to an hr all of us were lachaaing.

we managed to get 2 articles for our dhwani the same way. chak -- shall pass it on to u soon.

so yeah .. back to prathap bagh... we managed to fne a saraaswathi bommai like how we wanted out there on the roads. not jus that --- we also got another pullaiyaar vigraham and another pullaiyaar silai -- which is like a wall hanger. ganam aa gaathramaa iruku ... all three. those are 2 of the 3. shall take a pic at raag room soon n post that as well

later we took an auto straight to isbt... and walked in semicircles along the perimeter of isbt .. trying to find the entrance gate... with all the extra fittngs and the mridhangam. finally we did reach a whole 3 hrs before 10.. and managed to book our tickets. then after a cpl of calls back home and to ppl at pilani.. we went to McDonalds hoping we could eat EAT EAT. we did... but we were runnin a lil short on cash at hand -- so kinda decided we wud pay by card and then collect the money after getting back to campus. so the order list went on n on for like 5 minutes after loads of deciding n re-deciding.. and the damage for 341! we hand over teh card and the guy at the counter snaps back sayin..."we dont accept cards ma'am". gaja buja SHAAWKING. ;)

anyways... ntn we cud do. so we managed to pay it up... with perfect change.. and ate all of it. we were entertained by a waiter who claimed to be the greatest fan of A.R.Rahman... and he finally thuppified on us unintentionally. he sad he was a break dancer as part of some troupe and that he earned close to 35k per month. and he also added on sayin that was nothing.. and he cud make so muh more than jus 35k and thats why he was workin part time at McD's! anyways... konjam rombave gaanda kalapinaan..

anyways i guess end of trip -- shanky improved his hindi skills. and all of us gained close 4 kg weight! :P

the smell of rust and dust n the sound of the baby wailing n the stupid pink saree female pukin all thru the journey .. and vague screams of the word "ulti" disgust me.

everytime i say - no more ISBT. but well economical constraints don leave u with an option do they?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
dakshina dakshina dakshina :P (kari - yb's pisd with you)

Thyagaraja Araadhana

Well, as most of us know.. TAP for the first time was extended into a 3 day fest. The first 2 days had individual concerts by the present third yearites -- they were under the banner SAMARPANAM. Frankly speaking i did notice that the ind of response that raag recieved this semester for concerts such as SAMARPANAM and RANJINI have been great. These 3 years i ve never seen 2219 this full. Most of u might remember how it was when we came up with KALADHARA. The crowd was that good. :)

Coming to the songs, on the first day we had Archna Ramana (ninne bajana and nadha thanumanisham) , Shankar (gaanamoorthe, padhavini, anuragamule,sarsa saama dhaana) and subha (o ranga sai and nannu kana thalli). The concert lasted for a lil more than an hour and we had a couple of profs making special mentions about how wonderful the concert was.

On the second day we had manojh (rama nannu brovara , raga rathna), NIVEDITA ( nivi -- thank me for the correct spelling ;) -- she sang bhavanuta and nee daya radha) Jupup (manavyaalakin, merusamaana and durmarga ) and samisana (inthamodhu , aada modi galadhey)

"TA" happened on the third day as an usual routine. With all the girls lookin nice in the sarees and teh guys in traditional costumes... we took close to 200 snaps in various combinations. To name a few of the vetti senti that we put -- we had a CBSE snap(that was taken twice - thanks to ganesh and his camera shy nature :P ) , neyveli snap -- (which was a manojh solo ), non chennai ites snap - A7 senti snap - ( jus realised there are jus 7 of us as well -- nice coincidence! )

AN-i do-ers snap (kari we missed u terribly! :-( ) , the usual all guys snap ---

chain snap (this was with all the people who borrowed some of my jewellery :P ) , silk saree snap (arjun's brilliant brainwave) ,

then there were 1st row snaps and 2nd row snaps and instrumentalists snap ( i clicked both these!!! :B)-

and a 2k3 batch snap thats shaken ( x( ) !!!!

Anyways all s well that ends well.

We guys went bck to our messes for lunch and resumed pracs for sangamam -- THE NEXT BIG thing at 1.30. The only room open for us was 2219 -- was good fun with great memories abt pracz session for our first sangamam -- better known as the AALAA sangamam :-) )

The room... actually whole of fd 2 was resonating with the voice of raag. Its been that way for teh past one month now. I should say that it feels on top of the world and really really wonderful when u walk thru the rearmost corridorr of FD2 between 5 and 11 in the night -- cos we have so many raag activities happening all at once. in 2212 -- the third yearites were having samarpanam pracs. 2214 - was dance pracs. 2217 -- veena players were picking up their songs. RAAG room - big time composition was happening. and in the corridorr right below there was backdrop work happening.

And never did it feel like WORK WORK WORk. Its been fun meeting up everyday -- and well we did hear this news... that when the dept and club heads were taken on a tour to the SAC building -- for those of u who do not know -- SAC is a new construction on campus -- STUDENTS ACTIVITY CENTRE. its got a mini auditorium .. somethng like an amphi theatre -- ppl say -- and around 7 wings with slightly huge rooms (Around 4 in each wing) to be alloted for clubs and depts.... coming back to what i started off wth -- it is bein said that there is one wing for music club and raag. I hear that the inauguration is by end of feb = cos the Birla's are comin or something and SAC will be ready for occupancy from next sem itself.

At the very thought now, i somehow prefer our own fd2 to the new room at SAC. anyways -- we never know. things change and people get used to it i guess. Apu Vishwa Loki and the rest of u. get to campus for sangamam plz plz plz plz plz.....!!! i shall try n add u as members of this blog .. soon. i guess its possible. mail me ur blog id's alone. would require them .. and the e-mails u ve mentioned at the time of creating ur blog accnt.

as far as sangamam is concerned... choreo and composition are almost over. major integratioon of the pieces work is to happen. We are aiming at a dead line of 10/2/06. lets c!

MiDwAyZ

midways trip this time was awesome!

with one entire round of the usual - sight adipome dhum adipom - nokia - remo - uppu karuvaadu - um bak um bak - straw berry kannae -- etc etc.. and debut dances by sara n co -- it was super cool bus ride.

we planned to start at 9.30 -- some how the usual delay happened and we finally managed t cross the bits gate at 11 with a couple of lies to compensate for the doubts that excited the bits chowki , we boarded bus close to 11 n reached midways at arnd 12.15

we had decided a NO-NO for the pool already. s0 well after having set up the laptop and the woofers to play some "fun" music... that happened after a mini accident when manojh and me tried to shift a table .. and ended up removing the granite table top alone .. which kinda peeled off some skin from manojh's right hand

but that got better.. and then we had a game of co-co - and more dancing -- some dw training - some fash p by yb thadhar n sriram -- loads of video -- lots of laughs and bad food and oorga saadham!

its 8.32 a.m now.. and i got nalog lab in like 30 minutes. so i shall rush now... more on tap .. coming real soon!

cheers!