AvantGarde

Brand New Year, same old antics!

This phrase sums up pretty much all of what the MBA batch of IITK has been up to the entire month. With a brand new semester (which was incidentally started 4 days before 31^st – the administration was really keen on making us celebrate the new year together – or raking in a decent amount of late fees from people who join after 1^st, which was duly explained by the late-registration extended deadline of 5^th January ) after a month long vacation, the junta was in no mood to study. The Professors however, always being more concerned than the students about their careers, were in no mood to relent and the train chugged off to a sluggish start, picking up steam till about the 10^th of the month.

For the 2^nd year students, nostalgia had already kicked in despite their still being in the campus – From sentimental gtalk status messages, to full attendance in even the most boring electives, they are really feeling sad about leaving the insti, which makes the juniors wonder what there is to be sad about – lots to be frustrated about surely, being loaded with lectures, presentations and assignments, apart from the endless committees and clubs they happily subscribed to in the first semester calling up meetings every now and then.

“Why the &%$# did I join that committee man? Doesn’t even look that funky on my resume and these jerks keep calling me for a meeting at 12 in the night!”

And life goes on…

However, the last day of the month surely sprang up some surprises.

A lazy Sunday afternoon at Hall 10 (the farthest corner of IIT Kanpur, and home to 88% of the 1^st year junta) was stretching on. The weather is a tad pleasant these days, as the infamous nerve-wrangling Kanpur winters have finally started to depart, and the summers are yet to kick in. People were found dozing, or catching up on their daily dose of sitcoms and movies, blissfully unaware of the readings and analysis to be completed for 3 back-to-back lectures the next day. Suddenly, a random soul, who probably came outside to hang his towel (Sunday being the bathing day, as going on for more than a week leads to professor’s complaining about unpleasant bodily odors) saw a fire in the barren field behind Hall 9 and 10. Apparently, a construction worker had stopped by for a discreet smoke, and left a burning cigarette in midst of the vegetation.

Well, news spreads faster than fire in a boy’s hostel, and soon the entire populace was hanging out of the balconies, eager to have a dekko. Some eager lads quickly ran outside to lend a helping hand to the SIS guards who were trying to contain the flames, but the security blokes had the good vision and common sense to deny them any fire fighting equipment (read: water pipes and tumblers) lest they burn themselves (however, I believe that the actual reason was that students generally tend to aggravate a tragic situation, rather than alleviating it). Thus, having been denied their rightful duty, 3 courageous lads from our batch took to the next best thing – reporting the event live. Armed with a hand held camera-cum-video unit, Chandan, Gyan and Akshaya rushed to the accident site in an attempt to take stock of the situation.

The reporting was quite hilarious to begin with. The enthusiastic trio (camera man Chandan, and reporters Gyan & Akshaya) would rush to each and every person present on the location, much to the chagrin of the SIS guards. Some of them, who suddenly found themselves facing a camera and a bunch of enthusiastic journalists, quickly assumed that a sting operation was being held, and responded with a, “Humey kuch nahee pata hai, hum to abhee abhee aaye hain” response (I don’t know anything, I have just reached here) before running away quickly. Our manager-journos assumed this to be a ‘prashashanik samasya’ (administrative problem), where nobody wants to answer the aam junta. Students from other halls were not spared either, with their views being sought over the matter. The poor kids obliged too, thinking that it was an actual news channel, even enquiring about the name (to which our reporters enthusiastically replied – “Avant Garde” !!).

We have uploaded a piece of their footage for our readers to enjoy. The youtube link is given below:

With February bringing in the first mid-semester exams of this season, the reporters, the AG team, and the entire MBA batch has promised to put the issue behind them, and get back to studies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9AOv-oF428

Till the next issue,

Au Revoir!

Manu Agrawal

MBA batch of 2011,

IIT Kanpur