Vedant '10 - Half Way Through

Yes, the week that I was dreading has come to an end. I'm in a dilema here. I have every right to be happy with the way things have turned out. And I also have every right to be unhappy too. The first event of the week and the Festival, the English Essay-Writing Competition, went well. We had 15 participants. Not bad. And some of them were different from the ones who'd registered. So, I was happy. The entire morning went off quite smoothly. One down, the big one still to go.

The Staff Debate was held in the afternoon. Frankly, the meaning of Staff-Debate is a few hours of entertainment for the less-entertained section of the crowd in BJ, if you know wha I mean. The topic was 'Live-In Relationships', and the speakers had a whale of a time talking about everything apart from that.

Tuesday arrived with a friend asking me to help out with the Solo-Singing eliminations. That was a pretty tough task, but the end-result was satisfaction and an eagerness to watch the selected participants sing on the final day. Overall, I felt glad I managed to help her out.

In the meantime, I started getting calls from people outside of college, interrested in paticipating in the English Debate. My earlier uneasiness regarding organising the event was vapourising off quite easily. I was feeling excited about it all. In fact, on Thursday afternoon, I even managed to get all the permissions for the chairs and the table-cloths. I was so excited about it all.

And then it happened.

4 people cancelled their entries. On the eve of the event. I wanted to hold somebody and shake them through and through till every cell in their body hurt. Why in the world did have to happen at that bloody time!! I'd been praying through the entire weekend that I did NOT want the event to happen. And just when I decided that I did want it to happen after all, somebody up there decided to listen to my long overdue prayers! Yeah right, that was so comforting.

It was of no use to hold the event. So, yes, I cancelled it all. Felt dreadful. It isn't right to do this, everything at the wrong time. Any way, point is, my work is sort of done.

Vedant '10 - Enthralling your souls....

It's finally begun! And I think I'm really nervous about it all. I so want the next week to get over as fast as possible. And I really really want my two events to go off smoothly. Its not exactly going to be very easy, but I'm still hoping its easier than I think. And, next time on, I'm only going to do something if I DON'T want to do it. I just wish I can live through the next week, in the same happy and a little carefree way.

Yesterday's Inauguration was great. My friend, Mohini, a Bharatnatyam dancer performed the Ganesh Vandana. She is just so beautiful and graceful, it was hard to to look anywhere else. Bharatnatyam is a very expressive dance form, and Mohini takes to another level. We also watched her Arangetram a few months back, and she just keeps improving and improving! Great going girl!! We all love you!!

Our Firodiya team performed the dances from their play. Firodiya Karandak is a prestigious Intercollegiate One-act Play competition, held in February every year. All colleges perform in the initial Elimination Round, and eight are selected for the Final round. This year too, we did not manage to reach the final eight. But, with the dances ready, it was only proper that the team performed for the Inauguration. They danced better than they had for the competition!!

Some of the Juniors had prepared a performance, and one other Junior played the Violin too. She was fantastic!

All in all it was good, and our Chief Guest, Sudhir Gadgil, went away very impressed. Now, we hope the rest of the Festival also manages to spread joy and creative wind throughout the college.

Labour, in every facet of the meaning

It started with the Seminar on Thyrotoxicosis last week, on Feb 8th. It was a wonderful experience. Standing in front of a huge audience and speaking as calmly as I did, I have to say to myself, "Kudos!!". I ended with the sentence, "Even though the thyroid gland is not essential for survival, absence of the hormones can cause physical and mental slowing and affect the quality if life." That raised up a controversy amongst the teachers sitting in the front. But, there were some who agreed with what I said, and frankly, I don't think what I said was wrong. The Thyroid doesn't decide the life and death of a person. Nor do the hormones. They make a person capable of living what is termed as a normal human life. My friends said I spoke a lot better than I had, during the rehersals. Personally, I'm glad I was able to stand up for myself at the podium, and say what i thought was right when the controversy came up. Plus, I got a certificate, which for me, is more important. You could say that I am selfish enough to participate in this kind of activity only for the certificates!!

Moving onto my next goal, after two days of running around and being tense that I might not be able to finish off with all the signatures in time, I have finally sent my Research Proposal to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The results will be out in April. I don't care whether they choose my project or not, I'll be doing it any way. But, there is always a sense of achievement in having your project selected by such a prestigious body. Also, they choose just 500 such projects from all over the country. So, I guess, its easy to get what I'm trying to say. I just have my Ethics Committee proposal to be handed over tomorrow, and then wholly, and truly, I will be done with it all, till April.

After this, it is our Intercollegiate Competition Vedant to think about. I have to come up with my entire schedule to hold the Debate and Essay competitions. I don't know what the verdict on this time's Vedant will be after the bomb blast yesterday. But, lets remain hopeful.

Now, labour. In the field of Medicine. Overcoming my pre-construed aversion to the process of Miracle of Birth, I watched 3 normal deliveries and a Caesarien Section (CS), yesterday, during my first ever Emergency Duty (ED) of my term in Gynaecology and Obstretics. The Caesarian was a textbook operation. We've already had our clinic on the step-by-step manual of performing a CS. Yesterday, we had a practical version. The deliveries were a little gross, but the babies when taken out looked really, really cute. As luck would have it, we didn' see any girls being born. It was all male babies. Hmm, maybe next time!!

So its been eventful, this week. And I really hope, next week is a little less taxing. Ciao!!

PURANDAR 2010

Purandar totally ROCKED!! I had more fun than I expected to have and, once again, found the ardent love I feel for all things Nature.

We left on the 29th, i.e. Friday afternoon. One State transport bus filled with around 103 2nd years and around 7 seniors. It was very stuffy. Obviously. Reaching the foot of the fort by bus took an hour and a half. I could feel my excitement rising as we wound through the streets of my dear city, the noise of the guys singing right behind all of us.

Once we had reached the foot, it was time to haul our heavy back-packs onto our poor backs and start the rigorous journey to the top. It took us a long time to actually manage to reach our base camp. The path uphill wasn't the most difficult in terms of climbing. It was steep and dusty with very few proper foot holds to utilise. Of course, our bags didn't make it any easier.

One of the first rules of ascending a hill or a mountain is that, you shouldn't stop. Making a stop on your way up for a few minutes makes you more tired. All the lethargy that seems to be a centimetre away while walking, floods into you, pushing you into the static inertia from which it is tedious and more energy-consuming to rise. I tried my level-best to put that stop at bay. I could feel the heat and blood charring my face, I could see the redness that my arms were slowly producing, and I could here the vapours of hot sweat leaving my face, as I puffed my way up. Our leader's calls of, "Just five more minutes!" helped in a very small way to actually keep us moving. At one point, I decided not to pay any heed to all the mountain-advice buzzing in my head and I sat down. I deserved it. We had covered 3/4th of th journey, and I had boiled to limit of vapouring into thin air. My mom's advice was now ringing in my ears - " Don't do anything life-threatening." This wasn't exactly that, but I didn't have to wait to move into that category, did I?