Diaries

Magic of T-Nites Continues!!!

- by Vinamra Srivastava *

The T-Nites are long over, but the excitement is just as fresh! And today, we all got reminded of it again... Why? I will come back to that later... But first let me continue from where I left! Yeah, the second half of the T-Nites.

After the dismal performance on Day 2, we were all charged up, thanks to the tuchchas also, to go out there and give a scintillating performance on the RJM nights.

Our auditorium here is called the RJM in short, and since the second half of the T-Nites takes place at the auditorium, it's called the RJM Nights. 

T-Nite 2006 Day 3

Our classes got over on Saturday afternoon and we knew we had very little time on our hands to get our act together for the first of the RJM nights that same night. We all quickly had our lunch and got back to the class to start off a marathon preparation session. Oh man! One should have seen the enthusiasm and commitment. We were all working frantically with one single aim... to rock RJM. One main hurdle was to decide upon a theme. It was critical that we have a theme for the night because that's where we had lost points in the past 2 evenings. After much brainstorming, suddenly someone came up with an idea of 7!!! Seven??? What the heck is that... was the initial reaction. But slowly it started making sense... our class was CR 7... our fashion show had a theme of seven emotions / qualities / styles... our dances came from the seven seas... and our music spanned seven continents!!! Yeah, not a bad idea... And so, it was decided... 7 is the theme for the night. And Voila! The poster team immediately got going and started work on a real real huge banner for the stage. What a fundoo modern design it was depicting 7... I tell you, these girls in our class are damn talented!!!

The rest split into their own teams and started practicing... Before we knew, it was time to go to RJM... The dress code was black for everyone. So there we were in a group moving towards the RJM... a huge black group shouting slogans, a bit nervous though. Nervous because the practice was not comprehensive due to paucity of time... We were not sure if we would be able to pull it off well.

One good thing we did this time was that we had planned our entry and exit well because there were points for that also. When we all entered, a song started playing in the background - "Zindagi mil ke bitaayenge" - from the movie Satte Pe Satta... Boy, the strategy was bang on target, it worked like magic with the crowd because none of the sections had entered on a song... which was also related to the theme. We all got on stage and spread ourselves out because it's a huge stage and we needed to cover the entire stage. Just imagine, nearly 60-70 guys on stage cheering, waving, dancing!!!

The show started with a Yanni rendition by our ace pianist... Man... This guy is a genius when he plays the piano... it was a perfect start and the audience couldn't help but bow to his magic. Performances came one after the other, all brilliant I must say... Not just because it was my section... genuinely, it was a class show that we put up... The music band was great...

The dances were our strength with some fantastic dancers in our class... One dance was performed by a guy and a girl on the song "Oh humdum Suniyo Re"... the guy danced western and the girl classical... It was beautiful indeed... And the last item was a solo western dance act by another girl... One of the most brilliant acts I have ever seen... The crowd got up from their seats and everyone bowed to her. 

All the time someone was performing on stage, the rest were all behind the stage cheering, dancing along with the performer. When the final act got over, we were signaled that we barely had a minute to get out of the auditorium... Oh boy... we collected all props as quickly as we could and ran like crazy to get out of the auditorium so that we don't exceed our time limit, which would in turn extract a penalty.

We all came out, took a breather, and shouted and cheered at the top of our lungs... because we knew we had done an awesome job... We could hear the audience screaming "Awesome, Awesome" when we were performing... And this was ratified when our section seniors came out and told us that ours was by far the best performance of the night... They said we have surpassed all expectations and were clearly much better than the rest... What jubilations... we knew we were back with a bang!!

But... the fashion show was yet to be done... When all sections had finished their performances, then the fashion parade for each section was to start... We had nearly a couple of hours to get ourselves ready for it. We came back to the class and started practicing... And it was then I came to now that I was also there in the fashion parade. Ha Ha Ha!!! I somehow managed the attire... got some practice about what I was supposed to do... the seniors and the class girls did the make up for all of us... And Voila! We were all ready.

The fashion parade was based on the theme of 7 and displayed 7 emotions (like lust, greed, envy, etc.) / styles. What a thoroughly professional performance... Had you seen the fashion parade, you would have thought these guys are professionals practicing since weeks... It came out perfect - stylish, sauv�, elegant... this class never ceases to surprise me with its talent and energy.

 

We came back to the class and knew we had aced the fashion parade as well... the seniors again told us this was the best fashion parade amongst all the sections.

Within an hour, the results for the day and the cumulative results so far of all the three nights were put up on our internal communication client.

Our class, Section A, were the top performers of the day by a huge margin. We were top in every category... entry, exit, events, music, dance, theme, enthusiasm... everyhing. We were also the top in fashion parade, again by a big margin.

And since the weightage of RJM 1 and RJM 2 is much greater than the mess nights, the cumulative standings said: "Section A at the top rank by a comfortable margin."

Woowwwww... Our enthusiasm knew no bounds... We shouted till our throats started aching... We had come back with a big bang... We knew we had the talent for the RJM nights and it was proved right.

The seniors treated us with a pizza treat... Imagine treating 70 people with pizzas... But then this is IIMA and everything is so special here... The pizzas came in the class and we all relished them while simultaneously working for the next day.

One final hurdle to go... We knew we can't afford to relax... Every section will raise their performance on the last night and we can't be complacent... We had loads of stuff to do... Decide another theme, another banner, get our class act going (will explain later what this is)... Lots of stuff to worry about.

But the tempo was high... Because we were at the top... We decided to pack for the day and come back the next day early to start off the final leg of preparation with a renewed josh.

What happened to Section A on the final night? Did we win the trophy? Or did we slip up? How much masti we did on the final night?

Stay tuned......Will be back tomorrow!!!

T-Nite 2006 Day 4: The Covetous T-Nite Trophy

It started off to be a lazy Sunday morning. We all were supposed to meet at 9.00 in the classroom to get going for the final day's preparations. But everyone was so tired that by the time we assembled, it was about 11.00. And then we realized there was so much to be done in so little time.

The final day has very few items on the agenda. One is the class act. Each section has to present a skit / play that involves nearly the entire class. All of us have to perform some role or the other in the play. The stage is big enough to accommodate everyone. It was the most challenging job to design a play for so many people and one team of guys was completely devoted to that for the past few days.

The script was more or less ready by the final day and what remained was to start practicing and get everyone involved. The first ever practice of the play took place at 6.00 pm and our show time was 8.00 pm. Everyone was involved in some things or the other, and hence, to get all of them together to practice for the play was tough, but we finally managed to get one practice in at least!!!

Apart from the play, another exciting event was the CR Act. Now the CR of every class has to perform a solo act for 6-7 minutes. So we helped our CR to prepare a song, and then, she dance on the same. She is hugely talented and we knew we stand a great chance to win the CR Act. The music band also prepared a small snippet and by the evening the tension was building up !!

"What??? The clothes for the trees haven't come as yet? Where is the Logistics Manager!!!" These words echoed half an hour before we were set to go on stage. The play required some people to be dressed as trees and there clothes hadn't arrived as yet. A small video snippet was prepared on our section song that was supposed to be played while we would exit after our performance. That snippet wasn't ready half an hour before 8.00 and there was panic there as well.

The huge banner which was being made ready by our expert poster group still had lots of finishing touches to go! But despite all this, everyone kept their cool and worked frantically to sort out the last minute issues. We were working till the last minute before we left the classroom, but in the end, we somehow managed to wrap all the preparations just in time. We literally ran and reached the auditorium lest we get late even by a minute.

We were in time and the performance started with another boisterous entry followed by the dance troupe. Then came the Class Act followed by finally the CR Act. Everything went as planned and all performances were very well appreciated by the audience. No glitch anywhere and the exit was supported by the display of the section song video, which gave a sort of a sentimental tribute to the performance of Section A over the past four days!

We came out shouting our tempos and once again the tuchchas told us they would be highly shocked if we did not win the trophy, so good was our performance. Our theme this time was "Jungle", and once all our performances including the play and the CR Act were based on that. It seems this once again clicked with the judges.
We came back to the classroom and celebrated our performance till late in the night. But the tension was palpable... the final results... they would be out only by next day afternoon!!!