Passport to Pranav!!

As I squeezed myself out of 27C and stepped down the stairs of the bus in front of my sister’s college, the mammoth poster, yelling out “Pranav 06 - Unleashing the Power within”, stared at my face. The poster itself created a wonderful feeling in me even though I wasn’t involved in the symposium in any way. “Evolve, Conflate, Embellish” (Hey! Those are my words!). This is too good.

My sister had been asking me to come over to the symposium that they were organizing from about a month before the actual day. Well, I had not been very enthusiastic about it and was citing the preparation for my practical tests as an excuse. But, just before the day of Pranav, I changed my mind as I got a company in my class fellow Vidya and decided to attend the function. We made our way into the campus, trying to keep a low profile lest be questioned by some one to show our credentials. Gleaming faces, colourful sarees, exquisite jewellery, the girls looked awesome all clad in sarees. Poor guys, a pant, shirt and a tie were all they could show off!

We went to the auditorium to attend the inaugural function.The introductory presentation which was quite an interesting start was followed by about an hour of “sleep promotion” – I mean the customary speeches. It was then time for the events.

I should single out to thank Sulaiman (bhaiya) specially, who was kind enough to take two little(?) girls on a guided tour of college and the other events. “Scarto” was the first event that we attended. Filling Fevicol into the plastic tumblers was what we initially did, but very soon were made the judges, ahem. Then came the interesting part. Going around the college with out any identification (Sujatha’s sister wasn’t obviously enough) could land us back to the bus stop. So the President (Arvind) gave us a promotion as students of Sai Ram Engineering College and presented us the necessary identity cards (Hope this revelation doesn’t get him into trouble). I still can’t believe how the girls in the registration could believe that we were from a college especially when I could hardly stifle a laugh. However, posing like college students with ID cards was a matter of great pride for us. This might sound funny, but yeah, its true and believe it or not, I am going to treasure this ID card for a long time. We then selected the winners for the event. ‘Sorry Venkat, we couldn’t award your “favourite” team any prize’.

Lunch was next. It was a huge shock when I saw the mess hall and the hostel. It came as a stark contrast to what we have seen and gone through since morning. How can a human even eat and live there?? Food wasn’t that bad or probably it felt ok to me cos I was really hungry. I am sorry if I sound rather rude on this.

Then we headed for the mock interview, a pretty interesting event. The extempore performances by students from various colleges were a delight to watch, with some contestants cooking up silly answers. Though being in Standard XI, mock interview did provide an insight as to what goes on in such situations. As the quiz was scheduled at the same time, I couldn’t attend it (sorry Kausi). At about 7.30pm the valedictory function was held. Venkat gave a great performance, as always. The prizes were given away and it was the end of the event.

Though we didn’t do anything much during the entire symposium, we had a great time, just mixing with the crowd and absorbing the atmosphere. I met many of my sister’s friends including Karthik (anna) for the very first time whose names were familiar to me from the gossips me and my sister indulge in. I was really glad that I had taken leave from school for attending something which was some real fun and served as a great relaxation for the mind.

Here, I would like to congratulate all of them who spent several sleepless nights including of course my sister Sujatha (how can she be kept away from this article if I have to attend next time too?) and surmounted many obstacles to “EVOLVE, CONFLATE and EMBELLISH” , Pranav 06.

I can’t wait to attend another symposium.Is there anyone from SSN college around? ;-)