Feb 28, 2002 Part II

contd...................
Totally drained.... even before my program was to begin....finished the lunch quickly and rushed to the same place; quiz was about to begin in another 20 mins.

The computer was on the floor level, and the screen was clearly visible till the third row of the audience. We had to move it to the stage control area, which would be a level lower than the floor. I did not want to unplug the system and reboot it.. as we would never know with Windows, when we are going to see the bluescreen, just to play it very safe. Vedik called for me from the stage and asked me to make a table in ppt to show the score board. Before I came back, Samrith* had shut down the PC, and unplugged even the projector, and had moved it to the control area. It was all set up in a jiffy, and he was proud that he did a good job. System turned on, and Aaaaaaah! the mouse didnt work! :-(... he was cool saying, the plugging probably went wrong; he then quickly swapped the keyboard and mouse plugs. Now what???? even the keyboard didnt work!!!. Hmm... PS2 ports, both broken! and time closing in.

We didn't have any support staff with us to take care of the situation. We had to rush to the Comp-sci dept from where we borrowed the machines. Braught a staff to the stage to see if we could salvage with whatever we had left, but of no use. There was no other option but to get another mouse and Keyboard. We didn't want anyone in the stage to know about this and nor the Faculty. I called up the Student Sec. to delay the show as much as he can, as "the off stage crew wasn't ready" (:P). He started off with a brief interview of the participants about the Presentation contest (yes! the same Plastics Boon or Bane stuff!! ). Three of us (including Samrith) went up to the Comp-sci dept again to see if we can manage to get the devices we need. I didn't have much of a say there. This Samrith guy was smart enough to persuade with a top faculty in the dept. and get the stuff in no time (I would spare him for his blunders just for this O:-)).

So we came running to the audi again, and we had a laughter therapy waiting for us :D. Abhiram was on stage going on with the "Rapid-fire" round with a dead expression and the best of all, he had the mic-cable running through between his legs! LOL! I wasn't able to control laughter seeing him struggling to move around and not realising that he need to just walk over the cable and set himself free. He finished the round in the same pose! :)).

And this time, we, chose not to take any risk, asked those staff to set things up. Booted at last! (sigh) Other rounds were on as planned, and also to remember was Samrith and Prashanth playing around with a "MI:2" ring tone played in the speaker when the later made appearance on stage, originally meant to be a glamourous entry, ended up being a comedy!

Other things to remember from the programme were: almost all of the candys thrown off to the audience who answered the left over questions, went to the couple of girls who wrote down the question cards for the quizmasters ;-); In the jumbled city round, the Chief guest claiming that we missed a 'c' in the word Sheffield (now where does a 'c' come into?), and I made a harsh reply to the Chem Chair :O, "I bet, I am right!" B-); and we opening the round with "XEBA ODUR" and following it with "DIL HI AAP HELP"

Still none of the faculty incharge of the programme, and the students on stage knew about the problem we had. The quiz was over. Despite me and Prashanth having worked so hard to prepare the questions, Velammal swept the contest with ease. That was rather disappointing :(.

When we were about to clear the stage, Vedik came to me and asked " Why didn't you make the scoreboard?". I didn't want to answer, just turned to Rakesh and smiled, and he in turn looked at Vedik and laughed! :D. Then I sat down with the Sec. and all others in the backstage about what all had happened. I admit that this narration didn't do any justice to the drama that happened then, there, and I did narrate better in the backstage that day, and all of them went crazy. We had the water bottles to be kept for the Dignitaries of the Valedictory function. Aamir and I finished off couple of bottles, as I sweated out non stop for the past hour or so. With the program about to begin, we were running short of bottles!.. Aamir quickly ran to a garden tap nearby, filled a couple of them up and kept them on stage! ;-). (If I remember right, they returned the bottles, including those two and got the money re-embursed :P ).

We had to clear the stage and return al l the gadgets. Doing so, I had to miss the bus back home :((

That sums it up! One of the most unforgettable days in life!

*Samrith doesn't deserve the anonymity, that I gave for some of them in the earlier post :|