Today was Mumbai's Edulix Meet. The USC conference at JWM was just a way to meet everybody. A lot of us were not even applying at USC. I was as always late. Not late by twenty minutes this time, but just five minutes. I hurried into JWM feeling a little initimidated because I really have not been to such expensive places apart from the Education Fairs. Perhaps I looked lost because the guard asked me with smile where I was headed for. He directed me to the seminar hall. JWM has these shiny polished floors you'd surely trip on if you wore high heels and make a fool out of yourself. I took a left once I entered the hall there, and found my way to the door which was meant for an "Exit" as somebody gladly pointed out.
I finally opened the correct door to find myself in a conference hall with huge chandeliers which look misplaced in time. The seminar had begun and everybody was paying attention to whatever the lady in black was talking about. All except this girl in a yellow shirt with a bright face, who looked intently at me, and I looked back at her with curiosity. Who else but Megzz. When the extra chairs came in, I immediately took the one next to her. Megzz is funny. She is straight forward and is not afraid to call a spade a spade. There are a few people who remind me of the kid who pointed out the Emperor is not wearing any clothes in the story "The Emperors New Clothes", she is one of them.
The Seminar was boring, and the lady had a remarkable way with words to make what could have been an interesting conversation sound tiresome. She even cracked the same jokes she had in the last seminar. Oops, my bad I was the one who was attending the same seminar again. Anyway, I was so glad when Prof Raghu took over. Prof Raghavendra or Raghu sounds like a quiet, intelligent person to me. He advised us to not worry about campus jobs in the first semester but to get over India and get used to the environment out there and concentrate on academics. There were people with pens and papers noting down important points and I smiled inwardly, because I had done that in the last seminar. I felt like telling them its all there on the website, and if it isn't then join Edulix.com. So, I couldn't help but offer advise to the guy next to me, I wrote EDULIX.COM in my neatest handwriting in his notebook and asked him to check out the forums before he starts with applications. Megzz meanwhile was having a great time making fun of a lot of people. There was this parent whose phone kept ringing, and each time it rang he walked out of the door saying "Hello" loudly. She called him VIP!
And then the question and answers session began. Now if you have attended enough seminars you would know that question and answer sessions do not end fast. Meanwhile, we had all filled up the forms the lady had distributed and handed them over. This was almost like deja vu. Or wait, I had attended the same seminar before. It was the free t-shirt time!! So the lady picked up one form randomly to hand over the USC t-shirt to the person the form belonged to. "Tanmay" she said. "Yaay" I said. "YAAAY" Megzz said. And then we all started clapping - you see all the Edulixites know that Maharaja is Tanmay. An embarassed Tanmay walked up there to collect his tshirt. I had this feeling that maybe he wanted to disappear because of all the sudden attention. When the second guy's name was announced, nobody clapped. I felt bad for that guy. Imagine everybody clapping for the one before you and a pin-drop silence for yourself. I wonder what he must be thinking. And I wonder what Raghu and that lady must be thinking - Tanmay must be some celebrity.
After the t-shirt part was over, people started heading to the tiny red refrigerator (even as Raghu was answering questions) to get their free Tropicanas. We walked out after Raghu said that we were free to leave. And then the meet
began. This was my second meet after the blogger meet last month. Connecting faces with online identities is always interesting.
Its not so difficult to connect online identities with faces. I connected Megzz31, TheGodfather, River, Bono and Game with their faces quite easily. Bono was all set to kill anybody with more than 0 admits, it was funny. And then I met the chiefguest Harshacharya, who had come all the way from Baroda for the meet. He got the honour of carrying the Edulix Poster and should I add, a little proudly whenever some chicks passed us by. Firang chicks that too, as he is looking for accomodation in TAMU :-)
We spotted a fluffy white sofa on our way out, and I so wanted to sit on it just once. We clicked a picture on the staircase opposite to the sofa. So when you see the picture of the Edulix Mumbai meet in a posh place with a shiny marble flooring, please spare a moment to think about the beautiful sofa opposite to us. I must have been looking at it when theGodfather clicked the picture!
Once we exited from JWM, we decided to go 'somewhere'. Murtuza and another member decided not to come along. Since we were so close to the sea we settled very unanimously on Juhu Beach. We didn't choose the main entrance to avoid the shops there, but walked in the opposite direction and entered the beach through a narrow lane. The sun was still far up from the horizon, and we all sat in a huge circle on the sand. All 30 of us (2 joined later), you can imagine the huge circle we formed. I almost felt like playing some game where you run around the circle and drop a handkerchief behind somebody's back. Initital introductions over, people started taking on the spot polls. How many for XYZ University? How many for CS? How many for EE? And so on.
A little while and leg cramps later, we decided to take a walk on the beach. A lot of us were seeing the beach after a few years, and wanted to have a good look around before sunset. Whisky and Pramod stood up dusting the sand off their clothes and into my eyes :-@. Soon, everybody joined us, and we walked on the beach until we reached the shops. The sun had nearly gone down by then, and we clicked a few more pictures from theGodfathers camera, before buying bhutta. Harsh meanwhile lost his bag on the beach with some important identifications, so we all were quite worried. He didn't find it though. You know Bombay, when you lose something you rarely get it back, unless you have been touched by an angel. Harsh, reach back home and let us know if everything is alright, ok?
Nearly everybody started leaving by 7 and the rest of us walked out of the beach too. I bought some pink cotton candy which is very delicious and not made of animal fat [no thanks whisky and pramod]. I had to reach home by 7, so I left in a hurry and the rest had a great dinner and conversation until nine.
Maybe we should do this again. It was so good meeting everybody for real.
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As seen by whiskyMy account of the edulix meet:
I arrived late to the seminar. Delayed due to unforeseen circumstances (actually was allured by all the free food. I wasted time hatching wicked schemes to maximize my chances of getting scraps of food. The competition seemed fierce). The seminar lasted 90 minutes with doubts from some edulixians, noticeably by a visibly excited intel fun Razz.
At the end of the seminar, USC officials conducted a lucky draw where they raffled away 2 t-shirts. Given the number of edulixians present, the chances of an edulixian taking the honor was really high. Yes! And we did win. It couldn’t have been any better than our very own Maharaja, Tanmay himself. There was a roar when Tanmay went to collect the shirt. Tanmay hadn’t asked a single query and Mr Raghavendra (a USC official) was left a little amused and bewildered why we were cheering. That concludes all the good things that happened today. Read on at your own risk as I describe the remainder of my experience.
I learnt that there was no free food for the 3.00 PM seminar. I was heartbroken. As we prepared for the worst, rumor spread of some fridge stocked with free frooti. Cynical that I am, I rubbished them away. But then the number of people flocking around an unidentified object began increasing at an exponential rate. My calculations told me there had to be free food around. I realized I couldn’t get through the mass of people without some help. So I enlisted the muscles of Kohl-rimmed and pkrk27 to pull me through. As a team we managed to overcome all obstacles and finally reached our destination, the unidentified object. To our delight, it was a fridge! Charged with the sense of pride and accomplishment we thrust open the fridge, to only find empty shelves staring back at us. The experience was traumatic. Worse than getting one reject in a row.
Shattered that we were on not managing to hoard any free food, we consoled ourselves and started moving out. News of our debacle spread rapidly. At the gallery we were given hearty consolations, the edulix way. Hoping to find some solace in our moderator we approached her. But she had more devious plans up her sleeve. She ordered us to a forced march in the scorching Mumbai sun to juhu Beach. We walked hungry, tired, without water and in fear of losing our recently upgraded senior status on edulix.
Once at the beach, we were allowed to sit. Under the moderators watchful eyes we sat into a perfect circle. Satisfied with this arrangement, she started interrogating each of us, one at a time. We were all afraid, very afraid. We quickly, inarticulately and sometimes with a stammer managed to finish off the introductions to collective sighs of relief!
Our relief was short-lived as we were then forced into wierd poses (MTV Bakra style) for the edulix shoot. As Parshva put it "Kohl and Meggz went trigger happy". Chaos reigned. There were people running helter skelter to avoid meeting their all encompassing gaze and to avoid getting shot at. In the confusion they managed to catch many of us unawares. needlessly said, we were mercilessly shot. In the cross fire some innocent by standers including a wind mill seller got shot too. God bless his soul!
The smart ones took this oppurtunity and dispersed into the darkness. The rest of them must still be there, rolling in the juhu beach sand, too injured to make thier way back home ever again.
Disclaimer: No animal or human was killed during this entire operation. Though many have been treated inhumanely.
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Statistics:34 members showed up
Meet lasted from 3 to 9
