The
fairytale is over and its back to the daily grind of classes,
assignments and laboratory work. It had to get
over one day or the other, after all. Looking back, those five days,
spent in the surrounds of IIT Madras, seem to be an eternity in
itself. An entire lifetime's worth of fun and enjoyment packaged
within the confines of a small grain in the limitless expanse of
time.
It all
started one night when Kesarwani came to our room, all worked up and
excited about his plans of developing a solution for wiper less
windscreens which he planned to submit in Shaastra.*
With my spirits dampened by our aborted attempt at making a robot for
Survivor, in Techfest last year, I was slightly doubtful about this
new event that he was talking about. However, his sheer exuberance
encouraged me to pay a brief visit to the Shaastra home page, an act
which marked the beginning of the Shaastra experience.
Chastened by
our previous failure, it was decided that we (ie. Arjun and myself)
would only attempt the workshops, and a few of those events which did
not require any prior preparation or submission. Registrations for
the workshops and hospitality were immediately done, and the tickets
arranged in a hurry. Our morale received a major boost when TEQIP
agreed to sponsor our trip to Chennai.
After an
exciting journey across the length of the entire sub-continent, the
first thing that caught my eye was how stunningly similar of Chennai
was with Kolkata. It was everywhere to be felt and noticed. The look
of Chennai Central Railway Station, the traces of the British Raj
still hanging in the air, and the weather. It was indeed strange how
two cities, separated by two thousand kilometres and a language
barrier more intimidating than the Himalayas, could share a common
bondage dating back to the eighteenth century. With our spirits
soaring sky high, it was not long before we found ourselves at the
gates of IIT Madras. Enthralled by the lush green lawns, the broad
asphalted roads, and the magnanimity of the whole occasion, we opted
to walk to the CCW office instead of taking the bus. Walking more
than six kilometres with all that luggage we had, leave alone the
temperature and the sapping journey, was not a decision that could
have been prompted by sanity! But then, this was not a venture that
sanity would have approved of in the first place.
As we had
arrived a day in advance, and our official quarters would only be
allotted the next day we went to Sarayu Hostel where Leonard**
gave us the keys to his own singlet where we gleefully moved in. The
most striking thing was that none of the hostels were reserved for a
particular batch. It was a complete hotch-potch, with students of all
the years staying in the same hostel. The remainder of the day went
by in freshening ourselves up, giving some much needed rest to worn
out limbs, and checking out the Internet that was available round the
clock in the hostels.
Shaastra
began the next afternoon with the mandatory addresses dished out by
the officials, which was followed by a special lecture by Dr.
Srikumar Suryanarayan, some video-conferences, and the screening of
Gattaca. It was a complete loosening up of the soul before the battle
of minds started.
Our campaign
began with the initial qualifying rounds of Programming Contest, and
Swat the Bug. These events saw the birth of Kryptonite- the team
comprising of Arjun and myself. At that point of time, I could only
hope that it would become as successful as The Centurions, which
Rohit and myself formed two years ago.
With events
getting delayed and postponed, the schedule got more and more hectic.
The most interesting events were the Transducer Workshop, which
involved hands-on sessions for making walking robots; the Automobile
Workshop, where they opened up a Reva in front of the gaping
audience; and, the Computer Security Workshop, which was aimed at the
inquisitive bunch of collegiate hackers in Shaastra. Gamedrome- the
gaming competition, and the afternoon and post-dinner movies were
regular features during the five days of the festival.
Our
qualification in the finals of Programming Contest, Swat the Bug, and
Codebreaker were a personal high. More so, as Google, which was the
event sponsor of the first two events, had decided hold an
interaction session with the finalists of Programming Contest.
Other
significant happenings included the umpteen number of times we
misplaced the keys to our room, only to find it lying in the most
unexpected of places; and, being stranded in the campus with less
than fifty minutes left for our train to depart, and subsequently
hurtling along the streets of Chennai in an auto-rickshaw at
break-neck speeds to make it in time. The madness continued when in
Delhi we realized that our railway ticket had a bizarre fault in it,
resulting in the connecting train to Una Himachal leaving Delhi when
we had not even set foot in the city!
Whatever it
was, the trip was worth its weight in gold. Personally this was the
first time I was not home during the whole of the Pujas, but as I had
already said, it was definitely worth making the sacrifice.
* Saurabh Kesarwani's solution was among the top five solutions submitted in his category.
** Leonard Joseph is Raghavendra's childhood friend. He is currently a
third year student of Mechanical Engineering in IIT Madras.
