This fest will always be one of my fondest memories of college days. Along with Harish (Gunda), Sashi, Manohar, Vinay Kharade and several others, I was responsible for conceiving, planning and organising the very first fest at NMIT. I am proud to say that even the name of the fest was given by me! :)

Being a fan of Indian myth and epic, it was only natural for me to dive into that ocean to look for a name. While several options came up, I selected this, as it literally means ‘without beginning or end’. Creativity and talent has no limits and that was the idea behind choosing the name. Anaadyanta is also a name given to Lord Shiva.

We had some amazing moments in planning and organising this fest. Since we had nothing to base the fest upon (being the very first fest), we had to do everything from scratch and it was no easy task.

We had some amazing moments trying to convince the management about everything, right from serious issues to trivial issues. Be it the actual fest itself to issues like stage height or about calling a rock band (we eventually called Moksha!) or event list or prize money. Everything was under scrutiny and nothing was spared! We were constantly questioned. We proposed, they opposed! Ultimately after a lot of discussions and arguments they agreed to most of our demands and we agreed to most of theirs and went ahead with the fest!

Also we had extremely limited budgets (the management wasn’t sure if the fest will become a hit or if it was worth spending so much money which could be used elsewhere, considering ours was a new college). Getting sponsors was a huge task, as nobody was ready to invest without knowing what returns on investment they will get and hardly anybody had even heard of the college then!

Harish, Sashi and I spent countless hours together covering countless kilometres to countless companies, talking about the fest and asking for sponsorship and support. Not everyone was forthcoming, infact no one was! Some were even rude and left us embarrassed! Finally we managed to get some sponsors, who though didn’t invest in large amounts, somehow contributed to the fest!

At several moments during the planning stages, we weren’t sure if the fest was going to be a reality. We had a lot of barriers to cross and a lot of discouragement to counter. Finally when everything was finalized, we even had a postponement to deal with, thanks to some issue at college! And a day before the original fest date, we called up colleges to inform them of the change in dates!! But somehow we saw it through!

Most of the time Harish, Sashi and myself were together during the planning for this fest.

There are some moments that we will never forget, such as -

Getting our first poster printed. It was more of a teaser, to be put up in our own college, breaking the event and hyping it amongst our own students first! That night at Rajajinagar, when we got the printed posters in our hands, we were all extremely emotional and it was Just the beginning! Even when we got the other main posters and literature printed later, we had the same feelings of delight!

All the hours sitting at Pizza Hut in Sadashivnagar and Coffee Day in Malleshwaram planning and thinking and replanning and brainstorming and sharing one glass of unlimited Pepsi by three!!

The drive back from visiting some sponsor when I braked suddenly in traffic to avoid banging into a scooter that suddenly came in our path. The scooter guy panicked on hearing my car screech and banged into the car in front (both in an extremely funny way!) When the car driver came out to shout at the scooter guy, he started pointing at us while we were laughing our heads off! Finally the signal turned green and everyone moved on. None of us can forget that moment!

The very first sound check in campus! The guys from Audio Touch were able to set up the speakers and sound system at something like 3 AM after a lot of trouble with the stage guys. The Audio Touch guys turned on the speakers in full blast and played Hotel California! I can never forget that moment, in the middle of the night, standing on our stage for our very first Anaadyanta, after months of planning and hard work and uncertainty, listening to that amazing song by The Eagles. When this first sound check happened all the hostelites and other students who were still on campus all freaked out and came running to the venue, to celebrate. Anaadyanta was here and how!

Realising Gunda had given the stage backdrop guys the spelling of the fest name, wrongly as “Anaadynata”, when they put up the backdrop on the morning of the fest! We then corrected the mistake by cutting out the ‘n’ and the ‘a’ and interchanging them to form “Anaadyanta”!

All our experiences with our college dean, Mr. N.R. Shetty and with our inimitable fest coordinator, Mr. Natarajan! We always had to have extra print outs of every document ready!

And last but not the least, how can I forget “Whose Father What Goes?!” :D

Ultimately Anaadyanta ‘04 was a great fest with huge participation from several colleges, including the top colleges of that time. The fest was a resounding success and everybody and everything came together over the last few days and all the various committees did their best to put up a great show!

The reason this blog post came up, is because I got all nostalgic after seeing the new core committee go all out in conducting Anaadyanta ‘08. It was held recently and they even came up with an Anaadyanta theme music and a dance performance based on the theme music!

Enjoy the video and the Anaadyanta theme!

Music composed and arranged by : Skanda
Vocals: Suchetan R , Sushruth
Dance by: Preetham and group

This is a very proud moment for me and my fellow Anaadyanta core committee members!

Btw for all that we did to create Anaadyanta – we guys from the first core committee were rewarded with a cup of coffee and some biscuits in the Principal’s office. It was the most satisfying cup of coffee we’d ever had! :)

On Saturday met up with some of my friends from college to celebrate Sashi’s birthday. We originally planned to go for Da Vinci Code, but thanks to the protests it wasn’t released this weekend, so we ended up going for Pink Panther at Inox. The movie was hilarious and though not in the league of some other comedies (like the Naked Gun series), it was good fun! We later had a nice long lunch at Cosmo Village near Garuda Mall.

I had to leave after lunch and join parents in visiting my sister’s new place near South End circle and after that to visit granma (mom’s mom) who was my at my aunts (mom’s sister) place in Jayanagar. Returned home to watch India lose a good match.

On Sunday had to wake up really early to go to Dad’s brother’s place for a family get-together and puja. Met lots of cousins and relatives!

Had to leave the function after lunch and head to Rohan’s birthday treat. Rohan is probably one of my oldest friends – i’ve known him since standard 1, when we were classmates in Bishop Cottons! Deepak Pillai and Sandeep Rao also came and we spent some time at Crosswords looking for a gift for Rohan and later went to Mojo’s for lunch and to Corner House for dessert!

Spent the rest of the Sunday at home reading a novel I bought at Crosswords – Holy Cow by Sarah MacDonald. Also read many friends’ blogs and uploaded more chapters of Ashok Banker’s King of Ayodhya at epicindia.com.

This fest means a lot to me as I was part of the team that conducted Anaadyanta 2004 – the first fest ever in our college. Also feel proud because the name Anaadyanta was given by me! :)  We struggled a lot for that fest on a shoe string budget and managed to conduct a great event after lots of problems and delays.

The new team with a few old horses have done a good job this time also and the fest was a big hit once again!

Harish (Gunda), Prateek and me after Anaadyanta 2006

 

Mukthi performing Live at Anaadyanta 06

One of the highlights of the fest was the final show by a band called Mukthi (most of the band members are from the old Antaragni band). They played some great music and had the crowds enthralled with their performance.

That was a fitting end to a hectic week. After my holiday had lots of work back at office and to make things worse I wasn’t in the best of health so didn’t get online much from home. Still have loads of photos to upload and posts to write about my North India trip.

]]> http://sabarish.net/blog/archives/197/feed 1 http://sabarish.net/blog/archives/103 http://sabarish.net/blog/archives/103#comments Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 sabarishr

Hot Hot Chinese!, originally uploaded by sabarishr.

With Sashi at the famous and our favourite “Gobi” place in Malleshwaram.

Yup!! I’m finally an Engineer!!

I got my 8th and final semester results last night and having cleared all subjects (phew!) with a decent score, I have now positively completed my graduation!

So here’s ‘Goodbye!’ to a very interesting phase of my life and ‘Hello!’ to the start of another important and (hopefully) equally interesting phase!

Now I can also sign off as -

Regards,

Sabarish R (B.E)

:D

Hopefully I can also add a post graduation degree to that signature in the coming years.

CS Rocks!, originally uploaded by sabarishr.

A whole lot of parties!

We had our college farewell party @ The Country Club today.

Find more pictures here

This week and the weeks ahead are bringing a lot of changes to my life. Life is rapidly changing lanes and going in a totally new path…

Earlier this week the academic phase of my life came to an end with the farewell ceremony at college. Now my project trainee phase is coming to an end, with the completion of my project at Perot Systems.

My association with Microsoft India’s Academic Developer Program also draws to a close. Our last event will probably be DevCon this weekend.

Next week will see me move out of the locality (Malleshwaram) that has been my home, pretty much all my life. I will be moving to C.V.Raman Nagar that is more conveniently located near my office. It is going to be a whole new experience and I am going to miss a whole lot of people and places in my present locality. Lots of friends and memories.

My last final exams will be on 4th, 7th and 10th of June. After which I have a very short holiday and then starts the most important phase of my life – as a professional.

This is it. Something that the past 18 years (2 years Kindergarten + 10 years School + 2 years College + 4 years Engineering) have been spent preparing for. I just hope I have learnt enough in these 18 years to survive in the Industry.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or
present are certain to miss the future – John F.
Kennedy

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal – Arthur
Schopenhauer

Change is inevitable, except from vending machines – Unkown

Life is a progress, and not a station – Ralph Waldo Emerson

close friends
Originally uploaded by sabarishr.

In front of Sashi’s house, which also doubles up as the meeting place + temporary parking place for the four of us who car pool to perot systems.
(l-r) Lakshmi, Swetha, Sashi and Bhargav