The experience that was Ragam 07

Many would know Ragam as the cultural festival of NIT Calicut, some would know about it as the biggest fest in Kerala, others will know it as the place where big names perform in the pro show. But to know what it really is one must go there and feel what it is. It's all about Feeling the excitement rather than getting to know it from people who went for it. Fortunately a small group of students from GECB wanted 1st hand knowledge about all the hype surrounding Ragam. I was fortunate to be the team captain and i found it to be among the best days of my life. Special mention should be made that we went with ZERO preparation for the program and still had a respectable position at the end of 3 hectic days of competitions.

There were just 17 of us. 4 gals, one parent and 12 guys. We started on 14th evening. When we reached the station to board the Kannur express to Calicut, we were shocked to see the large number of students from CET and MBT. When i asked around i got the info that there are more than 200 students from MBT and about 150 from CET. When they asked me all i could say was a handful 17. The trip started off on a good note when we had not many problems in getting our seats close to each other. Since we had booked the tickets just 2 days before the journey the seats weren't close and we had to coax people to shift atleast so that the ladies would be close to each other. We reached Calicut station at 6:10 in the morning and we reached the campus by 7:30 thanks to the fast buses and the taxi that the ladies took.

We registered and the guys were huddled into 1 room in the Men's hostel and from what i heard the ladies had a better stay with just 4 in a room. We guys had a room right next to the bathroom and we thought it will be reeking with bad smell. BUT the best thing about the NITC Campus was the food and the toilets. The food was available round the clock and i mean 24/7 courtesy the mini canteen near the hostel and even though the canteen had not much space the menu was filled with all kinda mouth watering delicacies. We enjoyed eating under the shade of trees around the campus and making friends with people who may never be seen again.

After freshening up we came to the Main Building and the road leading to the main building was bustling with people in all colours, shapes and sizes.

Rajpath-The main road to the campus

Main Building-All lit up for Ragam

After this we went to the prelims of a few events and DAY one ended on a high note for us when we heard that Ananthalakshmy had won the 1st prize in Light music. After this we went and saw the dance in the OAT and stayed there till 2 AM and when we reached the canteen, it was still open and serving hot plates of noodles and omelettes. We had a sumptuous meal and came back to the room by 230 AM and found some sleep.

Sleep-We hardly had any time for it!

The 2nd day started off with the odd events. Items like Vegetable Carving, Clay Modelling and all were slotted for this day. Some of us participated in these and won prizes in this too. Me and Madhuri got into the finals of the senate debate competition. It was a good experience but we didn't win any prize. We had to represent a nation regarding a issue about Arms trade in a UN conference. Due to time constrains they cut short the event and it was pretty bad since we spent all afternoon preparing for this even without having lunch. In addition we had the prelims of some other events too. In short day 2 was pretty hectic.

Prize winners with their creation(Arun Mathew, Aneesh and Razim)

Sadly no prizes for this

At the end of the 2nd day the Shaan Concert was to be held and we didn't think of it as a good way to spend 200 buks. Even otherwise we had lot to SEE and admire in the campus. So we preffered to stay outside the OAT and just loitered around the campus. We found the various departments, the labs, the beautiful PEOPLE roaming around hand in hand. On the 2nd day night we had a conference in the MH and were enlightened on the various actions that a man will undergo after marriage by none other than our Jyothiraj. His beliefs made us laugh like hell and even surprised us at times. By the way he was the one who thought that Ragam had Tech events and had come preparing for that. When he reached here, he found that the only thing closest to a tech event was the rock show and he took a ticket for it and got in on the 3rd day. He was among the LUCKY FEW who saw the rock show by Evergreen AND the fashion show.

Evanvare rock FANaayi

The end of 2nd day we had nothing except the prizes in Light music 1st and the 2nd in vegetable carving. We just were damn tired at the end of day 2 and it was 1 am when we reached the hostel.

He can sleep anytime anywhere........

If day 2 was hectic then day 3 was hell. Many of us had so many events simultaneously that all we managed to do was to rush from one venue to the other. I had 4 event prelims at the same time. Had to call the coords and fix the events 1 after the other and it was a bad time for me to run around from one room to another, especially with my 90 odd kgs. We got into the finals of Adzap, Triple mash and Madhuri got into the finals of Ms Ragam. We got the first prize in Classical music when Anathalakshmy managed to sing a beautiful melody. Thus we had 3 event finals and i thought we stood a good chance in all of them. We also had Rangoli, cartooning and Mono act.

Winner of the Musicals

In the afternoon we got our product for Adzap. It was an energy drink and we had time till 4 pm to make an ad and other features for our drink. We fixed G-Spot as the name. The tagline was TRIGGER THE SPOT IN YOU. We had it like an abbreviation with G-spot standing for Get the spot, where spot was Stimulating Power Oriented Thanni ( i think this was it, not sure). We had a very raunchy ad for the drink and thought we were pretty good with it. Before the Adzap we had the Mr n Ms Ragam finals and Madhuri was the 1st participant on stage. She did well in the 1st round to get the crowd into the arena with a superb dance. Immediately after this we went for the Adzap finals and we had a very good judge who made us all sweat a lot in that small classroom.

G-Spot the drink that we made famous

In Triple Mash we got the 4th position and same was the case with AdZap. At the end of this the ladies in our team left for Trivandrum and we 12 guys were left to loaf around the campus for the last night @ NIT-C. We heard at 6pm that the 2nd in cartooning was for Jinto from our college and at around 7 pm we got the news that Madhuri had won the Ms Ragam title. Even though it didn't have any points or cash prize the title is a big thing and it was pretty good when people were telling that a gal from GECB got the Ms Ragam title.

The 3rd night @ Ragam had Evergreen performing and after this was A La Mode the fashion show. Many of us who were outside were disappointed that we came all the way from Tvm and couldn't witness the mother of all events- Fashion show. But then we had a good time in the campus.

The NOKIA stall was all ours on the last day

Round table conf 2-No xplanations for th awkward look on my face

The time we spent on the benches outside the main lobby proved to be pretty good since the teams going for the fashion show walked right in front of us! So it was PAISA WASOOL for us! We sat there till 2 am or so, then went to the mini canteen, had hot plates of noodles or fried rice and packed our stuff for the next day's trip back home. It was a sad feeling to leave this paradise and get back to the monotonous life of being a GECian. Compared to the fun we guys had there the life as a GECian is nothing! For those who didn't show up, you ppl missed a LOT. Things that i have said till now and many more that you're free to come up and ask anytime you want.

The trip back started on a slow tone. The train was at 840AM and most of the gentlemen had just got up from the beds at 630 and 7AM. The coord's had arranged for 2 buses to drop the crowd of participants back to the railway station. The crowd included the MBTians and CETians who were crowned overall champs. The dejected look on MBTians was a sight to see. They had come with this large contingent to win the title back to back, but the CETians would have none of it and there was also competition from Amrita.

The train ride back was fun and we were all huddled in a general compartment from Calicut till Tvm in the Parasuram Express. It was hard at first when the whole train was filled with students. It was fun to watch people in jeans jostling for space and guys having guitars and cymbals in their hands in the small wooden seats.

Seatillathe DOORil thoongi

Ithinu Oru captionum seriaavilla

Avasana Thullivare njan Nakkum

We had some company on the ride back and the ride was filled with moments of fun and some special moments were:

JK Drinking the last drops off the Maaza bottle
Jyothiraj wearing shoes of 2 different kinds
Karthik in a desp mood clinging onto JK
Dennis and JK not getting to eat anything while all of us had food
Playing DumbC on the ride back and getting amused looks on the face of co-passengers
Jyothiraj ordering everything from Vada's to Sambharam to fill his stomach
Sasi's friend who was silent till Kottayam getting a gal to give her number to him and then they moving out from our seat and finding some PRIVATE moments.

Evane Poovittu Poojikenam

This pic on JKs Demand

We had a jolly good time till Tvm in the jam packed train and met a few INTERESTING people as well. We reached Tvm at 640 in the evening and parted ways with sweet memories about the experience that was Ragam 07.

We came to a respectable 13th Postion(that's what i heard from the reg desk when we checked out). Now one might say what's so good in being 13th. I shall say its damn good for a bunch of people who came to know about the events on the train to Calicut, its good to be 13th when many colleges with 2-3 times more participants managed to get nothing and we had 2 first prizes, 2 second prizes, some 8 finalists and the Ms Ragam title.

So this is what we get when we go with Zero preparation. So if we can manage to prepare decently for Ragam 08, am sure we too can give a good fight for the top teams. Only thing that saddens me is that i won't be there to witness that. It was a great feeling to be the team captain of such a small bunch of students and still get to a respectable position.