Galapagos 2012

Live blog.

Since everyone wanted a live feed of the proceedings, and a live video feed was a little beyond my resources, I decided to do the next best thing. A live blog feed. This is my first attempt, so forgive any boring parts, and cheer for the funny and interesting parts :)

Keep refreshing this page for updates...

2: 22 pm:  The prep is in full swing. People running around on stage and off it. Music is being tuned in. A lot of hubbub, the hall itself is preparing to go live, it seems. Everyone is rehearsing their roles.

The hall is nicely decorated with balloons and such. A few of them have started bursting, providing a nice background :)

As they tune the speakers and such, the hall is reverberating with extremely annoying high bass music... Since Chopade sir has already made an appearance, about half an hour ago, it seems the proceedings will begin soon. With the customary speech, I hope. And a re-hash of this famous Choto se Chulo tum song...

2:28 pm: First announcement warning people to line up backstage as they plan to start in 10 minutes. First round of heckling and trolling begins, as one groups shouts ONE MORE to that announcement...

People, as expected, have grouped themselves according to sensibilities... Sir and staff in the first few rows. the fifth and sixth years in the middle, managing the heckling. Assorted juniors clumped near the front, indistinguishable youths.. :) The non participants are then grouped towards the sides and the back.

Good to see a nice costume party of sorts, with people dressed in outlandish clothes, carrying odd contraptions :)

2:36 pm: As the buzz of "Jaldi chalu karo" fills the impatient audience, the people backstage scurrying around frantically, to get everything started. They said 1pm, it is just 1.5 hours late. Not so bad, considering the usual average.

The lights have been put off, the huge blue screen of a paused projector on stage. Poised and ready.

2:50 pm: It starts! A video of the previous  fests starts the proceedings. People cheer at appropriate times. Two juniors start the compeering, oddly, in marathi. As the video ends, The MAN walks onto stage, to start his SPEECH.

2:55 pm:  Chopade speech. Peppered with the usual Ithinkindatyounows and fraction of second i said yes and IBB is Great etc etc...

2:55 pm: Speech over in record time!!!!! just 5 min

3:00 pm:  They begin with the 1st years dance. The compeering is a bit scripted, but I guess the jokes will follow. Dance to begin now. 1st year.

3:00 pm:  Contrary to tradition, instead of the usual pooja, or ganesh vandana... we start with Its the time to disco and Qeu sera sera... Hilariously entertaining dancing! Go 1st years!! Rocking start!

3:04 pm: 3rds years bring a little marathi gondhal to the stage. Navawari saris looking good on stage!

And the guys join them for the next song... and hilarity ensues!!! hahahaha!superfun

Insane finale with a super durga pose...

3:09 pm: Brave solo dance by a second year girl... cham cham karta... she is dancing amongst the audience before going to the stage. Respect!

Light people screwing up a bit, and the audio also stopped a little. But nothing perturbs this seemingly slip of a girl. The best stage presence by a soloist I have seen in a while. Amidst weird guys in the audience, much heckling, she held her own. And a great dance to boot.

3:14 pm:  Micro dept people now karaoke-ing. Filling in Dr Chopade's shoes, I guess. Better than him though.. Two ladies, I don’t know who. hasta hua noorani chehra...

3:18 pm: Lavani. I missed who this is.. but looks good. Two full decked girls...

Its Gayatri and sneha in an encore of their performance a few years back! By encore I mean with additions of course, not a repeat.

Very nice dance this, and long! funky cameo by some juniors with a 12 waje chi bus in vajle ki bara... :)

3:30 pm: Still these two people on stage. Audio system is a bit odd, coming on in fits and starts. Hasn’t affected the composure of the girls though. they keep on dancing :)

Welcoming nikhil ajinkya and shefali to the hall. Was getting a bit bored alone. :)

It’s been a nice and awesome show till now, have to say though, the audience behaviour leaves a lot to be desired.

3:37 pm: Budding couple of IBB Archit and Aishwarya do a duet on "time of my life". Dirty dancing! Archit is way past his dhoom days, Swazye-ing it with ease! lifts and all!

3:41 pm: A gaggle of third year girls doing a funky western number...

Extremely on the edge performance. Wink wink. Gotta see chopade sir's expression on this one! surely priceless! I half expect him to step up and stop this thing right now!

3:45 pm:  Its hardik kakkad purushottam chetan et al on stage! this is the current senior most batch.... oops almost forgot vinay nair, sumit and vaibhav... the girls yet to come on stage...

girls come...

extremely awesome song selection... tan tanan tan tan taara chalti hain kya nau se bara, unchi hain blding, jungle hain adhi raat hain. mujshe shaadi karogi. ekdum sallu khan etc. :)

best entertainer so far, insane song selection!

4:00 pm: and immediately, we have a play by the 4th years. ""kyunki X bhi kabhi girlfriend thi...

a play on the relationships between mismatched couples. Very intelligent and funny ideas they have, only the continuity is a little something they could have worked on more. But very nice play...

3:56 pm: 2nd year girls. Chikni chameli-esque songs. big group on stage, lots of energy! lotsa audience support too...

4:14 pm: 4th years now chammak challo-ing...

brilliantly coordinated dance. best performance so far

superlative performance...though the glaring absence of chandana was felt throughout. lets hope she has a solo performance later...

4:26 pm: faculty dance... and guess what the setting chakka shivaji maharaj enters and the faculty performs for him!!! and the maharaj is none other than Praveen sir himself! nikhil and ajinkya provide the flag waving... nice co-ordinated lezhim by the ladies of IBB. good performance

4:35 pm:  a music performance by the second years/ a guy with a guitar and another with a small bongo. lets see what they do. an instant cheer from their section of the crowd went up as they entered. popular people these...

a mixed version of hotel california. good music, but the voice is a bit odd. luckily, the mike levels are low, so the focus is on his music...

long gaps in between. if I may say so myself, the hosting could have been a bit better. Its not bad, just that there are biggish gaps in between.

internet is conking off. I will keep track of the events and provide a summary later. ciao!

11:30 pm: Finally home, normal internet service resumed. So, the evening. It was a mixed bag really, some really awesome things and some a bit off.

Le me begin with some things I didn’t like. The whole show was a bit disconnected to each other. There was no acknowledgement of the performance before, and while the audience was clapping, the announcement of the next performance was already done. May be you needed that to get the 30 odd performances done on time. But thats not the biggest complaint I had. For some reason, there were a couple of songs sung in between. One was a classical performance. I thought he sung swimmingly well, but it was out of place, wedged in between a couple of dances. If they had started the show with this classical singing, maybe it would have been cooler. The other singing performance was plain bad. We had to say "bas karo" and stop them from singing more songs, and they had already sung quite a few. There wasn’t a hint of sur or taal, and it was quite ordinary. What it also did was mask the good guitar player who was accompanying them! when he did a solo later, we were all impressed. Also, the prize distribution was a bit funny, what with many phd students and junior faculty sitting in the audience as the organisers themselves handing out the prizes [with pats on the backs to the winners to boot!].

That done, let me list out the larger list of things I liked!

In the vein of the nice guitar player, there was also a flute soloist, who was so good, me and shefali kept saying "Ha manus firodiya chya weles ka navata!" :)

The hostel dances at the end provided a very high energy finale to the whole event. That exemplifies the idea of Galapagos as I see it. It isn't about organizing a fest. Not to brag, but we have done it twice, and frankly, it was one of the easiest things I have ever done. Nothing much to it. It isn’t about the performance itself. It is about the effort and enthusiasm and spirit behind the performance. Hostel dances aren't known for their quality. But they do have a lot of energy and spirit, and we all love them.

The effort part was evident in all the performances by the 4th year batch, the one with chandana, sumer, abhijeet, pradumnya, devashree etc. All their performances were really good. After the break, there were just two.

Archit devashree and chandana did a mixed dance. We all know these three can dance. And boy did they dance! excellent co-ordination, and a very god quality dance.

Their batch did a play based on the Firodiya winning play by SIT, "back to school". This play had a lot of complicated elements. Showing the flashback successfully. carrying out the many one liners in the play to perfection, getting out all the punches. They comic [and complex] element of the three bullies doing everything in sync. etc etc. I was afraid, it was an easy to play to botch.

Let me tell you, they didn’t disappoint A BIT. The play was, in a word, KADAK. Excellent acting. The leads were comfortable,  the best friend consummate. Pradumnya, as the comic relief, was the star I felt. They adapted the story well, to suit the IBB background. well taken punches. All in all, the highlight of the day.

With that, I concluded my semi-live coverage of the fest. All in all, it was an evening well spent. the event had a few mishaps, but then this article has so many punctuation errors too! :) I loved the creativity and enthusiasm of the current crop of IBBians, and leave with the fond hope, that like us, they too try their hand at some things outside of the University, and taste the sweet nectar of high profile exposure.

p.s. : you can stop refreshing the page now... :P