MICANVAS 2005: A series of events of variable fortuousness

Went to Ahmedabad this weekend to participate in two quizzes at MICANVAS 2005, the annual CulFest of the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad with my friend Abhishek. Had a very eventful two days, which I will try and recap here:

• I was searched by undercover cops twice on Pune Railway station, all because I'd grown a beard, had a backpack and was walking around suspiciously. I was also interrogated twice by undercover Ticket-Checkers twice on the train. I intend to take this up with Amnesty International and the National Commission for Human Rights, of course.
• We took an unguided tour of Ahmedabad on the way to MICA from the railway station. That is because the "Ahmedabad" in MICA's name is a misnomer, MICA is actually in a village called Shela, and is 25 kilometres from the railway station (it is actually surrounded by wheat fields). Of course, it must be mentioned that the MICAns were nice enough to come all the way to station to pick us up.
• MICA has a higher ratio of pretty girls to general population than any college I have ever seen, and I say that as a Fergussonian. (This statement inserted purely to make these three guys feel like idiots for not coming.)
• Attended a Film Appreciation Workshop by the most rabidly unthinking Marxist/Maoist/PolPotist person I have ever met. I think he deserves a post to himself (Amit Varma, who was there, has promised one), but let me just say here that I learned more about logical fallacies than I did about Film Appreciation.
• I must say, the MICAns took very good care of us. Food and transport was provided for and the volunteers were very helpful. Its true that the response to MICANVAS was much lower, but perhaps the volunteer junta at Mood-I and Malhar could take some lessons from these guys.
• Heard some amazing soundbytes like this one by Gaurav Sabnis: "Marxists fight Globalisation with Goebbelisation". Good stuff.
• Saw the offical music video of the MICA band (or the music video of the official MICA band or something to that effect). It is amazing, especially the lyrics (which, sadly, I cannot reproduce here).
• The quizzes, which were what I was there for, started somewhat late in the day, at 4. Ramanand conducted the first one, a General Quiz, and J. Krishnamurthy conducted a Solo Trivia Quiz right after that. I think the quizzes made the whole trip paisa vasool, especially since we (Abhishek and I) won an indeterminately large amount of money by coming second in the general quiz.
• The MICAns had organised a rock show (featuring Parikrama) which I missed thanks to my idiotic decision to come home on Saturady night itself.
• We had a fun trip back, which included a ride on a brand new Western Railway local train from Andheri to Dadar. Now normally, Mumbai locals are not very crowded on Sundays. However, yesterday, the Western Railways had decided to stop local trains between 11 am and 3 pm, and so we experienced a rush-hour like situation, which was fun, especially since we both had large backpacks.
  

Well that's about it, and apologies for the crummy writing style, but this really is the best I can do right now (you know, sleep deprivation and all). Later, da.

Posted in Quizzing, College Fests and ther Crap.