My seminar being over,(yeah yeah it was a stupendous performance which would have been flawless if it hadn’t been for my last slide with a pre recorded Applause. which kind of gate crashed while I was still on my penultimate slide.. it was the ultimate….even the ever critical DUTTAN said that it was ok)anyway. Special thanks go out to Aravind, Shibu, Athul, Dinup , Johnson and others for making their vehicles available to me, to abhishek for lending me his 4.1 creative FPS speakers (they truly are great)and to duttan for doing the demos and repairing my Pc more than once! Since that was Ok My heart is lighter by several tons. I stayed behind to make our Entry for the College Onam festival Atham

The problem with men in general and engineers in particular is that we are very very accurate. The first attempt on drawing the atham is done in adobe Photoshop. That fails.Dreamweaver flash is summoned to help. Unfortunately Even its array of graphics fail the demanding precision required by the creators. Finally help comes in the form of SOLIDWORKS a package that is apparently used by our mech brethren to create technical drawings. Soon the working copy is ready.

Now the real world Implementation. The flowers are sourced from Tamil Nadu in three huge bakets.There is around 1K worth of flora in there. Then the actual drawing. The scene of that is one of great joy and merrymaking. All the engineers get on the floor, clear the tables and whip out Twine and chalk, Music and liquid refreshments also make an appearance;) soon the basic structure is all laid out. Then comes the fine detail. Each of them is constructed using a bit of twine and chalk as fine compasses. Ellipses are also drawn. Remember all the while that we are engineers of electronics lineage to whom all this has been alien for three years. Arguments break out as all arcs are not touching and some don’t align up with the reference Grid. The group decides to do the fine filling in work freehand. The fist time goes ok...But some slight faults remain. They are corrected. The only spanner in the works is that fatigue and the liquid refreshment are taking their toll on the focus of the artists. The second version is quite not as good as the second. The third turns out even worse. Tempers are none the better. Finally we come to a consensus to stick with the original. its almost 8pm in college. I take off for home leaving the hostelites to stay back and prepare the petals. (Yeah no girl involved in the construction of this one…their use is to be purely decorational.)the next day dawns .the night shifters say that many a tale was told and many an expletive delivered during the long working night. It also was an occasion of male bonding. I shrug it off and go on with the preparations of the rest of it. Rules stipulate only natural ingredients are used .due to this all sorts of colored matter find their way in. Like scraped beetroot for example. It’s all legal of course. All the men are working their asses off while the women stand pretty and Do the P.R. soon the thing is ready and the ornamental ladies installed for the final evaluation by the clients. Meanwhile the traditional “kaduvakkali“ makes its appearance with its own bunch of merrymakers .

We move onto the traditional banquet set for us by our semi benevolent administration. I eat the first- The first guy in the first bench in the first serving. (It helps if you’ve been doing your time in the kitchen and are connected to the guys serving the meal)after that there is a small spot of relaxation while the news of the meal being ready travels to the classes .Time to enter into PR mode ourselves. Chat up all our friends in other branches (especially ones with camera phones, digicams and camcorders to ensure ones place in photographed history) and share the suffering of those who came in late and wont be eating for a while. Meanwhile the results are announced .not third….not second………..but FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Much much more partying ensues. Fake surprise expressions, jumps and howls of joys group hugs even kisses! Back in class. More photos are taken with the atham as background. Then the creators (us) stake our place ON it leading to it getting ruined. From then on there is no mercy!!!!!!!!!

Flower petals become lethal weapons where a holi like event, only with flower petals and rye instead of dye ensues thoroughly filling our faces hair and even underpants:D

That was one blast!!!! Now to return home and for some well deserved rest.
EDIT: STOP PRESS it turns out we won the vadamvali too!
We are the champions..................................muahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa!