A not-boring, not-painfully publicity driven blogpost about QUARK 2009
DISCLAIMER: This isn’t summary of the who and the what of QUARK 2009, neither is it about the technicalities of its preparation and execution…it’s simply a disjointed, personal account of what transpired, as seen through the virgin eyes of a newly shod first year.
QUARK 2009…it swept in like a spring tempest, cascading the withered monotone of our daily routine into a much needed and longed for chaos.
It’s not everyday that one feels like disturbing their slumber to rise and shine and take on the Herculean walk from AH6 to the B Dome, but this exact feeling was inspired in me for the 3 days that QUARK nested in our campus.
The first day started off strange…woken up at an unholy hour of 8 in the morning by my fellow colleagues in the department of sponsorship and marketing, I began the morning by introducing some of our sponsors to the brilliant meals served in the holy sanctum of the A mess, and then managed to thoroughly break my back in the inspired job of putting up banners all along the B Dome.
Oh joy….
One of the big things happening this QUARK was the fact that ex-president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was scheduled to come and interact with the student body of BITS. Apart from being able to experience some of the tightest security seen by the campus, we were also treated to an inspirational speech and an interactive question answer session with this brilliant man.
The variety of events at QUARK was quite stunning, and it’s impossible to attend or describe all of them. However all of them had the common factor running throughout that they were all extremely FUN to take part in. So whether it was battling out your wits and logical ability in Googly, or attending the workshop on the who, what and why of corporate finance, or the zany informals, like twister, where the ardent BITS crowd took the initiative of distorting themselves into grotesquely fascinating shapes and lying on top of each other in a tangle of hands, feet and pain (…) the entertainment factor remained constant.
One of the most fascinating events, which saw an amazing response and stretched throughout the three days, was the gaming competition, MATKA. You could know, as soon as you walked through the doors of the cc, that you had entered another realm, quite different from the everyday world you lived in. For this was a place crawling with warriors, who walked with a swagger in their steps, as their fingers went through the subconscious cyclic motion of making that fateful mouse click, and a continuous chant of ‘GG’ kept escaping their lips.
MATKA is worth attending, simply because you get to see a whole crowd of people who you never really knew were from your college, neither would you have ever run into them under the light of day. It was where the meek ruled the world, where the uninitiated cowered under the smirks and superior air of the thinnest and meekest of our population, knowing that he could probably snipe you through four layers of walls and give you a headshot up the arse. The darkened rooms, ringing with the sounds of gunshots, cried of frustration and jubilation, and many a ‘fire in the hole’, made quite an intensive battlefield.
The nights during QUARK do justice to the phrase ‘entertainment packed’, with performances put up by both the college clubs as well as external performers. The mime club put up an exceptional display of their talents by enacting out a game of Mario and an aggressive football match, the dance club was quite mesmerizing as they used UV lights to great effect, and the music society was a treat for the ear, as they presented a mixed bag of hindi, soft rock and metal music to appease the tastes of one and all.
One of the most disturbingly seductive assets of QUARK was the food stalls. I say disturbingly because it seemed quite impossible to not spend money there, and the road leading to CH2 was packed with the poor, the hungry and the satisfied. Conditioned by the mess food, the stalls offered the only respite that one might get for a long time to come, and with a line up consisting of Dominos and Baskin Robins, their seemed to be a subliminal message being broadcast to reach for your wallet and whip out as much moolah as you could muster.
I think I’ve barely even begun to touch on the essentials of what happened at QUARK, and theres a million more things that still need to be said, but that’s probably for another post.
What I can say is…lit up by energy, excitement and the glowing irises of the Q-BOT, QUARK 2009 was loads of fun.
By Achintya (noob first year :P)