Good show

“Good show.”

That was Sid Coutto’s initial reaction on being asked what he thought about the whole thing. The vocalist of Tough on Tobacco was completely floored by the audience and their enthusiasm. Gaurav, on guitars went as far as to say that it was possibly their best crowd ever.

At around 7 o’clock, the final event of of Maadhyam 2011 started. Tough on Tobacco took the stage. And man, was it some show.

They played songs from their up coming new album and 2 songs from their already released album, the Happy Goat. They also played some of their old band, Helga’s Fun Castle songs.

The crowd was shouting and screaming at most times.

Coutto (vocals) was jumping and dancing, Gaurav (guitarist) was being shy as ever, Jay (drummer) was drumming his heart out while Johan (bassist) played his best too.

All in all, a great show and a great performance by a band that has already made it huge in India and partly in the world too with their only video up both on VH1 and MTV.

The show ended to Smoke Some Ganja at around 9 pm with the crowd screaming for more.

All the band members loved the show and hoped we enjoyed ourselves.

We did.

We hoped they had fun. Some of us also hope they play soon again.

And hope their new album is out soon!

Akanksha Arya

Day 3 – Shot | Event rundown

So here’s how the last, best of the lot, went.

CLICK. TELL. RUN.

Click. Tell. Run, our very own version of the classic treasure hunt turned out to be quite a hit among participants!

The object of the game was to complete a given list of tasks and click a picture as proof. Oh and just in case you thought this was child’s play… well… the tasks were spread across Viman Nagar and were to be completed on foot. Yes . On foot. No vehicles allowed.

As the hunt was flagged off, the teams ran in all directions and our volunteers followed. The tasks ranged from balancing a lemon on your forehead to posing in an inappropriate position on the road divider; because it’s all about the fun. Our winners for the event, Freskela Nuthalpatti and Priya Das from MES, Goa  said that they had thoroughly enjoyed doing all the crazy tasks. On being asked about their overall experience at Maadhyam 2011, they just said one word, “Brilliant.”

Mission accomplished! Epic Win! 😀

Nupur Sonar

WE LIKE IT SHORT

Short films. Hand-hand cameras and ideas. This was what we asked for.

We gave you a topic,

One that is ever so complex to relate to.

Let alone understand,

But you still went ahead

And with your cameras did you capture

Human Emotions,

In life’s best times and worst.

With ‘Sindhu’, you tapped our guilt,

And with ‘The Burning Times’, you made us think,

With ‘SMS’, you opened our eyes to a dependency that we are now slaves of,

And with ‘Aisi Bhi Ek Zindaagi’, you showed us an existence that we never thought existed.

The reels spun and the hours went by, with not one viewer realising it.

Film making is an art after all.

And it looked like you mastered in its learning!

Shradha Narayanan

PAINTMAN

The event began with the very enthusiastic participants seated at various corners of the amphitheatre. Each team was given a particular theme around which they had to build a superhero.

The themes given by the judges to the various teams were:

1. Team 1 – A Garden Slug Man
2. Team 2 – Gulabo
3. Team 3 – Baba Biseleri
4. Team 4 – Mustache Man
5. Team 5 – Basanti

Team 1 tried to project through the painting the various aspects of a garden slug. This slug happened to be a garden slug with human intelligence. Drawn on he partner’s face were a lot of garden elements mostly signified by greenery. It had the slug too, right in the middle of the face. There was also a globe which showed the vast extent of knowledge the man had. The painting had a book painted to show intelligence, a tree depicting the tree of knowledge and glasses shown through the colour white around the left eye.

Team 2, which was lucky enough to get a theme like Gulabo, had the best time portraying it. With a pink backdrop and blaring red eyes, the girl depicted a rose plant which walks and thorns that kill. The idea of the thorns put subtly, looking more like a mask, was a beautiful projection of what harm a thorn could do.

Team 3’s ‘Baba Bisleri’ seemed to lack a bit of innovation. The whole idea behind a man killing people with water bottles was not projected anywhere on the painted face. Though the painter tried to put in a lot of colour and state every aspect of his mind set into it, it did not give a feel of a super hero.

Team 4 had the genius ‘Mustache Man” who did not have a mask, but an identity not much recognizable. The artist used a large variety of colour to depict the various stages of anger it would live through.

Team 5 had one of the most interesting themes. Something that we cherish till date – Basanti. The depiction of this superhero was done through very serene elements. The participants face was covered with peaceful colours showing serenity at its best. The power that Basanti possessed was the power of beauty. She had the ability to stop war and maintain peace throughout the world with simply her beauty.

The winners therefore were Shivani and Punit. As prizes, the winner received Wacom Tablets. On questioning the winning team, all they had to say was about the tablet. This indeed happened to bring the event to an end, with the best deserving the best.

Iknoor Kaur

MIDAS’ TOUCH

Midas’ Touch was a clay modeling competition held outside the library on the ground floor of the college building. Participants were each given a pack of clay that had to be transformed into a trophy after which they also needed to give an acceptance speech.

This was judged by an eminent Pune sculptor, Sri Laxmi Narayan. A total of five teams participated including two teams from SIMC (UG).

After an hour of cutting and transforming, each team came up with an innovative trophy. First on stage was SIMC (UG) with the Mr. Hot award and the Best Dancer award. While one team mate handed over the trophy to the other the audience cheered loudly.

The winner was MIC College from Manipal. They designed a Best Writer trophy and they made a beautiful scroll and inkpot. As a tribute to the fest, they named the prize winning book – Maadhyam Memoirs.

Also A.M.A. College, Patna and M.E.S. College, Goa designed the Best Villain and Mr. Cool awards respectively. This event was a big crowd puller as the audience very clearly got a chance to vote for their favourite trophy.

Sreyashi Dey

DRAMEBAAZ

To look for the nuances in everything. To put it all together in one. To make life wackier and happier. This was the aim of Dramebaaz. Was the aim achieved? Were the participants any good?

Dramebaaz was held in the amphitheatre on Day 3 of Maadhyam 2011 at 3.30 pm. The show was hosted by Dhruv Sehgal and the judge for the same was the creator of FireWorks, Mr. Yogesh.

The session was kick-started by a very SIMC like opening act where the very concept of Dramebaaz was introduced and played on. Following that two teams, one from the 2011 batch of SIMC UG and another a collaboration between SID and SIMC, added to the bouts of laughter.

Even though the event had lesser participants than expected, it was one with the perfect mix of characters, situations and acting.

The SID-SIMC team won the competition hands down while Shantanu Mehra (SIMC) and Prashant Kanauji (SIMC) won the Best Actor ‘awards’.

Akanksha Arya

And so it ended. Our first fest. It had its share of mishaps and goof-ups. But oh my, what fun it was! 😀

Seminar – Day 3

It was 9: 30. The seminar was not due to start till 10:00 that morning. Generally, this was the time we woke up in a hurry to make it in time for the seminar, but today had to be different. It just had to. It was Maadhyam 2011’s most awaited seminar.  You know how they say keep the best for the last… well I guess the core team did just that by calling none other than ace editor Amitabh Shukla to address the gathering on Shot, Day 3 and the final day of Maadhyam 2011.

The enthusiasm around the seminar by Amitabh Shukla was not one born out of the blue. It was one that was much deserved owing to the achievements that he has to his credit. He has exhibited his excellence in the field of editing in films like Krish and also Chak de India! for which he won many awards.  Amitabh Shukla, a graduate of the Film and Television Institute of Pune was the student of Mr. Yogesh Mathur, who is also a member of faculty at SIMC(UG). He was honoured to share the stage with his teacher and also expressed his delight at the same.

The session with Mr Amitabh Shukla was the right mix of interaction and information. He gave the audience knowledge on the nuances of editing and also screened some of his edits as examples to support the theory he was giving. Inter Credit students who also attended the session considered themselves to be very lucky to have gained exposure to the field from an expert so early into their course. Amitabh Shukla gave important notes to the Audio Visual aspirants telling them that the technology is only to help a process and should not become the entire process by itself. His modesty shone through his remark that he himself was just learning with every film. The session was enjoyed by AV aspirants and others alike.

No better end could have been asked for the Seminars at Maadhyam 2011. Amitabh Shukla sure did make our day!

Shradha Narayanan

Sab bhula ke Nacho!

Sing like no one’s listening. Dance like no one’s watching. That was what Nacho was all about. The second sundowner at Maadhyam 2011, Nacho was a celebration of dance and all the expression associated with it.

Graced by the cast of the movie Yeh Saali Zindagi, the event was a sell-out. The auditorium was full to bursting and cheers rent the air as Sudhir Mishra, Chitrangada Sen and Arunodaya Singh stepped on stage. Promoting their film, all three of them spoke about their roles and the reason we need to watch this movie in particular. The boys couldn’t take their eyes off  of Chitrangada who was looked as stunning as ever. The girls had their share of eye candy in Arunodaya whose charm and voice had them completely enamoured.

The show was judged by Mr. Terence Joseph, a talented choreographer; Ms. Tanushree, a dancer trained in ballet and classical dance among others and Mr. Mridang who has his own dance academy in Pune.

Dipen and Chirag hosted the show in their inimitable style. No one will be able to forget that performance of Munni. Hats off to the both of them. With an opening act by SIMC UG, the competing teams had quite a standard to live up to. And oh, did they live up. The teams from Goa and BMCC among others, set the stage on fire with their energy and enthusiasm. An impromptu performance by Arunodaya Singh was just an added bonus.

BMCC emerged as the clear winner with their performance. They were also asked to do an encore since the audience loved them so much. They went home with a prize of Rs. 5000.

It was an explosive end to the second day of Maadhyam 2011. And no no no, it isn’t over yet!

Ayesha Sruti Ahmed

Day 2 – Blot – Event Rundown!

So here’s how day two went down 😀

QUOTE A MINUTE

Quote a Minute was JAM with a whole new angle to it. The event began with an introduction of the judges for the event, Sahil Khan and Shruti Nambia. As the rules were announced by Sahil Khan, Devaashish Savant prepared a ‘demo’ to be presented in front of the participants.

With quotes ranging from “Love makes the world go round? Not at all. Whiskey makes it go round twice as fast” to “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”, Quote a Minute had them all. “Love is not a feeling, it’s an ability” generated quite a bit of a debate, and “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” was put into a college placement perspective.

To bring the event to an end, we had Sahil Khan and Shruti Nambia participate too. There was also a lot of audience interaction.

On the whole, the event was a great success.

Iknoor Kaur

FLASH FORWARD

The year was 2011. The clock ticked.  Just a few minutes.  Now it was 2020.

In that unfamiliar time zone did the participants have to create a story, take a flash forward, a plunge into the unknown, having just Rahul Gandhi,  the subject of inflation and a housewife to add some much needed familiarity.

At exactly  1:30, 8 quills went to work in Mindroom 502. Thoughts raced to a different era and creativity reached new heights. The next 45 minutes saw the participants write and think with equal fervour. Together, they sent Mr. Rohan Swamy, features editor and national gadgets’ reviewer, The Indian Express, on a journey to lands that existed only in the mind.

Pen, paper, ink and inspiration . . .

It sure did create magic.

Shradha Narayanan

SANSANI SABSE TEZ

The  word on paper. The word on screen. The word that spreads facts. Breaking news; the never ending fascination of the world.

Sansani Sabse Tez brought the same to the forefront in funny and wacky ways. A look at how well we could function as anchors, correspondents and the likes was a god way to keep the flame going.  The event started off a bit late and had a few technical glitches (the camera didn’t seem to like the projector much and wouldn’t work as per the need) but picked up pace and everyone seemed to enjoy the show. With 6 participants from a few different colleges and ideas as far stretched as Amir Khan renaming his dog to Salman (Hudd Hudd Dabang indeed), the event was in simple words, pure
fun.

The judge, Mr. Yogesh Mathur, was happy with the proceedings and also congratulated all the participants on their good performance.

Hosted by our very own, Uttkarsh Chaturvedi, there couldn’t have been any better and wackier ideas for the competition.

Breaking news, the old way, with just about a million twists. An event that was fun and satirical at the same time.

Akanksha Arya

SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE

Sorry for the Inconvenience was about telling a story. With no time given to prepare, the participants were shown fifteen pictures, each for seven seconds. They had to weave a story around them and link all of them. It was a bit tricky but after all, it was Sorry for the inconvenience!

Nishant being the event co-ordinator briefed the audience and the participants about the rules. For better clarity, Nishant and Nikitha also gave a small demonstration. The story had to be started with “Once upon a time” and at all times the facial expressions and the vocal tone had to be serious. If any link was missed in between, it was counted as a drawback of the participant. The judgement was based on the maintenance of flow, spontaneity and number of images used in the story.

It was extremely hilarious in some cases and quite serious in the others. But overall, the audience enjoyed every bit of the event. While the judge calculated the scores, there were dummy performances from Rishabh, Chirag, Kunal, Shibesh and Devaashish just to keep the audience engaged.

Mr. Yogesh Mathur, a visiting faculty at SIMC-UG, was the judge. All the participants were given participation certificates first and then the winners were announced.

“It was very creative and a totally different kind of event. I have never been to any Media college fest and I am enjoying a lot here,” said Shrishti.

Manali Misra

SOUL NOTE

Whether it was about musical notes or the right vocal chords, ‘Soul Note’ of Maadhyam 2011 had it all! A soulful event that was a perfect blend of originality and music, the event witnessed some extraordinary performances that transformed the otherwise dull afternoon into one of the best musical afternoons that one could ever have.

Soul Note was an event targeted at the music lovers of Maadhyam 2011. Whether one hummed or sang or merely delivered a few lines in a sing song manner, Soul Note had a place for them all. An entirely acoustic event, each participant was given 5 minutes (including the time to set up) to perform, either with or without an instrument. The participants were judged on the quality of their voice, the use of the instrument, adherence to time, their choice of song and overall performance.

Judging the event was Mr. Mark Raj who is a famous musician cum singer and has done a number of shows both nationally and internationally.

The event began with the song ‘Gulabi aankhein…’ by Aun Husnain of Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies, Pune. It set the perfect mood for the rest of the afternoon. It was followed by a brilliant performance by Aseem Dhaneshwar of ALCHMEA, London who performed a composition by Raghu Dixit.

The music only grew better with more scintillating performances by various other participants from Symbiosis School of Economics (Pune), Manipal Institute of Communication (Manipal), Wadia College (Pune), SB college (Pune), DES Law college (Pune) and SICSR (Pune) and SIMC (UG).

The audience was completely spell bound by the performance of Tejas Menon of Wadia College, titled – ‘Could this be love.’ He was declared the winner by Mr. Raj who said, “I gave him a perfect 50/50.” Aseem Dhaneshwar was the runner up.

Just as Tejas put it while accepting his prizes, “If you loved my song, you have great taste!” A great end to a soulful afternoon at Maadhyam 2011!

Asha Ritu

Tomorrow it ends. But it’ll be LEGENDARY!

Seminars – Day 2

Day 2 of Maadhyam 2011 was dedicated to journalism and the power of the pen. The day began with a talk by Mr. Joseph Pinto, ex-editor of Sakaal Times and presently an avid blogger and lecturer at various institutes in the city. Shift of commitment, lack of responsibility, mass media as a growing brand and TRP’s were some of the topics he spoke about. Leaving the floor open for questions from the audience, Mr. Pinto kept them on their toes.

His viewpoints and opinions appreciated by a few and not so much by many were the points of discussion. Mr. Pinto’s bold remarks were clearly an eye-opener for many aspiring journalists. Morals and ethics were something is repeated over and over again and he reminded the students to remember to keep them throughout their careers as journalists.

He was followed by Mr. Aditya Dhavale, an industrial designer who was once an automotive journalist for Overdrive. He spoke about this very specific type of journalism, which is presently still quite latent in India. An inspiration for students who later want to pursue lifestyle journalism which is also very restricted, one thing he said will be remembered, “Do what you want to do and write what you believe the people should know.”

The last speaker for the day was Ms. Rajeshwari, the editor of Citadel magazine in Pune. A lifestyle journalist by profession, she spoke about how she became a journalist and what led her to this specific type of journalism in particular. She also spoke about the changing face of lifestyle journalism in Pune.

All in all, it was a terrific beginning to an exciting day.

Sreyashi Dey

Nacho? Dance, baby, dance!

Initially mistaken for the chips by most of us, Nacho is our Sundowner for Day 2.

Come break a leg! No, not literally. Let your hair down and groove to the beat.

You’ve got 6 minutes to show us what you got!

And if you’re one of the Pappu’s then come watch these contestants set the stage on fire!

What’s more?

The cast of yeh Saali Zindagi is joining us. And not just any and all of them.

We got Chitrangada Singh, Arunoday Singh and director Sudhir Mishra coming. Are you?

Passes are still available! RSVP here.

Contact : +91 88888 15475 for more details. 🙂

And it’s a gooooaal!!

Apart from the quizzes, the debates and all other interesting competitions happening inside the college, we have in the basketball court at any given point of time, 10 boys dressed in shorts kicking a ball around, playing their hearts out; all vying for the elusive Maadhyam Futsal trophy.

With 29 registered teams and a prize money of 7 thousand rupees, Futsal at Maadhyam has gathered more participants than any other single event. With teams from all over the country playing knockout matches against each other, the basketball court is a place of constant tension, chaos and cheer creating an enthralling atmosphere for everybody watching.

A lot of the credit for organizing an event on such a large scale goes directly to the event organizing team headed by Ayush Kapoor. And his team comprising of Sahil, Neha, Chandini, Mehak, Tanveer, Utsav and Faizan. Considering registrations for the event started only 2 days prior to Maadhyam, to have an attendance of 29 teams and further draw up a knockout schedule and plan and execute the matches smoothly is no easy achievement.

Each match is divided into 2 halves of 14 minutes each with a break of 2 minutes in the middle. Each team consists of 6 players, 5 on the field and 1 rolling substitute. There are no corner kicks, but 3 corners make a penalty. The penalty rules differ from the rules of popular football play, one takes a kick from the half line and has to score on an open goal. Also, no offside rules apply.

Day 1 and Day 2 have seen great matches being played with some absolute stunners being scored. The best goal of the day by far was scored by the team from SCMS, a goal from an absolutely bizarre angle. Day 3 of course, promises to offer more, as the schedule for day 3 involves the shortlisted teams that have qualified from the quarterfinals, the semi finals and the finals of the event. The event from what I gather, by talking to the organizing team, is completely open and there are no favourites. The biggest upset however so far has been the knockout of the favourites, the Wadia college team (they won the Sympulse football event).

The team from SIMC has qualified to the quarterfinals and will be playing tomorrow, so come, offer them your support and yell your lungs out.

I hope to see you there 🙂

Adithya Narayanan

Day 1 – Thought – Event Rundown!

So here’s a rundown of all the events that signalled the beginning of Maadhyam 2011. And no, it definitely isn’t stopping here.

BACK IN THE DAY

The first event ushering in Maadhyam 2011 was Back in the Day – a mad ads event held in the auditorium. Judged by Mr. Surya Tikekar – design faculty from Symbiosis Institute of Design, Pune, the event had participants from M.E.S College of Arts and Commerce; Advantage Media Academy, Patna and two teams representing the host college SIMC (UG) [they had to see how it’s done right 😉 :P].

The first team had to sell caveman fashion in 2050. This was our very own SIMC (UG) team consisting of four students from batch 2013. A ramp walk and a short snippet into the world of Flinstones depicted their take.

This was followed by Advantage Media Academy, Patna advertising a barber shop in the Mughal era. A tale of salim’s makeover to woe Anarkali is what they enacted.

M.E.S. College advertised Maggi to the nomads in the stone-age era.

The last team was SIMC(UG) batch 2012 selling the idea of living in a cave in present times. Natural light, no cell phones and a simple living was the new concept for leading a happy life!

The winner was M.E.S. College of Arts & Commerce, Goa represented by Manjunath, Allister, Priya and Freskela.

– Sreyashi Dey

THE RIGHT CLICK

We gave the means and they showed us what they’d got,in style.

They battled it out on the digital canvas right here at Maadhyam!

The clock ticked.

The ideas flowed and colours were splashed across a dull canvas.

Sixty minutes later, they’d given our digital canvases a complete makeover!

Creativity surely knows no bounds especially when one has the Maadhyam to express it!

– Nupur Sonar

AAJ KA BIRBAL

“Aaj ka Birbal” was all about facing the media, saving your name and convincing everyone that you are not wrong when your company is in a crisis. You are the one who has to face the wrath as their representative.

Every participant one by one picked up a slip which had one case study. They were given one minute to prepare for the presentation and five minutes to face the questioning of the panelists and the judges. Few got nervous and few faced the questions boldly. Some got aggressive, some were subtle. There were some funny moments too. It looked like a real press conference. The audience was completely engrossed.

Got yourself in the soup. Now get yourself out!

Saiba Singh of SIMC UG and Manjukanth Bhandari of MES emerged as the winners of the event.

– Manali Misra

SURPRISE! SURPRISE!

A prop and a situation – completely unrelated to each other. What is one expected to do? Well, blend the two in to a story of your own. But definitely, that’s not it! You need to enact your story within 3 minutes! Surprise!!

That’s exactly what the fifth event of the first day of Maadhyam ‘Surprise, Surprise!’ was all about! An excellent display of presence of mind mixed with creativity, the event saw some great performances.

Titash and Abhishek of MIT enacted a situation when a door to door salesman is trying to sell a head-massager to a partially deaf customer using their prop – bananas. The team from Patna was given a situation where they had to incorporate their prop – a slipper – into a situation where a parent was meeting a teacher at the Parent-Teacher meeting. The three teams from SIMC (UG) performed for a variety of situations ranging from a foreigner being conned by a rickshaw driver to a fireman trying to rescue a girl.

A great show ended with the team from SIMC(UG)  comprising Prashant and Shantanu winning the competition while the team from SID comprising Sriparna and Vanshaj were the runners-up.

– P. Asha Ritu

Fire! Fire!

He came, he saw and oh, did he conquer!

Sorabh Pant brought the house down with his comedy act and it was an evening well spent for all those who attended “Pant on fire”, Maadhyam 2011’s first sundowner. He shared the stage with Kunal Rao and the pair had the audience rolling with laughter. From bad puns to innuendo; from jokes about women to jokes about Indian weddings; from cricket jokes to chai jokes – he had it all, and the audience swallowed it all up, craving more. Characters like Sorabh Pun and Panjot Singh Sidhu spared no one.Oh, and there were Maadhyam jokes too. Not to for get the bloggers can’t write quip. Good thing we have a sense of humour 😉 Promiscuous Indian roads, the Dandiya and even vegetarianism – they covered all bases.

He got a standing ovation at the end of the day and the best thing about the man was that he did not take himself seriously. We all love a man who can poke fun at himself, after all.

It was a great end to a brilliant day. Maadhyam 2011 officially has begun.

– Ayesha Sruti Ahmed