Bizfest and Penaz Masani

My concluding piece would be a list of 'firsts' that our batch achieved.  There were way too many.  Here is another one.  Elections were held in OUCCBM for the first time ever.  Many of us believed politics was not, not to sound too cliched, our cup of tea but the spectre of student groups (ABVP, SFI etc) affiliated to political parties making their presence felt was something no one wanted.  (You know, we are managers not politicians :))

It was more a forced choice to participate in the election process.  It was also agreed that all candidates would get elected unopposed, unanimously.  President was a foregone one - Amar.  (I believe Ramesh Reddy was the joint secretary, cannot recall).  The surprise package was Literary Secretary - me.  I had never won a quiz, never participated in JAM, or Debate or any of the stuff.  In other words, the most 'illiterate' became the Literary Sec.  I guess that is what happens in politics.

The problem was with General Secretary. Suryanarayana Murthy (I guess) was an ABVP functionary and decided to take up the post.  Vinod opposed this and decided to contest too.  This presented two issues.  First, we all agreed not to let any politically affiliated students group to make their presence felt.  Second, we agreed to selection through a unanimous process.  This situation was the lab where we learnt Conflict Resolution. 

We somehow convinced Vinod (phew!!! that was one hell of a job) and all positions were filled "unopposed".  We extracted a promise from Murthy to not let his ABVP policies affect our working.

Once the 'officials' were in place, we decided to go on to the next 'first' - organize inter-college business festival, BIZFEST.

In the meantime Harsha and Namratha had established as the team to beat in Dumb Charades.  Al was the other.   Namratha was the super singer.  Ramesh M the quizzie.  And who can forget the quirky Bala.  He was wedded to quizzing and was our senior, our classmate and, if I am not mistaken, our junior just to participate in all inter-college quizzes !!!  He appeared on Siddhartha Basu's Quiz Time.  His battles with Engine (Anjaneyulu, current IG) was an intense affair.  With such a star-studded team not to mention the literary secretary, me, what could have stopped us?  Funds.

One of the many brilliant ideas that I personally felt was way out of the box came from Kailash (Ravi).  Getting sponsorship from Thumbs up or from few corporate houses was old idea - according to Ravi, but an effective one.  Why not try another 'first'?  Invite Penaz Masani, the young(then), ravishing ghazal singer.  We will sell tickets and whatever(?) was left will be used to fund BIZFEST.  Well...this never took off and Ravi was upset no end.  The beauty of the group is all was forgotten quickly and the team was back together in organizing the BIZFEST.

Next...BIZFEST - a roaring success