Backdrop

Well, this is the backdrop i made for the cauvery hostel night which was held on march 3, 2006. As you can see, it is incomplete. Well, the theme is supposed to be "Rang de basanti". Wanted to put these captions like "A Generation Awakens", "2B or not 2B", "Be a rebel" etc..

I did a backdrop after a gap of almost two and half years and so, didn't estimate the required time properly. I assumed that i would be able to do a backdrop all alone in three days time. I forgot that i required three days for painting alone and two days for sticking up the whole stuff and making rough sketches and deciding upon the colour combinations and making adjustments to the design. On Feb 27th, i realised that february has only 28 days and that i don't have much time. I got the required material (well, i had to run around three four times to ananda to get all the material i needed). I overestimated the number of charts required. I got 100 A1 sheets while i finally used only 50 of them for the backdrop.

On 27th and 28th, the common room was not free and i didn't start the work (I know, i should have started then only). Finally, on march 1st, vikas made sure that the room is all mine. he got two locks and gave me the keys. Those three days, march 1-3 , were totally hectic. lots of people coming in, asking lots of questions, disturbing, offering help, giving suggestions, telling jokes, singing songs, chit-chatting, taking photos and videos etcetera etcetera. Finally, it did look like a hostel night. i never thought i would have so much fun in a matak hostel after living in btech hostels for five years. first day went off in sticking the sheets and making a rough design. Second day went off in modifying the design and making the rough sketch on the backdrop. In the afternoon, i saw the stage and gave up in life. there was no wooden backing to pin the backdrop. that means, i had to make my own base to put up the backdrop. I decided to buy some plywood strips and make a base like i did for the Kharagpur thing. So, bought the wood and fevicol in the evening. That evening only i started the painting work and by night 3, i finished about 60% of the background work. I totally forgot that shading with a small brush would laboriously slow. I bought sponge also for colouring the background but decided to use brush only. Benson was also there for a while. We coloured green and orange together. then i had to color prussian blue which took a lot of time. Yellow was much easier in comparsion. Before sleeping, i finished the tiger and the dark profile of the person. By the way, forgot to mention that it rained in the evening and all of us got pretty gloomy because of this unexpected flash rains in the middle of hot chennai days.

On March 3rd, i got up at 8-30 and got back to the work by 9-15. work progressed little faster but not fast enough. Just a couple of minutes seem to mean a lot. And by 11am, the dark clouds gathered and it started drizzling. I was almost at the verge of giving up the whole thing. Didn't know what to do. So, left everything on fate and continued working. Flame took one hour, prussian blue took one hour, orange recoating took one hour, hand took one hour and so on. Finally, i finished what ever is there in the picture by 5:30pm. They shifted the venue to SAC because of the rain and now, i have to stick the whole thing on the wall.. the function was supposed to start at 7pm. i just went and washed my face and sat down in my room for fifteen min or so. Then, came down, rolled up the backdrop and took it the SAC. We bought just two rolls of double sided tape and i asked someone to get more. By the time i reached SAC, it was already 6:45 and already many people were seated in the chairs. I was in my shady attire (without bath for two days and torn t-shirt and soiled pants). I somehow called people for help, and told them how to help me with the sticking part. They reacted pretty well and we finished sticking the backdrop by 7:40pm (The secretaries were hurrying us and kept on announcing sorry and all for the delay). As soon as i finished the sticking job, i just ran back to my room. i didn't even turn back to see how the backdrop looked.....

I took bath, changed into some better clothes and came back to SAC only to find that the backdrop fell off exactly two minutes before i reached SAC.. Well, thats FATE. Whatever happened, it was a great experience working on this one. i made lots of friends in the process and many people did admire the work. DJ came to me and asked "are you the one who painted the whole thing all alone? well, what exactly does that mean". i explained him the theme and that i didn't have time to write the captions.. anyways, that was one memorable day. Oh dear, i love making backdrops.

A memorable day this shall be. Can you believe it, Australia hits 434/4 (50 overs) and then South Africa actually chases it with one ball to spare (438/9 in 49.5 overs). I was totally stunned when i saw the news in the night.

Well, I saw the F1 race (Bahrain) in the evening. It was asusually thrilling. Alonso was really hi-funda. He didn't allow Schumi to take over.

And India puts England in a tight position 112/5 on the fourth day of the second test match at mohali. Kumble deserves a lot of applause. India has lots of chances to win the test tomorrow. Who would expect this kind of result even after a washout on the first day and bad light on the second.

Today, I finally met Nirupa. She came to chennai on November 7 and i haven't met her till now. So, finally decided to go to her place and then luckily she was also free in the evening. So, took the directions and reached TCS (vadapalni) in 40 min. Then she directed me to her house. The house was pretty decent but she told me that she was having trouble with her roommates. anyways, we chit-chatted for a while and then we went to her office and she showed me the TCS buildings and all. It was pretty huge and had lots of facilities. She said she liked the work and the campus, and so that should be fine. Well, guess what, we played carroms over there and as you guessed it right, i bet her 29/0.. well, the next game i didn't wan't my lil sister to look dejected, and so let her win a couple of games and finally stopped at 20/12. After that, we went to sarvana bhavan and had some nice grub. its costly over there but tasted pretty good. After that, we went around on the bike and then dropped her back at her house. By the way, she made me enter TCS office using her friend's id card (yes, thats a girl's id card and i had to be pretty cautious all the time). Anyways, it was nice meeting her and we talked a lot about lots of things. Have to bring her to IIT campus some time.

After that, i went to koyambedu and got the info regarding the buses to pondichery (vaish wanted to know the details). Well, she was very happy to get the required info. And then i drove back to IIT and crashed big time.