Why the hell am I doing an MBA ….. PART 4
The true story of a poet who never gave up…….. and perhaps that was his problem …
Freshers : The Aftermath…
“ Could we have Pranay Tiwari on the stage please “ , blurted out Amit Daga , a second year student who was hosting the Freshers . Here it goes, I told myself . When I finally reached the stage , I tried not to look at anybody . I knew everybody was looking at me , Pranay Tiwari …. In Kurta and shorts , and a pair of ‘unpaired’ sneakers.
“Pranay let me tell you that your play was excellent and that you are a great actor ” , he continued. Please, please lets get over with it . “ Ok , so imagine that a girl is standing here infront of you , we will play a song . You will have to dance and propose to the girl . Simple isn’t it ? “
The catch , the catch. Whats the catch ?
“ Only problem is you are a monkey “.
Some students laughed . I didn’t care to find out who .To tell you the truth I didn’t want to do this . But I did. Perhaps my monkey act was not as appealing as my acting in the play . Five minutes later , Amit asked me to 
stop , thanked me for coming ,and handed me a chocolate for my efforts . Some really embarrassing acts followed , which included a duet dance performance from Tanushree and Wrik , the latter being asked to play the role of the girl . Soumyasubho , the section representative ( SR) of the other section was asked to burst five balloons from five different ‘areas’ of the body .
When the ‘fun’ ended I thanked God that none of my ‘without the shorts’ fears had come true. We were asked to go to the Students Activity Room where lunches would be served .After changing to my regular clothes , I entered the Activity Room , took my lunch packet and was scanning the room for an empty seat when I found Tuhina Agarwal , my senior events team member infront of me . “Pranay , at first I thought that you are a really serious person . But you are a real sport yaar.”
I thanked her for liking the play , finally did manage to locate the seat , and ate my hearts out . After the lunch there was to be a dance party . We all assembled on the fourth floor where the music was playing very loudly , and then we danced like crazy . I left college early because I had a train to catch .It was in the night at 12. 15 am that Pankaj Dutta informed me that I had been chosen Mr. Freshers . Before signing off he said , “ congrats man , you deserved it .”
To tell you the truth I wasn’t even aware such a title existed . Next day I collected my prize - a beautiful Parker pen set . Whenever I see it I am reminded of that day . PRANAY TIWARI…..Mr. Freshers and a monkey……
INSIGHT … and some lessons learnt …
The next few days I found myself busy with INSIGHT , our first event . INSIGHT is a corporate panel discussion where industry people meet to discuss on a issue . We have four different topics for four different specializations , finance , marketing , HR , and systems and the speakers are asked to speak on these topics . Dipro Sengupta had come up with the idea of having a separate invitation brochure for the panel members ( speakers) and a sponsorship brochure for the sponsors . Dipro who is excellent with softwares , started working on the INSIGHT logo and the brochure layout . We had finally decided on the topic and were ready with the write-ups ( that we would be sending to the panel members ) by Thursday , 21st August . Now the next task was to call the industry people , and invite them for the discussion. It was Friday , 22nd August , that I missed my first class . In the evening Tuhina called me to the events room . “ The phone has been set . Ask Koumudi to come up . Start the calling .”
“Can’t we do it from Monday ?” I said , not wanting to miss the the final class.
“ Pranay jiiiiiiiii , “ said Ruchi Jain , of the senior events team , “ jitna late start karoge , utni problems hogi.”
Tuhina looked at her and said ,” Kar lene de Ruch . Aise bhi this is the last class he will attend . “
I smiled and rushed back to attend the final period .
That night , I marked in my diary that I had missed my computer management class , the first class I had ever missed . I hoped to take the class notes on Monday . It would not be so tough , I assured myself . I would not have to miss my classes … any more . The odd one that I would miss , I would mark it in my diary and take the notes the next day . Simple. So very simple.
Next Monday , I missed two classes , Tuesday another two , from Wednesday ……. I had stopped marking in my diary.
Teachers Day … the tragedy continues.
It was Sayak of section A who had asked me if doing a Teachers Day function was possible . It was on Monday , 24th August that I saw the section representatives together and told them about the idea. “But the events committee will have nothing to do with it “, I warned them . “you will have to do everything .”
The next few days I was too busy with INSIGHT to care about anything else . It was later that I learned from Prapti that they had already started collecting the fund for the event . The date for the function was 7th September (Monday) , since we could not get the college auditorium on the 5th . Soumyasubho asked my suggestions for the programs that we should have on that day . I was determined to have three things done , first Natasha was to recite a poem that she would be writing for the event , second Tanushree and Aparajita would do an opening dance , and yes we should have a girls choir for a song performance . Natasha readily agreed to my request . Aparajita readily refused it . Tanushree changed her opinion every alternate day , and I had no clue who would be the members of the elusive choir. I requested Prapti to convince Tanushree and others to perform the dance , not knowing that Prapti herself had been learning Bharatnaatyam for 13 years . I asked Aritri , Priyanka and Prantika to be part of the choir . I also convinced Shaline of section A to join the group .
It was at this time when Somyasubha told me . “ Pranay , we are also having a play .”
“ Great , who is writing it ?” I asked .
“ You , who else ?” he retorted . I didn’t say no . But with INSIGHT round the corner I wasn’t even sure I should participate . Two incidents forced me into the thing .
I had gone into the office for getting a requisition signed . Sudip da , one of the office staff members asked me , “ Pranay , how are the teachers day preparations going ?”
“Sir ,actually that is being looked over by the SRS .”
He looked at one of his colleagues , and said , “ Pranay ei baar o naatok korche . Dekha jaak , kemon hoy ?” ( 
Pranay is doing a play again . Lets see what he does? )
Prapti had accompanied me when I had gone to the Head of the Department’s room to ask his permission for organizing a Teacher’s Antakshri . He appreciated the idea , but gently refused it .
“ We will be there to see you people perform “,he told us. “ I heard that you are doing a play ? I am waiting to see it .”
That day I knew that I had to come up with a play . It took me three days to come up with the play .By 1st of September , Tuesday , I had given the script to all the characters of the play . On Wednesday , both the drama team and the choir group were practicing on the third floor . room 301 . I was reading out the dialogues for all the characters , since this was our first meet . I could hear the girls listening to a really boring song on the laptop. Were they going to sing that on Teachers Day ? I hoped not . When I had finished with reading the dialogues I asked the team to go through their lines once . Suddenly Aritri Banerjee ( of the choir ) called me and said “ Pranay , be serious . Will you sing for the choir .”
“Sure , why not ? “ I replied . It was only when I was returning home that I realized that I was taking far more on my plate than I could afford .
This is what Prantika has to say about our singing practice and all the fun things that we did.
“Teacher’s day was round the corner and it is not difficult to guess that how THE pranay THE tiwari,as i lovingly call him, was maha excited. He literally ate up our minds to agree to put up a group song event for the day and when THE pranay THE tiwari is in charge people can’t help but give in,though with infi reluctance. We kept on saying “GAANA DHUNDHKE LAO”..and the intelligent man used to suggest songs such as “sexy sexy sexy” n “jab lagailu tu lipishtic”. None the less the group had been formed which comprised Aritri,Priyanka,Shaleen,Natasha,Subrata,Priyank ,Pranay and me.
We zeroed in on few songs which were decent unlike the ones suggested by mr.TIWARI. The first day of the practice was a disaster with none of our pitches matching and all sort of co ordination problems. But with more number of practice sessions it got better and started sounding fundoo, thanks to the infi patience shown by Subrata and Aritri and obviously the “ooooooooooo confidence” boosted in by Pranay. We kept improvising on the songs during the practice sessions. They used to be nothing less than laughter riots. Pranay never stopped irritating us and I used to be so pissed off by his 1 liners and his diamond studded platinum trumpet that I used to think ”DAYA MAX!!!! Koi leke jao re isko!” but here i would like to mention that I was in complete awe seeing this Energy Bundle ,named Pranay Tiwari..managing his play..the song (with sore throat and 110% dedication)..the event and of course his special ”raat ke dhai baje” performances with ultra cool facial expressions every now and then.
All said and done we were ready with our medley of songs to be staged on the Teachers day.”
INSIGHT 09…. The nightmare continues.
“That means we are in a soup .” and “ What the fish ?” had become Noorazaman’s ( of the first year events team ) favorite lines after every failed call and a refusal by a corporate to participate in INSIGHT. With only two weeks to go for the event , we had not made much progress . We had hoped that atleast five speakers would turn up for each specialization . But that was not to be . Infact for the Marketing panel we had feared that there would be a problem of plenty . We were wrong . As on September 1st only one person had given his confirmation for the marketing panel discussion . I hoped and prayed for some miracle .
Teachers day and a failing health……
I remember two facts clearly about our Teachers Day preparations . I realized that I was giving more of my time to the choir than to my drama team . Infact Wrik banerjee ( who was in the play ) pointed this out to me . “ You cancelled last day’s rehearsals for your singing . This is not done boss .” I knew he was right . I apologized to him and promised that even if it would mean staying after the college I would do it ,but the drama would be done.
The second thing was , it was at this time that I started to have serious health issues . All day I was running around , from the events room to the office, to the Activity room and just about everywhere and the physical exertion was showing on my health . I remember that once while returning on the train , I was about to faint 
when a man noticed me and arranged for a seat . I used to eat very sparingly . Infact I didn’t get the time to eat because it was during the breaks that the drama team practiced . I puked a lot during those days. And yes , my right leg started paining ( a pain , that persists even now ). I was tired , tensed and used to get angry over trivial issues . It was here that my drama team showed great patience with me . I will always be indebted for the faith and the trust they kept on me inspite of a lot of problems (and my temper). But the biggest problem was my voice . Constant shouting in the play rehearsals and the singing practice had left me without a voice . I remember I used to take about 5 Strepsils everyday during that time. . I didn’t want to mess it up specially for the choir .
On Sunday night , my Gtalk satus message was meant for God (although he is not in my chat list yet ). It read “ let me have my voice for the next 24 hours . And then you can have it forever .”
As I turned off the light …. I prayed that tomorrow never comes .
But as James Bond had said ,” TOMMOROW NEVER DIES “ and so I was destined to live my tomorrow and DIE ANOTHER DAY.
Next week….. the second last part ..
The teachers day … the accidental hosting… a SMS midway …………refusals …… a trust broken…. a trust gained…… and yes ….the making of the PRS…..
The beginning of the end commences …. Next week
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The pictures from top to bottom …
1) Wrik and Tanushree… clearly it takes two to tango…
2) Me …Mr. Freshers…
3) The choir minus the boys…
4) Priyanka , Prantika and Soumyasubha busy with the Teachers Day decorations
