Kettle!

Guides:
.This one's on our metallurgy department symosium mettle(modified to kettle, lol) .

.Hai daa is one of our profs.

.Ravan and dheeru are my dept mates (names modified).

. staf-adv is for staff-advisor, Co-Tr is for the Co-Treasure and Co-Ed is for Co-Editor (thats me!) of this event.



Came Feb,the month of no lectures and all symposiums in NITT (our college).
A few "meta guys" had already started pondering over it at the fag end of the previous sem . Their symp "KETTLE" was supposed to be scheduled last. So there it was!But there was someone who was really ecstatic abt Kettle and it was none other than HaiDaa.The very dynamic HaiDaa was the staff-Advisor for kettle. He was in many ways the right person, due to the plethora of contacts he owned.
The next sem dawned and shoulders started drooping under the weight of the heavy-duty cpc schedule.There was absolutely no semblance of a whisper about kettle, in these few months, untill HaiDaa woke up from deep slumber and then spoke aboutt the royal constitution of committees which had taken place last sem.

"Committees?" someone asked.

"What for?" and then a query bank arose.

"Its for Kettle,dude" replied a smart alec.

"Oh, are we having Kettle this year also? Sorry ,totally forgot about it?" said person1.

Apparently a few more days passed and the cpc schedule had just turned into a mere "come-give-go" formality after all.HaiDaa presumed that the time was right to strike the red-hot iron. His first meeting was scheduled at 4.30 pm and only a sprinkling of students had gathered.One of the biggest kelas before Kettle and the inevitable sign of things to come!

"Ok, must be busy with cpc's!" he thought.He looked around the class. "Strength is less,hmmm" as his voice descended to his customary mumble and then he give a smile to "mama" sitting in the first bench.He then looked at his watch and realized that it was worthless waitin for more benches to fill up."Anyway, Kettle is scheduled to take place in March and we have assembled here to chart out("work out" to be precise) the plans. The core comittees have been formed and once again we will go by what we did last Kettle (and what did we do last time?). We would like the whole thing started as early as possible, seeing the pace with which other dept's have started their preparations. i think you must have identified a few areas for getting the sponsorship money and provided we have "pooled" up sufficiently, we can get some good technical sessions. The second years can work for the sponsorship work since they have the time, the pre-finals are busy with their cpc's."
He then glanced around.Wiped the imaginary perspiration of his forhead.Found a bakra.Gave his customary grin and called out the 2nd year by his second name.The chap has no option but to respond (in silence).
HaiDaa then stretched his session like a rubber band, by bringing up the "exposure part of Kettle, rather than the technical aspect of it" , blah ,blah..... It was probably the first of such HaiDaa sessions on Kettle that these 2nd years had attended. The pre-finals had a fair idea on what HaiDaa would speak on. But excess of anything is too bad and he was stretching it to elastic limits. It required just a shrug from the very charismatic,red-bagged Raavan who was till then silent, to finish off proceedings. So the agenda had been set. After all deliberations, Kettle was finally getting shape!
Future meeting and sessions were organized, now on a more frequent basis. Each meeting to decide when the next meeting would be held and what would be its agenda. But, the cold underbelly of the "metas" dept raised its ugly head. The msg "Kettle meeting at 5'o clock" came to be treated with utter disdain and acquired the status of "the most deleted msg" in all cell phones.The strength dwindled, session by session, much to HaiDaa's horror. And so did the interest levels, till they hit rock-bottom.
"All right, the unimportant members are not present. It does not matter." he said to reassure himself."At least the core members are here.Thats enough"Then the session began on spons, exposure, "budget" and finally on Kettle and its guest lectures. On the next meeting many core members appeared late. HaiDaa acepted them, though not with outstretched arms but with a bit of a gingery comment."Core members, the meeting was scheduled at 5." Looked at watch. He then eyed them , though not with anger and permitted them into the class. Some duties were assigned for the members to look after.The talks about fixing guest lectures on select topics had also run into bad weather and the students whom he requested to do so had not responded quick enough for his liking. Absolutely no work had kick-started and it was beginning to show on HaiDaa. They had tested his patience.
The next meeting was just the ideal prick needed to burst the growing balloon of discontent which had built up in HaiDaa over the sparsely attended sessions which were incresingly turning out to be in the normal cpc-mode (come-give-go)and the zero groundwork done. HaiDaa went all guns blazing.It had been an open invitation to the whole of the "metas" dept and only 20 odd had turned up. He chose almost every core member. One at a time.He had obviusly been pissed with the apathy of the "metas" junta and was giving vent to the anger which had agglomerated with each session.
"Your contribution to Kettle has been epsilon, not zero, but close to it.You can only talk for different web designs but when it comes to work, you do nil" he fired the first salvo at dheeru. "Very good ,keep it up!" He thundered. Shook is head and supported his forehead on his fingers, "mourning-style".A slight sarcastic grin translated into a off-color face as he spoke." Last kettle, the then third yrs were very inactive and unfortunately the trend continues." Stops. Wipes out the imaginary sweat again and grimaces a bit." Inspite of this, we had success because of the work done by the then second yrs and the final yrs.I am sorry to say that the overall feedback this time ,mostly from the third yrs,is very discouraging. Infact, there has been none from your side."" The dept is ready to extend support in any form. But this is the response you give. Its a big shame, not only to you, but to all of us." Again head in "mourning-style." "Very good ,keep it up. I appreciate your honesty, very good."I couldnt stop being amused. It had been a while since HaiDaa had spoken in this tone. "If you continue in this fashion,there wont be, Kettle , next yr. It would be doubtful; I wont be there next time around." I could hear a few sighs' of relief from the current third years'. " You will be free to do what you like. And please do not give me those cycle-test excuses. I know how many of you take it seriously." Then he proceeded to give the Ed a sharp dressing down. After finishin it off,he trained his guns on the Co-Ed, who was enjoyin every bit of it like a soap-opera. "And the so-called Co-Ed you are supposed to help him with it."He continued his fire-breathing session to pull up another second yr who had not even given his database info, to be done at the start of the third sem ( the height of laziness! disgusting!).

Another sigh of "I appreciate your honesty and your commitment .Keep it up. Well done."
"This is my last meeting with you and hereafter I wouldnt want anyone to disturb me."Somehow it was concluded.
The next few weeks passed on well, except for the fact that none was workin in co-ordination wid the other,leading to a comedy of errors and ultimately the blame game continued,the Co-Ed being the sufferer on most occasions who couldnt help wondering wat was wrong in his work. As a result of this, heavy weather of the given work was made.Guys went on a regular basis to HaiDaa to get fired.
Amidst this, the finishing touches to the souvenir were given and sent to the press, which had the most primitive of comps,belonging to the prehistoric times, i guess (Everything was transferred using a Cd ,not a pen drive.)
A bright second yr meta, the much-rubbished Co-Ed and the Co-Tr teamed up to design the T-shirt and the caption for it.

Regards

Vishwesh