The Happening Post 1

Ok, ok….my last post sucked, alright? I know it deserves to be hung in blogspot’s hall of shame. Forget it!! now move on to my next post.

So here’s a post(actually, a series of 2 posts) on goa’s oldest inter-collegiate fest-Happenings—organized by one of goa’s oldest college—Goa College of Engineering(the official name)—or Goa Engineering college(GEC)(the unofficial name)—or College of engineering, farmagudi(as the board on the main building reads)—or the government engineering college(as the milestone pointing to our college reads).

Traditionally, Happenings has been one of Goa’s biggest, grandest and most awaited college fest. This year, it was supposed to be held on 26th,27th and 28th Feb. But then for some reasons(which I know but don’t want to believe in), it was postponed to 19th, 20th and 21st march. This post is about the first day of happenings ‘09-19th of march.

Well, as first-years’, we were naturally excited about happenings. After attending all the college fests in goa since feb---‘tatva’ of salgaocars, ‘vistara’ of architecture’s, ‘quark’ and ‘waves’ of BITS and ‘genesis’ of GMC(which I didn’t attend)--- we were waiting for our own fest. Me and my friends had registered as the volunteers and I was assigned the ‘post’ of ‘public relations incharge’ which meant nothing more than manning the registration desk at the venue. But I was excited nevertheless.

So on the morning of that fateful day, me and achintya set out on my Dio for the college. That was special enough for me as it was the first time I got my bike to the college straight from panjim. For those of u who don’t know, my college is about 26 km from panjim, so I can’t take my bike to college everyday. As we approached the college, a shocking site met our eyes. THE COLLEGE GATE WAS ACTUALLY CLOSED!! WOW!! I never knew the gate could be closed!! What’s more?! they were actually checking all the vehicles and the ID cards before letting the vehicles in!! I had always thought the “stop vehicles for checking” sign outside the gate was like those “do not cheat” instructions on the question papers which everybody read but nobody was expected to follow.

So after showing my ID card(my eyes almost welled up with pride), we entered the campus. Right there in front of us, on the circular traffic island, in red letters cut out from thermocol, were those large heavenly letters----HAPPENINGS 09. On the side, some sort of parcel-like colorful things hung from a tree making it look like some hindu-version of a Christmas tree. THEY HAD ACTUALLY DECORATED THE CAMPUS!!!

So I drove my bike further into the campus and caught up with my friends. After passing our time for sometime, we finally got our T-shirts. And trust me-they were yuck! Our class got a nasty shade of red. It was meant to be less of a t-shirt and more of a way to advertise our sponsors- Fighter Energy Drink and Bharne Creations(bless them). So behind my t-shirt was this ‘cool’ tag line—‘fighter takes the bull by its horns’. Somehow I failed to understand what that conveyed… but it was better then having a heart shape on my back(like the others) so I took it anyway.

And then we waited….and waited…..and waited….. for the other colleges to come. But none came. Till lunch time, no team had registered for any events. “ they’ll come in the evening”, we told each other and had our lunch. By now, some of the letters from the HAPPENING 09 on the traffic island outside had been blown away. And this is what they read now----PPENIS 09!!


After lunch,we went back to our position on the registration desk. Then something exciting happened… the registrations for the Treasure Hunt event started. And guess what… we had 3 whole guest teams, 2 from PCCE and 1 from RIT. In all, 10 teams registered for the event, 7 of them from GEC. Out of these 10, the organizers allowed 6- 3 from GEC and 3 from outside—to take part. But as host college, even if our teams won, they would not get any of the prizes.

So after many torturous hours, the first event of happenings 09 finished. The first 3 teams were from---well, GEC. But as the gentle hosts that we were, the prizes went to the first 3 teams from outside—in this case, the last 3. The event was very well organized though and all teams were very happy with the tasks.

After that we again continued our waiting game. Nobody came. As we winded up for the day at about 7pm, we found one of the decorative boards from the trees fallen in front of us. And guess what it read—Let’s Get started.
And my friends, that what we did for the entire first day of Happenings—wait for something to get started. There was supposed to be a DJ nite that night, but all of us had to get home. So we had our snacks for the evening and left for our humble abodes for the night. From what I heard the next day, the DJ nite was rocking and pretty well attended. But I’m not exactly the kind of guy who adds to the ambience of any party, especially when I try to do something that’s supposed to resemble dance, so never mind.

So that was it--- my 1st day of my 1st Happenings. I’ll write about the second day in my next post. Until then…..Pray for my college!!!