Speed vs Dionysia

Its January and Im missing the last leg of the glorious TAPMI life. For those not in the know, placements (which is what everyone does an MBA for, irrespective of how much the authorities try to convince you otherwise) in TAPMI happen in mid-December. What follows is probably the best 3 months ever - as the workload drops to a fraction of its original sky high levels & people just stop giving a shit about assignments & presentations. Which is also why Speed (our annual inter sectional & extremely hotly contested sports event) & Dionysia (our annual inter sectional theatre event) come up in Jan - Feb. Ive been part of both during my time in TAPMI and its difficult to decide which of the two was more fun.

One fond memory that I will always carry of Speed was when we were in PGP I. Our seniors was playing against each other in the finals & one team was 2 - 0 out of 5 sets. We had some yoga class to attend and throughout the yoga session we could hear wild cheering over the sound of beating drums (trust me Im not making this up) It was like being in the middle of a rock concert & not being able to see the band on stage. An hour later we were done & rushed to the court to find the team had staged an incredibly comeback, winning the next 3 sets to eventually win 3-2. Watching them play with so much heart gave us all goosebumps & was truly worthy of a movie.

Our matches used to happen early morning before class and in the evenings (sunlight permitting) I recall playing in the football match in the first year and the whole team suddenly realising that we had less than 15 minutes before class started. We all rushed back to the hostel & passed the girls walking to college telling us that we would never be able to make it in time. Needless to say all 11 of us were in class before the girls thanks to the miracles of soapless baths,crumpled clothes,bikes & deodrants. The fact that we could barely climb the stairs to reach class was another matter .....

Dionysia has provided a truckload of memories as well. As the (co) director, I remember hiding behind the desk on stage with the script in hand to prompt the team in case anyone forgot their lines. I swear I went crazy as the team kept jumping 2 pages forward, then 1 page back then 3 pages ahead. Of course the climax was quite unforgettable with our leading lady who was supposed to die from a bullet shot, kept waiting for the bullet and eventually dropped dead only for the bullet sound to echo through the hall after she fell. Fortunately our hero's extremely dramatic fall from a bullet a minute later got the audience back to the serious stuff. We used a scene from an episode of SHIELD (I knew watching all those episodes would eventually come handy) where a guy sitting on a chair gets shot & the impact of the bullet causes him to violently fall back with the chair giving additonal effect. Perfect timing & a very loud chairfall caused the audience to think our actor had actually hurt himself. Brilliant.

We really scratched our heads in the second year to find a play/movie to adapt (as mentioned elsewhere on the blog). Fortunately this time we had a much bigger stage to work on which gave us a lot of creative freedom. Replicating the train scene was proving to be a quite a headache until I hit upon the idea of switching off all the lights except a spotlight & having our actors in the middle with a lot of other guys walking up & down in the background with the sound of a trains engine. Being shorthanded with regards to the support team, I was worried about pulling off the play but a grand total of 2 of us managed to synchronise it perfectly. When we came to the scene I could hear the audience raise its voice in puzzlement but in a couple of seconds they burst out into appreciative applause. We may have ended up being the second best team on that night but that applause for that one scene was worth all the effort we had put in.

So where am I with regards to my decision on which was better ? To be honest they are like chalk and cheese. Yin & yang. Beavis & Butthead. Ive realised I might as well sit back & relish the memories. A tie is what I declare !