Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The Saarang that was




I was sitting by the side of the stage at the Open Air Theatre [OAT] with the audience swaying and Karthik on a roll. A security volunteer comes up to me and asks if could understand Hindi. I said yes. He asked me 'how come you are sitting still when Karthik is singing 'Baar baar dekho' just a few metres away, on 50,000 watt sound?' It was then that I realized I was too happy to move. But then what I was really thinking about was a guy named 'Infinity', a facilities volunteer, who desperately wanted to watch the show, but was sitting somewhere else, lonely and proud.

I really felt guilty about having to send him away and the moment I asked him to go stand guard for some equipment outside OAT, he obeyed with such military precision that it only doubled my guilt. So there I was sitting on the well near the stage thinking of all the guys like 'Infinity' who for the sake of the bigger cause were doing things which could have been avoided by proper planning of coordinators, who knew this fact, but still worked drawing enthusiasm from the thin Saarang air. Suddenly all the things we [coordinators] did, all the things we sacrificed looked very miniature in the light of this guy whose effort was so pure, unbiased and colossal in magnitude. I asked that particular security volunteer who was keeping guard at the VIP gate to join the crowd and that I would substitute him at the gate. He looked interested at the possibility but promptly said no and resumed duties.

People were ecstatic. Sounds were blaring. Coordinators had light in their eyes. Core members were hysteric. And I was too happy to move.

All through my IIT life, I always heard about people talking about something called 'The Spirit of Saarang' . On that particular day somewhere in the series of events I felt it. The spirit of Saarang. It was more deeply rooted and more strongly felt than anything I came across ever in my life.

Saarang, we salute you.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Jeremy Spoke in class today



Extract from Wiki article

"Jeremy" is the third single from Pearl Jam's debut album, Ten.The song especially gained notoriety by the way of its music video (directed by Mark Pellington and released in 1992), which was put into heavy rotation by MTV and became a huge hit. In 1993, the "Jeremy" video was awarded four MTV Video Music Awards, including Best Video of the Year.

The song takes its main inspiration from a newspaper article about a 15-year-old boy named Jeremy Wade Delle, born February 10, 1975, from Richardson, Texas who shot himself in front of his English class in Richardson High School on the morning of January 8, 1991 at about 9:45 am. Delle was described by schoolmates as "real quiet" and known for "acting sad." After coming in to class late that morning, Delle was told to get an admittance slip from the school office. He left the classroom, and returned with a .357 Magnum revolver. Delle walked to the front of the classroom, announced "Miss, I got what I really went for", put the barrel of the firearm in his mouth, and pulled the trigger before his teacher or classmates could react. A girl named Lisa Moore knew Jeremy from the in-school suspension program: "He and I would pass notes back and forth and he would talk about life and stuff," she said. "He signed all of his notes, 'Write back.' But on Monday he wrote, 'Later days.' I didn't know what to make of it. But I never thought this would happen."

When asked about the song, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder explained:


It came from a small paragraph in a paper which means you kill yourself and you make a big old sacrifice and try to get your revenge. That all you're gonna end up with is a paragraph in a newspaper. Sixty-three degrees and cloudy in a suburban neighborhood. That's the beginning of the video and that's the same thing is that in the end, it does nothing … nothing changes. The world goes on and you're gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself. Be stronger than those people. And then you can come back.



After "Jeremy", Pearl Jam backed away from making music videos. The band did not release another video until 1998's "Do the Evolution", which was entirely animated.

In 1996, a shooting occurred at Frontier Junior High School in Moses Lake, Washington that left 3 dead and a fourth injured. The shooter, Barry Loukaitis stated that he was influenced by the song.


The song has recurring

Jeremy Spoke in class today
Jeremy Spoke in class today

This soulful song from Pearl Jam remains one of my alltime favourites.
Bow to Pearl Jam

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Colours of IITM

Oh yeah, after all that sickness and desperation of waiting for it, it is finally here. Ladies and gentleman we present Saarang '08, the annual cultural festival of IIT Madras.