Antakshari – The Journey (First Half)

So, once I got my creative mojo for ‘Antakshari’ back, I started scavenging the net for video snippet of bollywood songs and this is where youtube came in very handy. Man! It’s whole different world out there or should I say 'in' there. Also, becoz of my past experience with organizing songs for ‘Sangeet’ night, I had landed myself a cool little shareware tool/website that converts youtube videos to mp4 format. It was like finding a piece of diamond among coals.

Now, that I could collate the video of the specific songs I was after with the help of the tool, most of the other tasks like choosing songs for various versions of audio rounds became a breeze. Not quite a breeze but as I already had a large collection of audio songs in my iTunes, it felt easy. Only issue I found here was that I felt as if the non-picked songs were suing me for discrimination. Imagine a parent’s plight when they have to hand-pick between their twins for a competition in which there is only one entry per family. Now multiply that plight by 1000. If you have kid(s), you would have understood what I wanted to convey and if you don't have one yet, then apology - for a wrong analogy.

As I digitally posted the RFI for the event, pinned down the possible date, pestered people to at least act on my invite, I had this urge to push the limits a bit more…it was all going too smooth, it can't be so easy, right? So, I had this flash of an idea, (not again you might say and I agree. I might have to see a doc soon) how about adding a mixed-bag buzzer round at the end? It would be a perfect icing on the cake…and not just any cake. It has to be a vegetarian Black Forest cake from a bakery in Kumara Park, Bengaluru, India. Damn!! I am distracted again…let’s get back on track. Was I pushing my luck bit too far? Was I going mad as if this is my first and last event which I will get to organize? But I didn’t care; as I just said, I had this rush of an idea and adrenaline was flowing like a, like a, hmmmm say lava. Yes, that sounds all right. Anyways, I went to work (with my Industrial & Production Engineering background) and came up with an idea for a buzzer system, which at that moment I thought was just brilliant. Some part of me still thinks the same even today. Below is the digital copy of the original draft.

From Blogger Pictures

With this initial concept, I went to consult with bunch of my friends who also happen to be my ex-colleagues and all most all of us are in IT field. What is that idiom, "Birds of same feather..." or something like that. As always happens when we meet, even though there was unanimous and exciting approval for my idea, (or invention, as I love to call it) a bunch of radically different ideas were thrown in the ring. One thing lead to another and I started having second thought about the ease of getting the material required, time to build, economical feasibility etc of my invention and at last I zeroed on a software solution instead of a mechanical one.

With a quick online research, I found very handy old-fashioned basic interpreter, CHIPMUNK Basic and a software solution started taking shape on a cool MacBook Pro. The initial idea and code came from a lab report written by Jeff Adkins . And after rewriting the entire code, when initial version of the software came into life I was elated. I forgot all about the disappointment, which I might have had for ditching my original idea invention. A quick beta testing with same brain storming (or should I say brain washing ;-) who rightfully directed me to software solution) group gave me the confidence that it can and will work. While testing, I ignored a very crucial thing which would come back to haunt me at a very crucial juncture during the event itself but I will save that for later. Only if I had discussed it with my group that night, my next story might have been a completely different one. But hey, then it wouldn’t be so interesting read, would it?

During all this, the date was finalised for the event, enthusiastic RSVPs started trickling in, ppl started offering to help, in one form or the other, after realising that the event of this magnitude is not a one-man job. THANK GOODNESS FOR THEM. In between, as I had enough motivation and time on my hand, thanks to my very understanding and equally enthusiatic life-partner, I started improvising the buzzer software and at last came up with what you see in the video below.



Realising that the minimum number of songs, including, both audio and video, needed for the whole event would be approx 90+ and extra work required to select and convert them into right snippets, some of my well-wishers offered to lend me a hand by volunteering to drop from competition and one such person was my ‘partner-for-life’ or you can say ‘partner-till-death-do-us-apart' but, the former sounds more positive than latter, doesn’t it? And even after constant pressure from her, and knowing how much my life-partner loves humming songs and that she would love to be on the other side, I didn’t budge and I was firmly ‘sticking to my guns’.

PS: Rest of you who volunteered to drop, if you are reading this, you know who you are. Thank you for your consideration.

Antakshari – The Germination

A year ago or so, an idea flashed (yeap, I have these panic attacks regularly ;-)) in my mind, thinking of organizing an ‘Antakshari’ nite for people who I enjoy being with. I am exactly not sure what triggered this panic attack but I guess I was bored to death doing my 9-5 job. Searching for that elusive dream job which would satisfy me, didn’t take me too far. Actually, on the second thought, it almost took me to Brisbane.

Oops, back to the topic. I start putting my thoughts behind the project, the format and the type of rounds and all the usual things a good ‘Antakshari’ event should have. One and only hindrances I thought at that moment was that if I were to organize it, then I wouldn’t be able to participate because of the format of the game. But it was a price I was willing to pay for a one good night of fun filled entertainment. The round which would take lot of my time I thought would be a video round as it’s hard to get snippets of the popular songs and especially if you are thinking of various genres and various generations of participants.

I started collecting snippets of video if and when I found them on the net but didn’t make much progress। Only snippets I could find were of latest movies without much of variety between them. And during this, my work life took turn for better and I landed myself a very exciting opportunity at a start-up which had signed a contract to provide a ‘from-the-scratch’ software to a joint-venture company formed by two giants from completely different domain. The project surpassed all my expectation (which was already low anyway) and my work life started looking up again. My 9-5 of the weekdays flew even before I could blink my eyes and weekends went eating, drinking and being merry with my nuclear family, mates and companions.

Between all this, my ‘Antakshari’ idea took a back seat and eventually was pushed way back in a closet, which we like to call brain। Literally, 8 months passed as smooth as a warm knife through a butter, government changed (I had a contribution in that too for first time) in Canberra, we as family went on our first big and interesting road trip covering east side of the country and life couldn’t be any better. But what I had not realised was that "अपने पैर पे ख़ुद ही कुल्हाड़ी मारदी थी" by contributing towards change of the guards at Canberra. New government while in opposition was always against the contract awarded to the join-venture company. Very first thing it did, among lot of other things, was to cancel the contract by giving one of the bullshit excuses I have heard in my life. Joint-venture fell through, my parent company had to retreat and reassign the troops to different projects/companies and my work-life again started looking gloomy.

This is when one day I got an invite from one of my close family friend for a Saturday night dinner. Also, buried in the email was a mention of ‘Sangeet’ party later that night. One thing led to another, ideas and emails flew back and forth and before I could say “What the..” I was holding a DVD of most lovable songs chosen by different invitees compiled by ‘Yours Truly’ ;-). Even though that ‘Sangeet’ night didn’t go as well as I would have liked to (apart from fabulous food as usual) but my artistic inner half was some what satisfied.

And within couple of days I started thinking again of that long lost idea called ‘Antakshari’ and I decided, whatever happens I am gonna organize it and this time I am ‘sticking to my guns’.

Next : Antakshari - The Journey.

Why blog? Why now?

Recently, I organized a fun event involving some of my very close mates and companions. This was the first time that I had taken such an initiative and hence was very excited, nervous and wanted to give it my best to make it a very successful one. Until this event, I was more of a follower than a leader/organizer. I was like, “I don't have enough time for all this...” or “Hats off to the event organizer but no way in the world I would able to manage that…” etc.

After I finished organizing the event just couple of days ago, whether successfully or not is not relevant here and not for me to decide anyways, there was this tremendous after-effect which hit me like a…like a…hmmmmm…lightning. I was going through so many different range of emotions that it was not funny. I was depressed, elated, relaxed, and thrilled, all at the same time. I had so many thoughts going through my mind and I was like WOW!!! That was really ‘some’ experience.

Anyways, after the event I wanted to write e’body an email on what I was went through during selecting songs for the event and etc. But, who would want to get spam'd about my राम कहानी? Why force people to read it if they are not interested and if they already had enough? Why fill up their mailbox when there are already plenty of emails flying around about the event and what not. But at the same time, I wanted to preserve my thoughts for so different many reasons but mainly,

1) Sometime in future, I would love to look and read back on some of the most memorable moments of my life and this event is one of them.

2) I would like to point the participants of the event, my family and other mates who missed out because of the physical distant, to my thought and leave it to them if they want to read/leave it or share their experience or thoughts on the vent and life in general.

And this is where, like a flash, a thought came to me…why not blog? Why not put your thought when they come to you and preserve them digitally for your future reference or for you mates and family to read if and when they want to. So, here I step into the world unknown to me even though I am confident in using the tools behind this technology. I don’t know how long this ‘blogging’ will continue for or if it will ever go beyond one or two posts but I don’t care. Right now, I just want to hit the keys on my keyboard and want to see and let others see through my eyes/heart/mind what I am going through before this euphoria dies.

PS: Apologies to my English teacher as he would have died thousand deaths if he was alive to see this post and would have had harsh opinion of his own, but I am ‘sticking to my guns’;-)

Next to come…. ‘Antakshari’, in three part series, where I am going to pour in here my thoughts and emotions I went through while organizing a first ever event in my life.