Solstice...Bhangra Kites...Labyrinth et al

Solstice…the annual ‘homecoming’ of the alumni was this weekend. From 5 attendees in the very first Solstice to over 170 this time indicates that our numbers are increasing and fast! The weekend started off with an Arabic theme party on Friday complete with hukkas and Bedouin tents…no belly dancers though J For the first time, there were more alumni than students at the party. What with all the delighted (and sometimes slightly drunk) reunions happening all around, was in half a mind to go around hugging random ppl saying just for the heck of it.

Saturday and some ‘gyan’ sessions by alums on placements. Heard this funny story about how this alum had prepared all year for consulting and IB roles while his quaddie, for marketing. The day before their interviews with HLL and HSBC, they sat down and gave each other a crash course in their respective areas of interest and you guessed it…they each got the other’s dream job! Later in the day was the ‘carnival’ with stalls of games, food and a juggler too! There were dance performances by children from ‘Akshay Akruti’ – a school for the hearing impaired and a music concert by ‘Sunethra’ – school for visually impaired. Was a fun evening. Ran home in the middle of the evening to see Sachin score his 35^th ton…can’t think of nething else that makes me smile so easily than to watch this man bat. The next day’s TOI headline said it all “Batman Forever”

Of course, then there was the party with ‘live’ performance by UK based Bhangra Knights. The name did not fill me with anticipation and the real thing was the sorriest live show have ever seen. Lip-synching their way through their one original song and rendering some other popular hindi numbers in a manner that would’ve made the singers in b’bays trains sound good! Absolute tripe to say the least. Things looked up after they were done assaulting people ear-drums. Never thought I’d welcome hindi remixes, but that’s how bad the ‘Bhangra Kites’ were!

The surprise and disappointment of the weekend was to learn that S and I had come in 4^th in Eureqa but the consolation was our team ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ (guess who came up with that name J had made it to the finals in Labyrinth. 2 hours of intense googling and wiki’ing (that shud be a term too) where S and K cracked clues and I, my knuckles, we got 5 out of the 6. don’t think we’ll win coz of the extra time it took us to answer the bonus q but was great fun nevertheless.