A day in Shaastra

The day begins at 8am. Wake up, Sid. Take a quick bath, stuff a spare shirt in your bag, and get out. Things not to be forgotten: cell and bag. The bag has the coupons that all coords are despo for.

Take a cycle and rush to ICSR. Grab a copy of the newsletter and the schedule of the day. Even though you have made all the schedule yourself, you tend to forget it. A copy always helps. Check the newsletter for the number of times you have been quoted saying something that you never really meant. Count the number of times the Newsletter showcase their lack of any kind of knowledge. Check the current version of Psi. It(she, rather) apparently gets upgraded regularly.

Go to the nearest event. Check up stuff. Make sure that the phone is on silent. You keep getting calls from coords who have not collected their coupons and are hungry. You can get as many as 198 calls in a day (that was my highest) before the cellphone battery gets discharged and then people crib that you are unreachable.

People call up and ask where you are, and where you will be after 15 minutes. You dont know the answer. The dynamism is very high. Now you are at ICSR, After 15 minutes, you might be at Workshop, CRC, CLT, SAC, HSB, BT Bldg, KV grounds, SAC road, Dean's office, etc. You can understand the frustration in the voice of the caller, but you can do nothing to help it. You meet many coords on the way. No conversation can be completed without interruption by 4-5 calls.

There is no time for breakfast or lunch. You go from one event to another, be it Fire n Ice, Contraptions, Robotics, Wright Design, Math Modeling, etc etc etc. There are 46 events. At every venue, there is a different scenario. There are places where things are pretty screwed up, and the core ends up taking the position of a volunteer and doing the running around helping the coords. No work is below dignity. where the events are running well, it is good. You can sit down and relax for a few minutes. There are lectures that you must attend and then preset the speaker with a memento. Also, there are some events that you do not want to miss, whatever happens. They are close to your heart.

The best part of being a core is that you get a lot of preferential treatment. Chairs are brought for you to sit down. The pedestel fans are turned so that they face you. Coords come to you to report the status of the event. You are photographed quite a lot of times. But thats because of all the painstaking effort that you take. The responsibility that comes as a part of the job.

The day goes in this. Evening is a time for the shows. You sit down and enjoy the show. Most likely, you will be amidst a crowd of bubbly QMS coords and fellow cores. Needless to say, you are in the front line, way ahead of the common crowd that is struggling for space. You say a "hi" to many people yuo have met for the first time in the day, and have a small chat. The topics are standard too: how busy the day has been, which events were successful, what did the newsletter write about, did the reporter change her top, which coord/vol was looking good etc etc.

At the end of the show, you find yourself in the middle of a crowd that is asking for grub coupons. The fact is that you havent any and yuo are hungry too. You somehow get away from the crowd and call up the finance core, telling him that you are hungry. You actually are. The stomach is growling.

The finance core is not such a bad fellow after all. You collect coupons from him and the catering coord too. At the core level, the coupons are counted in the number of sheets: the 80 sheet, 120 sheet and 140 sheet. You grab 8-10 sheets and head to the stalls. You search for the costliest items available there and eat. You eat till you are full and distribute the rest among the coords and the vols.

It is very entertaining to see how coords and vols beg and fight for coupons. Apparently, a set of freshie vols had formed a co-operative that collected coupons from all possible sources till late night. Their challenge was to get maximum possible and beat the previous day's tally. They would spend it at the very end. The people that hang around benefit the most from the generosity of the cores. The others are less lucky.

With respect to food, there are two fundamental laws that should be followed by a core:

1. A core shall not eat any food that is bought out of cash.
2. All food bought out of coupons belongs to the core.

The second law permits all cores to bite stuff from others. It is due to this that you will end up tasting all available items at the stalls.

Then you head to the Video conferences. It is one peaceful place. The air conditioned auditorium and comfortable seats. You listen somewhat, and frame a question to ask at the end of the talk. As the talk ends, you shake hands with the moderator and have a discussion with the coordinators about the next day's plans.

The time is around 11. Your cellphone is discharged. After spending some more time at the stalls talking and discussing with fellow cores and the CoAs, you head to the venue of the night events. By the time you reach your room, it is 3am.

You have a room neighbor who is waiting to hear the day's news from you. You narrate everything to him. Also, you give him a surprise snack that you have brought for him from the stalls. A couple of mails to be read and a few to be written. There are also a few notes to be taken down for the next day. You put your cell for charging.

And then you lie on the bed going over everything. You have enjoyed your day to the fullest. You are smiling to yourself and feeling happy. However, somewhere in the mind, you are sad that all this is going to end in a couple of days. Before you think more, you are dead asleep, lost in dreams. Your mind and body are gearing up for the next day.