Day 133 -19th November 2010

The good times continued today as well. In our second MLS in 2 days, Bharatbala (of the A R Rahman Vande Mataram fame) came to campus to talk to us. Spellbinding would be an understatement!! He spoke about his life and his experiences while making the Vande Mataram and Jana Gana Mana videos. His passion for what he does in commendable. Pretty much drives home the point that if you find what you like and pursue it wholeheartedly happiness is not too far away. He was also creative director of the opening and closing ceremonies for the CWG in Delhi. Shared his experience from there as well. Both ceremonies were a grand success in spite of the government and bureaucracy. There were some parts of the opening ceremony that were performed for the first time at stadium during the actual ceremony itself! He also spoke about the parts that he felt could have been done better, he shared with us the original plan for the opening ceremony which was much more grand than the ceremony which we saw (which was quite grand actually). Unfortunately that did not materialise because of the efficient way in which the government functions ;-) There were also some broadcasting flaws that he spoke about. The entire broadcasting team was from the UK and tried to depict a picture of India that they had in their minds, they missed out on showing some really significant moments like when the Pakistan contingent entered the stadium during the opening ceremony, the PM actually stood up and applauded them, politically a very significant moment but they didn't feel it was worth covering! The session went on for more than 3 hours but was not boring at all. The sheer scale on which he conceptualises events is unbelievable.

Apart from that had a pretty routine day. IMM lectures were on strategic media planning. Discussed some of the accepted practices in the field and the evolution of certain core media principles. There was a MCL match between Marlboro Reds (pgp1) and 502 Pataka (pgp2) in the afternoon, the Reds had to win by a certain margin to qualify for the next round. Quite a lot of people from pgp1 came out to support the Reds and gave pgp2 a taste of their own medicine. Unfortunately they didnt take it too well, but if they dish out something they should be prepared to take it as well. The fact that the Reds won and knocked out Pataka didn't help matters for pgp2. ;-)

In the night worked on a marketing competition for IMT which is based on co-branding and a little bit of sports marketing. Did that for a while before going to Chota for chai. The weather has improved and its quite cold during the nights. Makes it all the more difficult to wake up in the morning :-P