When one cracks NEET there are people who give
him or her an extremely rosy view of what to expect from medical colleges while
others come up with a more realistic view. But what no one really mentions is
that med-school is not all about classes, ward postings, huge syllabus, or
exams. It is also about a lot of other things like getting sponsors, sitting (or if you are unfortunate enough then, standing) in
long meetings, preparing questions, dealing with difficult and strict HODs and welcoming
guest speakers. In short, besides being about studies, it is also about
organizing grand events like the Edufest or cultural fest of your college.
The day you step into the common room for the
first fest-related meeting is the day you start questioning your life choices (if
you were not doing so already). Thoughts like: “Was getting myself into this a
bad idea?”; “Why are all these people not listening to me?” or “Why is this guy
shutting us all up?” start crossing your brain. But by then of course for most
people it is too late to reverse the decision and start afresh, except for some
genius people who are so fed up after the first meeting that they decide not to
come for any subsequent meetings and not do any fest-related work after that
day. More power to them! However, some people remain true to their
responsibilities and keep doing them till the last day of Fest. Kudos to them
as well.
There are some events of the Edufest which
attract a lot of participation from the crowd – like medical Pictionary, quiz, medical
movie trivia quiz. But not all events are so lucky. There are some events for
which the organizers need to keep extending the dates of registration hoping
for at least five or six entries. Being an organizer of such an event I would
say that it is a nightmare! If an event has too many participants and you feel
crowd control is going to be a problem, then set those thoughts aside because
the fear that there is going to be almost nil participation and there will be a
greater number of judges and organizers than participants is a bigger problem.
It’s not that huge participation does not bring
its own problems, especially in case of workshops where the number of participants
exceed the limits specified by the departments and one has to go to the
department every other day to talk things over with HOD Sir so that all those
people can be accommodated. But one must admit that hosting workshops proved a
tad bit easier than the events or guest lectures because in case of workshops,
taking the participants to the departments on time and providing food packets
to the professors and department staff pretty much sums up the job of the
student organizers. The rest is taken care of by the departments. However,
organizing a quiz event where there is huge participation and all the questions
need to be framed by the organizers is totally something different. It leads to
a different kind of depression when you can only frame about twenty questions
sitting and toiling day-in and day-out in the library while your brilliant
co-organizer seems to be conjuring up tens of never-heard-of God level questions
right out of thin air; questions which even the other organizers can’t answer. Then
on the final day you have no spectators and many of the participants give you defeated
looks even before their turn comes up because apparently, they never heard of
such questions!
Edufest is a grand event coming with its own grand
problems- projectors not working, rain hampering your plans, a huge mob of
medicos attacking the chief guest with cameras because they want to take photos
with him, non-cooperating co-organizers and lack of bouquets and medals on
time. But when the event ends one realizes that every effort they put in was
worth it- because during these few days one experiences medicine with its own
majestic grandeur, one listens to lectures which inspire and face questions which
challenge their wits at every turn and builds memories worth remembering for a
lifetime.
Many people might be wondering about the title
of this blog. To them I will say, I initially planned to name this as “An
aquarium of squalling medicos” but then thought better of it, because when we
heard the banner name of our edufest, this is what most of could think of! Of
course, the guy who came up with this name has stopped replying to people’s
texts ever since.
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