the website is done

Finally, after some really intense sessions of impassioned fights and protracted negotiations, the layout and design of the website is complete.

All that remains is getting the domain for the same and finding an appropriate host for the content. The idea of a separate domain being to create a strong identity for Backwaters as a brand in itself. Hopin that all things fall into place soon.

Keep watching this space for more updates about the event. The schedule for the events etc. will appear here the moment they are crystallised.

-Aditya

deadlines, deliverables and B2B

This is not fair, maybe. On one hand I am grappling with the pre-emptive action I should take to avoid being arrested for my criminal negligence in not coming to know about my key clients' covert actions, as demanded by the B2B Prof. On the other, Baba and Vikhyat & Reddy keep conning, cajoling, harassing, and sometimes emotionally blackmailing me into doing all kinds of odd, and not so odd, jobs for them while they munch on Parathas at 2.30 in the night :-(

One such session ended early this morning and resulted in the first cut for the event poster for Backwaters 2006 as shown, on a much smaller scale, below. The text comes from an earlier post by Surabhi on this blog.



The website work, as queried by Ridhi in an earlier comment on this blog, is pretty much done and expect it to be online any moment now. Just a few niggles that remain.

-Aditya

Musings, Limericks and more...

BACKWATERS is but lo, the fish out of water stank
Who mustn't have seen us, and in the park hide behind the bank
Grey souls, grey shoes; I've even got grey blues
It's too bad I killed you !!!
-------------------------------------------------------------
A Jovial fellow from Rye
Went to visit BACKWATERS close by,
Who said, with a grin,
As he killed everyone:
"Hello, Smith! I am sorry I sneezed on you"
-------------------------------------------------------------
There once was a lady called Mary,
Who wouldn't come out but for January,
The rest of the year,
She always felt like a pear,
She was lending herself to the fiesta - BACKWATERS.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Ladies and gentlemen
hobos and tramps
Bow-legged ants
and Cross-eyed mosquitoes
Pull up a chairand sit on the floor
I'll tell you a story that I've never heard before
So early in the morning
So late at night
Two dead boys got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other
The deaf policeman on the corner
Shot the boys because they were making too much noise
If you don’t believe this lie
It is true
Go ask those who Backwater-ed in 2005,
They would know, cause they got killed too.

-Priya

Merry Christmas

On behalf of sTrEAM BACKWATERS and the other sub-sTrEAMs,

I wish a Merry Christmas to you all.

-Aditya

of welcome breaks and lone furrows

With Baba back in action, things were bound to get heated up, and they have. Suddenly there seem to a fair chunk of people doing something or the other in the run-up to the main event. With write-ups for the various sections of the website being prepared and the actual logistics management for the days of the events being started, there is a palpable sense of anticipation as I see the event take shape right before my eyes.

In other news, I have a welcome 6 day break for New year and I hope nothing is scheduled at the last moment to spoil whichever way I finally plan to welcome the New Year. With one course already being over and a few others well on way to reaching closure, this break will come in pretty handy ;-)

Baba seems to be suffering from some derivative of Writers' Block which afflicts the ability to do anything and has run off to Kerala's sedate and pristine Backwaters to recharge and prepare himself for IIMK's energetic and violent Backwaters. Hope he comes back with some useful ideas and concepts, nahi to uski to...

What this means for me is that I am stuck with the task of conceptualising and designing the layout for the website, with inputs of varying degrees of helpfulness from a motley crew of well-wishers.

Lets see what comes out of all this madness.

-Aditya

B A C K W A T E R S

B = Blast of a time
A = Awesome experience
C = Cool
K = iim'K'
W= With lots of friends
A = Astounding
T = Tons of fun
E = Ecstasy
R = Relaxing
S = Sexy

This is what Backwaters 2005 was all about.

B=Bowled over
A=Ability
C=Classy
K=iim'K'
W=Wild
A=Absolut ;-)
T=Tactful
E=Extreme
R=Rocking
S=Soon

This is what Backwaters 2006 promises to be this year.

!!CHEERS!!

-Rohit

The phoenix rises

10 hours of sleep at the minimum is an irreplacable requirement for leading a no-frills-associated basic lifestyle.

Classes are meant to be skipped, back benches to be slept on.

Mornings are hung over and the nights full of spirited moves on the (dance) floor.

Work is (un)necessary evil and leisure, the only absolute certainty.

And then I was back, back to reality and to the sTrEAM...a dream like none I have ever seen before, with my eyes closed or open. It was right there in front of my eyes and it was time to dive straight in. With a month to go into Backwaters, life has changed gears from neutral to the fifth in the one day that I have been back from Paris to the campus. The foreign exchange program in Paris was fun but the coming one month of hectic activity, euphoria and dejection, friends and foes, successes and failures, they all promise to re-define fun in their own ways.

Not having been much involved in the fest organization so far, all the current activities and to-do lists of sTrEAM Backwaters whooshed past me while I stood staring at the banner in the canteen, thinking about the theme of agression for this year. Kill or be killed, they told me and better be ready to do it pretty soon, they made me realize as I made my way into my first sTrEAM meeting after nearly three and a half months.

I was brought up to speed and was I raring to go! Inputs for the website came from left, right and center while ideas got generated, analysed, scoffed at, celebrated, discarded, accepted at a dime a dozen. The company lists for sponsorships was bored into to get the latest in terms of active, passive, and dead leads. Internal marketing, local market buzz, new sponsorship leads had our attention while the site content was being finalized, with help and assistance from our technical (Vishak), content (Surya), and design (Aditya) consultants.

Life has started going into an overdrive and I have just postponed my weekend Alleppey trip by a night to get the web site up and running as soon as possible.

I am not willing to die...to be killed.
I will kill.

-Nitai

Watch out for us!

It's that time of the year again. And Team Kreatix is back! I know how you've all been waiting with baited breath. I know how you all are just dying of curiosity to know what we are gonna put up this time around. I know you can hardly wait to see what we are up to this year.

So what's it gonna be? Another murder mystery? Comedy? Slapstick or Wodehousian humor? Monologues? A musical perhaps? Maybe a tragedy? Well, I am not telling.

For the uninitiated, we are the team that staged the play "Ten Little Indians" last year for Backwaters. And what a performance it was! Flawless! Purrfect! Adopted from Agatha Christie's play "And Then There Were None", the play had several surprises for the audience, who were glued to their seats, dumbstruck and curious. Ten strangers who found themselves on a deserted island, accused of murders in their pasts, and who are now dying one by one mysteriously on the island. Who invited them there? Why is he killing everyone?

Well, those questions were all answered in the play. This year too, there shall be something mindblowing. Will sweep you all absolutely off your feet! Just like we did last year. But what's it going to be? Well, I am not telling. And neither is the rest of Team Kreatix. You wanna find out, you gotta be there! For if you miss this, you'd be missing something you will regret.

So be there, or be square!

-Team Kreatix

This is not what I had bargained for

Well, with sTrEAM Backwaters going one gear up in their intensity, the amount of pressure they were putting on me for getting the design elements for the website has gone up substantially.

That would have probably been fine, but for the two Project Management courses, PM and SEPM, taking up far too much of my time than I care to spend on them. With the deadline for the SEPM project looming ahead, and the PM end terms happening tomorrow, I literally dont have time to die. Lets see how things work out.

In other events, with the website team meeting yesterday night and discussing the overall design concept & theme and technical aspects for the site, things are actually moving on that front. We hope to be able to launch the website by the weekend.

Keeping fingers crossed.

-Aditya

The website team meeting

Ok, things are happening at a faster clip now. Just back from the meeting of the Backwaters 2006 website design team. I was an invitee in the same as a design consultant, hey, I like the sound of that one ;-) , while Vishak was present for giving his inputs on the technical feasibility front of all the wild ideas that may emerge.

However, knowing Vishak, he is very likely to end up making the entire website ;-)

Apart from the usual suspects from sTrEAM Backwaters, also present was the most lazy committee member ever, Nitai "Baba" Utkarsh, who woke from his 3 month hibernation in France to grace the meeting with his presence. Surya was also there to understand the deliverables for his bit of content generation for the website in the Finance area.

-Aditya

Concepts and other images

On popular demand, the various themes and imagery that were designed for Backwaters have been uploaded to FlickR and are available for viewing in the images section of the sidebar on the right.

Also on the same sidebar, albeit a bit lower, are some images from Backwaters 2005.

Happy viewing.

-Aditya

Welcome to the Armageddon

Suppose you are asked to state your pick from the following types of aggression

• Territorial
• Predatory
• Inter-male
• Fear Induced
• Irritable
• Maternal

After you have googled for the meanings and come up with your choice, if and only if you singled out the second option, continue reading. The rest (read: faint hearted) may close the browser and get back into their shells.

These are the new rules of the game:

Aggression is not always physical. The subtler it is, the more forceful.

It is instinctively known that non competitive oafs are gobbled up by mighty rivals.

Alexander could not dare to dream of conquering the world without the extra ounce of aggression. If it is not in your blood, drink others’ but make sure you have it in you.

Economics says that monopoly produces the highest profits. You should emerge as the only one at the end of the battle.

A fish in an ocean of sharks is as good as dead.

You have to be first. There is no place for second.

Complacence is out. Sending a chill down the opponent’s spine is in.

Mediocrity is pitied. Extremism is preferred.

If you can identify with this style of conquest, then don your armour.

Welcome to the Armageddon. Backwaters 2006. Where predation leads to redemption.

Stand out. Get noticed. Be worshipped.

Kill. Or be killed.

- Surabhi

Whew, the design is done

Finally, after more than a hundred hours of Google, Photoshop, Upload, Code, test, tweak, test and starting all over, the design for the blog is ready. More or less ;-)

Expect to see some minor updates and bug-fixes as and when they occur to me or are pointed out. Looking forward to the feedback from the junta on the design and the whole aggression and Kill. or be Killed concept.

Going forward, the blog should start to get fleshed out as the primary source of real time information about Backwaters 2006, hot off the presses as it were.

I Will be posting on the technical and design aspects while sTrEAM Backwaters members will talk about their experiences and keep updating us on the happenings.

This is the blog of, and for, ALL students of IIMK and we would really love to have all of us contributing to it, be it through comments or blog posts of their own. Anyone who wants to contribute can send their posts to me. I shall take care of the editing and formatting part. The posts can be based on any theme. Be it your opinions about the event, or suggestions for implementation or even your expectations / experiences from the same. Anything goes. So start typing.

Backwaters 2006. Kill or be killed.

-Aditya

Theme of Backwaters 2006

Backwaters 2006 challenges you to come slug it out in a battle of wits, where only the fittest can survive.

You are here to win. How you do it is entirely upon you. The theme is aggression.Backwaters 2006 is no place for the weak-hearted. You have to learn to win at all costs.

Backwaters 2006 encourages you all to shed the veil of nicety and let the competitive spirit inside you take over. No one is your friend, no one you can you depend on. You need to be one step ahead, always. It's the law of the jungle here and only your grey cells will see you through.

Straight or crooked, you are free to use any means possible to get your job done.

It is a fight to the finish and when the fight is over and the dust settles, will you be the last man standing?

Come, fight it out, unleash the beast within you.

Kill or be Killed !!!