Pehel 2011 - A live account !!!

After weeks of deliberations the D-Day was finally here.

9th of July 2011 was the day when a new batch of PGSEM students were to organize their first ever event at the IIM Bangalore: PEHEL 2011.
Pehel literally means Initiative and aptly suits the fresher's event, organized by the freshers, for the seniors.


The planning for the event had started almost a month back, immediately after the orientation. Several committees were formed for performing specific tasks and were headed by a core committee who were in charge of the overall direction of the event. The design team consisting of Shalini and Vineeth came up with a creative logo for Pehel 2011. This became the logo for our t-shirts and the theme for the event.


The "Warli" design was contemporary yet very traditional and was readily acclaimed by everyone. It did not miss even the Director's eye and he too praised the batch for the efforts in coming up with such a nice design.
Everything was meticulously planned to the minutest level thanks to the efforts of the omnipresent Chandra. He had taken it onto him to deliver the best and pitched in wherever and whenever he was required, be it the distribution of the invitations to the interaction with the PGSEM office, the last minute plan for anchoring the show to playing the role of the great Gabbar, Chandra was everywhere, Chandra simply rocked!!!
So ... finally, clad in our brand new warli t-shirts and blue jeans (our dress code for the day), we were there to invite the world (read seniors!!!) to a new beginning by PGSEM 2011.


The event started with the "Hi-Tea", arranged behind the auditorium thanks to the PGSEM office. The guests started trickling in by 5 pm and started meeting each other over a cup of tea/coffee.
This part of any IIMB event is supposed to be used for the biggest takeaway of any MBA program - "Networking Time". After interacting with fellow batch-mates and seniors and their families, it was time for officially inaugurating PEHEL 2011. Then there were the last minute delays thanks to the Bangalore traffic. Our chief guests - Prof. Chandra (Director of IIM Bangalore) and Prof. Agrawal (Chairperson PGSEM, CSITM) were held up in traffic and the program was delayed by half an hour.
The seniors, batch-mates and their family members were already seated in the auditorium and it was time to engage them with some kind of entertainment till the official start of the event. The ever so talented Vikram Parthan came to our rescue. He kept the audience engaged with his "First real six-string". We all pitched in with the "Best day of our life"....
Once the chief guests were in the audi, the program started officially with the lighting of the lamp followed by an welcome speech by Prof. Chandra and then by Prof. Agrawal.
Both of them welcomed the audience and eulogized our efforts for coming up with the event in such a short span of time. Thanks to our seniors for showing us the way...
This was followed by the distribution of the "DML" (director's merit list) certificates to the top 10 students of the senior batch, the "Star of the Quarter" award and distribution of participation certificates for CSITM workshop.


After the certificate distribution the stage was all set for the cultural program to start. Anupama & Vikram played the host for the evening. Both Anu and Vikram did a splendid MCing job  while engaging the audience throughout the event. The show started with the Mad Mad Men from St. John's performing a mime for the audience. The Mad-Ads guys were amazing and they set the tone for the evening with a light comedy on a doctor's life starting from the entrance exams to getting admissions in the college, learning the tricks of the trade, their daily hostel life till the day of performing the critical surgery. The audience enjoyed their performance wholeheartedly and cheered them with loud claps and whistles.
The mime was followed by a kid's fashion show. The Shahrukhs & Kareenas of future walked the IIM-B auditorium turned ramp with the "Barbie Girl" playing in the background. It was a treat to see the little ones enjoying their night outs, and were aptly awarded with little chocolate boxes by the end of their performance.


Then it was time for the event of the evening that all of us were waiting for with bated breath - a skit organized in the last two days to the run up to the event, titled "MBA Karenge Hum", featuring the who's who of Bollywood who had come for an interview at IIM Bangalore for PGSEM. The skit featured Amir Khan, Shatrughan Sinha, Sunny paaji, Mithun da, Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and Nana Patekar as interviewee and Gabbar with his ally Sambha taking the interview.
Kudos to everyone involved in the skit. It was just awesome, hilarious to the brim. Every single soul in the audi enjoyed the on-stage performance and cheered our Bollywood superstars.
Take a bow Anshum Arora for directing this. Without you, this would never have been possible.
Find a link to the video of the skit here :
http://www.viddler.com/explore/rbhuvana/videos/1/


After the madness that ran through the audi for half an hour of the skit it was time for some sanity to come back in the form of soulful music. Vikram, Varkey, Shalini and Anupama stole the show with their performances. Varkey's original struck a cord with the audience.
The group song - "Pal" by KK, was the perfect ending to the evening.
Hand-in-hand we lip synced "Hum rahen ya na rahen kal, kal yaad aayenge ye pal" ;-)
YES that was our "Pal", a "Pal" to remember for the rest of our lives ........


Shamik Bhattacharya
PGSEM 2011