April 2016

Life is a tale, a terribly tiny tale

"This is the end”, yelled the situation. The heart whispered to the mind, “Remember why you started.”
- TTT

Article published in College Magazine 2016 of Govt. Engineering College, Barton Hill, Trivandrum

[Disclaimer: There is nothing poetic or artistic in this article. The title was an illusion created so that you start reading out of that curiosity. This is a report on a workshop, and I believe you are as allergic to reports as I am. I’ve tried to give this a non-report-ish look as possible. And thank you for not going back yet. Here I am waiting for the right words to come in to convey what I mean to. And I start before you lose your patience and I lose your interest.]

Just like you or the most of you, I spend more time on the internet than texts. Oh forget texts, let it be ‘everything else’, sleep exclusive. Being precise, social media you could call it. I have this habit of scrolling through the unlimited posts that pop up on the Newsfeed, or the never ending posts on Instagram or the storage-space-eating WhatsApp media. And if you are a user of any of these, I’m pretty sure that you might have come across those pictures having 140 characters in white colour coined to make a beautiful story on a black background. These short, tweet sized stories are named as “Terribly Tiny Tales” or “ttt” are sure to capture everyone’s attention at some time. It is India’s most subscribed story telling platform. And they have this unique power of striking right at the chord and could stay with you longer than you could possibly imagine. I’ve had my share of such wow moments after reading them eventually leading me to be a follower of their posts and then an admirer of the beauty of ‘micro-fiction’. With the increasing number of tasks to be done by each of us, selfies to be taken, videos to be watched, posts to be commented on, our attention spans are getting shorter every day and so only the powerful content survives, and ttt has cut through it.

A usual after college evening of Instagram scrolling showed me a ttt post with about 2000 views, which said ‘ttt Workshop at Felicity’16, IIIT Hyderabad’. Wow. They do workshops? Interesting! The description had an official contact number to know more about their workshops. A little bit of stalking revealed that ttt has conducted workshops in most of the premium institutions like IITs, IIMs, NITs, etc and other educational, entertainment and corporate platforms across the nation. The Aagneya’16 workshop series was on full swing and then the thought “Why not here?” came up. A screenshot of the very same post was sent to the College Union Chairman “Can we try this here, Gokul chetta?” Moments later, my phone beeped with a message, “Yes. We are doing this! Contact them. Quick.” That was faster than I’d imagined. There was no harm giving it a shot and we were running out of time. A mail was sent to ttt and the reply said “We’d love to conduct a workshop in Kerala”. There were more calls with the PR and a date was fixed according to their convenience, the 12th of March, 2016. And thus GEC, Barton Hill was hosting a ttt workshop, all the way from Mumbai, for the very first time in Kerala with an additional bonus of Anuj Gosalia, the co-founder of TTT, himself conducting the workshop.

An event which stands out from the rest was what we had in mind. I was asked to take the complete responsibility of the event with all support from the Union and the Aagneya Literary team. I was totally amused at how things went and that the Chairman had that trust in me. Days of requesting permissions and funds, meeting the principle and making necessary arrangements, publicizing the event and managing the registrations followed. Once the call for registrations started, the response was amazing. The seats were limited to 75 as the workshop was a very interactive session with the co-founder and lesser the people, more the interaction. We had more and more people from all over the city, students and professionals as well, signing up and the seats were filled well before the event. The official post on their Instagram Page now said ‘ttt Workshop at Aagneya’16, Gec, Barton Hill, Trivandrum’, placing GECB one among the many prestigious institutions where the event had happened before. I realized that dreaming the same two weeks before was what that had made it real.

The workshop took place on the second Saturday of March, 2016, 2pm onwards in the Zoom IT Hall. Anuj Gosalia who believes in writing creatively, yet in brevity started off with a briefing on how ttt began and how the platform sustains which was followed by an interactive session where the participants shared their first thoughts on random articles. At the event, the Golden Rule of Writing, a rule that holds true for every form of artistic expression was shared. They were asked to create a tale on the word ‘love’ of their own using the new known rules in 20 minutes, which they read out aloud and the best were applauded. The two hour session came to an end with the screening of a few short films named Terribly Tiny Talkies, a new venture of ttt. Each participant left the hall with a very satisfying smile and Anuj Gosalia shared the same satisfaction too. A man of thoughts and creator of some of the best tales ever, said that the participants were amazing and the ambience was perfect. Snacks were served to all and after a photo session, it was all done. Positive feedbacks flew in from all sides alike. Everyone found the time and money they spent on this event absolutely worth it and we knew that our mission was accomplished.

“The workshop was very good. The organisation was pretty awesome! It was very entertaining and informative at the same time. Thanks to all the organisers for making this happen in Trivandrum. Truly one of a kind.” , said Rohan Giriraj, a student of Christ Nagar College, Trivandrum. Ask me what the secret of the success of this event and there wouldn’t be a different answer than this: the team that I had to work with!

A lot goes into making such a grand event happen and nothing would’ve turned up the way it had, if not them. I had the immense support of a bunch of fabulous seniors like Gokul, Nirmal, Paulg, Sreenath, Shwetha, Aiswariya and Nandu. Their experience in conducting events helped our team make sure that we looked through all perspectives and they pointed out the challenges we could face. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Anoop Sir, Union Advisor, for all the support. Conducting such an event requires attention to each aspect and that was achieved by our teamwork. Arjun, Abhijith, Nakshathru, Aiswarya, Keerthi, Saadia, Kavya and I formed the core team of organizers of this, and we looked after the Logistics, Design and posters, Publicity, Conveyance, Food, Registrations and Finance of the workshop. The lessons you learn from working as a team for a time bound purpose is valuable. As a person, being the event co-ordinator of this workshop is one of the best things that happened to me this year. The whole thing was a Learn-as-you-Do process which I’m sure will help each one of us for future ventures.

I would say with all pride that we have pulled off this great event in style with perfection to the details, apart from a few mistakes here and there. Our college requires such events to take it to the a more higher because I believe we, though confined in this little space, have the potential to do much more and set new standards for others to follow. Organizing this event here taught me that all you need is an idea out of the way and the desire to make it happen. After all we stand together to unleash the fire within.

Cheers. :)