Abhyudaya 2008 - Down the memory lane

The real enthusiasm and passion towards this most coveted event started in October 2007 with the designing of the theme for the event and was initiated with designing the brochure for the same to get sponsorship. The process involved discussions, meetings, debates and much more activity than expected. At the initial stage I never knew that I will be involved in such a major part of it by pushing away every other activity behind for it. It became the ultimate goal and focus of mine, it almost became breathe, I don’t think I even used to breathe air, even in the oxygen I inhaled I had some energy for Abhyudaya flowing in together with it. Every conversation I got in it either started or probably ended with some or the other issue concerning it, with who ever it shall be. Everything in my life took backseat even academics was taken lightly and only importance and priority went to Abhyudaya. Abhyudaya was an event of such importance to me that I almost forgot everything else and had only it in my mind most of the times.

The key areas of learning or shall I say the making of Abhyudaya’08 and insights from the whole process are as follows.

Brochure
The brochure was designed for sponsors with many sleepless nights and a lot of editing and rework done after a lot of suggestions, recommendations and gyan by different people. And yes when it comes to designing it was none other than our one and only great bharat, who spent a lot of time and energy with a lot of criticism and acclaim for the same.

Sponsorship
Once the brochure was ready now we needed the contacts of the prospective sponsors to go ahead for the sponsorship calls. Talking to people, getting contacts, dividing groups, making excel sheets and updating them were all just one part of the complete story. In fact if one would ask I would say they were just not even a part of the sponsorship run at all, as the over all sponsorship efforts were so deep and continuous that every day we had some 10-15 companies to follow up. Different kind of responses from each company, umpteen numbers of calls were made, numerous visits to their offices and mails to update them were another part of the story. But sponsorship was a big challenge, in fact the only biggest challenge of Abhyudaya, till at least 15 days before the event, we were short of at least 50% of the required funds. The days were getting tougher and tougher, when you have committed yourself to so many people regarding the fest and when you don’t have the funds to make it happen, you are in a terrible situation. The 3 months of continuous journey for getting the funds to run the show was the major learning from the whole process.

One basic value which this event added was it gave me a great platform to test my marketing skills and to build up contact and rapport with different corporates. Being in the sponsorship initiative I was almost in regular contact with various top managers of reputed companies of the country, in fact I would say there have been a few contacts which have gone just beyond the identity of the event but have become a relationship as such. So I would say it was worth the amount of tension and fear which was being faced day in and day out during the sponsorship stint. I know I was not able to convert many sponsorship calls which I was handling, I am not sure which ones were due to my poor skills and which ones were due to other known or unknown reasons. I tried to give my best and the person at the other end mostly responded quite well when I approached them but at the end of the day they had some or the other excuse to reject our proposal which gave sad moments.

The first moment of joy was the sponsorship given by our alumnus from batch 5 Mr. Gagan Patnaik, which gave the motivation to proceed further. The best moment in the process was when ICICI Bank gave its sponsorship cheque which came after around 75 calls from me personally and a few calls from others and that too at the time when no other company had supported even after an effort of more than 1 month or so. That moment was probably even more satisfying than the moment when we received the cheque from the main sponsors of the event.

If I had to take an account of where did I spend the major part of my time in the whole process of what ever I was involved into, I would have only one thing coming to my mind and yes that certainly is sponsorship. We had a few of us specifically concentrating on sponsorship and I remember the anxious moments which we had spent, and the detailed meetings which we had had to make and change plans as and when required. To try all the possible ways and all the possible companies just to get the best deal for the event.

To mention the people involved I should start with the name of the backbone of Abhyudaya ‘ 08 yes you have guessed it right none other than Anand, from giving the contacts for the sponsors to helping us in knowing the ways to approach, the people to approach, the mails to be sent and much more just on the sponsorship part. It would be inappropriate if I forget to mention his efforts of personally going to sponsors when ever it was required. The other pillar or should I say the base of Abhyudaya ‘08 was none other than our Ganesh the great, god this guy has the contacts which I believe even an industrialist would not have, but boss the point in not that you have a contact and the story does not get over there, you need to know how and when to use your contacts without spoiling your relationship for the sake of some other initiative. This guy was truly brilliant, I must say he was the only hope behind the complete show; he did not stop his efforts any where, even after a couple of major disappointments, he made it a point to carry on and get the thing done. I don’t remember a moment when he was not busy wit h sponsorship calls or something related to it. in fact at times I was the one who used to torture him like anything asking for updates even before there could have been one. And yes regarding the Crisis management which he and I went under I can never forget those moments. The kind of requirements and issues of the sponsors post the sponsorship deal were another issue which this chap brilliantly handled. Hats off buddy!!!!

I know I have not mentioned the names of other important people involved in the sponsorship process of course it would start from Ganapathy who made it a point to keep everything updated to avoid any kind of confusion and yes Raaj he was the one who used to come to my rescue when ever I was fed up with any company or official, apart from a lot of other companies he handled he was very much active and involved with what’s happening at others end. Raj I remember the number of times we called up professional couriers and how professionally that person avoided us with great statements. Do I need to mention the name of our coordinator Swapnil who was also obviously involved in sponsorship. And yes many others were also involved in this whole process of sponsorship including our great bharat, Uttam, and others. I remember the way sponsorship process started, it started with 5 of us spending the complete holiday period staying up at college while others were enjoying at their homes. People at our homes were forced to ask us whether we had holidays or not actually.

Events
The most daunting task concerning the events was to come up with names for the events which would go well both with the theme and the event and it required lot of brain storming, debate and discussion. But none of these gave us any decent names as we did not have the best names coming to our heads. It was too worse a situation as we were not getting the best names and a lot of other things were on hold just due to it. then finally we managed to come up with the set of names with a lot of help from lot of people and yes we were running short of time, so going ahead was more important than anything else.

Event names decided, now was the time to decide who will take care of which event, what will be the rules of the event, what will be the connect of the event to the theme, how will it be different and the one to look up to. I remember the initial ideas which came up regarding each and every event and how it took again a hell lot of meetings to finally come on consensus with one idea which definitely had modifications later, but then we needed some point to start. I would say the event which was worked on the most was the X% stake and yes full credit for it goes to one and only person Saurabh, he truly spent his time to formulate the event and the base of the event which was the core event of Abhyudaya’08. The model he built was truly brilliant and flawless, participants were amazed with the model and the way the event was organized and conducted. Other events also went under a lot of discussions and changes and dedicated work by many of them till the end to add spice and value to Abhyudaya. The compeering done by Rashmi in the event X% stake definitely was one thing which added zing to the event, if not it would have lost some of its charm and attention which it actually got. The amount of time and effort spent by Ashvin the unsung hero if not mentioned would make it completely unfair and inappropriate for me, truly he without raising an issue did a major part of the job of X% stake to his best and was really brilliant.
Sowmya.S was very much dedicated and organized with her event and gave her best in spite of the difficulties she had to face with the help of Uttam and Bismi. Amitanshu and nikhil came up with an excellent concept for their event which was the most awaited events in Abhyudaya. Venkat and Sumit ended their event very professionally. The online quiz team of Sainath, Tarun and Ganapathy again came up with good questions and ended it up nicely. Treasure hunt was the result of efforts of Anand, raj and a few others which went off well. 1st LAN party was the most speculative event but was conducted extremely well by Pramod and Sowmya.L. Corporate Quiz was another event which was really well organized by Uma, Shishir and Jatin irrespective of the hiccups during the event it was a great effort by the CQ team.
Did I forgot to mention the efforts of Manoj for rock show which did not come up due to a lot of reasons known to everyone, but yes it was a great experience to have worked for it simultaneously for it and no one in their life time could forget the conversation of Manoj with one of our alumnus which was one of the best experience of the whole show. Nitesh worked closely with Rakesh to pull of the panel discussion which had a few big names in the industry to be a part of Abhyudaya. Over all the events went on very well, just that formulating them took a lot of time and effort but execution was one thing which every event had as its USP. The events were minimal but were tailor made and well organized for the theme.

Website
Only one name would come up when you talk about the website and yes it is raaj, never ending conversations, changes, and a lot of other operational issues raising day in and day out but efficiently planned and executed even after so many issues. Brilliant job would be an understatement.

Finance
Nandini and Satya, the coordinators of the finance committee, hardcore job involving a lot of risk and tension, but done with complete care and integrity with no confusion or chaos, everything organized and transparent. These 2 girls never let any one even feel that there was even a committee for finance, such was their job silent but extremely efficient. No one was even aware when where and how money came in and how, when and where it appropriately was given to the right persons. It involved such level of secrecy and silence, as in this world of greed and haste the last thing you could expect is safety of money and accounts, which both of them handled in a way which I could say was par excellence.

Decoration
All the people involved in decoration were so passionate about it that, I would say made the campus look really unlike it used to look on a normal day, the campus was bright and beautiful, it felt that how good it would be if we can continue with the same set up for ever. Excellent work by every individual involved in it. Almost everyone one was involved in this aspect of Abhyudaya.

Hospitality
Do a get a chance to praise the awesome work done by Gaurav and Aditya, it was clearly described and acclaimed by the participants. To add a zing to it was the work done by Ganapathy and raj’s team of people who worked on the pick up of participants which even after receiving complete opposition was truly the major factor in supporting the hospitality’s efforts and to get it the praise which it actually got. It again truly was the USP of Abhyudaya’ 08 without any doubt.

It would be unfair if I don’t mention the names of Hetal, Bhargavi and Kanu who took care of the registration desk, they were the ones who actually were responsible for the free flow of everything at time and place.
Over all this dream journey was something great for me to have traveled and I truly cherish each and every moment of it, good or bad I lived it truly with all the passion and fire in me. I honestly thank everyone for bearing me during the course of all this and for the top of my heart apologize if intentionally or unintentionally I hurt them in any point of time for any issue.
At last I would like you to enjoy the theme song of Abhyudaya ’08 here it goes (music and lyrics of madhuri dixit’s song) – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 ….. Abhyudaya 2008 ….. its all about numbers.

Abhyudaya 2008 Rocked Big Time!!!!! I am there for it FOREVER!!!!!