The Tale of Auxesis

7/28/2019 The Tale of Auxesis

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The tale of Auxesis


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Inundated by thoughts, trying to recollect the

fountains of formation, each of which had

different places and causes of origin, who are

collectively reminiscent of what we call the birth

of a great river, we are optimistically buoyant

with our strong hopes that one day, it will

become an ocean, serene and powerful, whose

presence none can ignore. It, here refers toevery one of your unanimous guesses, AUXESIS.

At the very onset, I would like to bring to your

notice and beg for your bounteous forgiveness,

for my inability to narrate the tales of Auxesis in a

grammatically correct and literarily affluent way.

But let me take you back and allow you to

experience the thrill, the anticipations, the hopes,

the beliefs, the expectations, the agonies, the

hardships, bitter truths, the happiness and above

all the joy, I repeat, sheer joy related to the birth

of Auxesis, the national level annual techno-cultural management festival of Dibrugarh

University.

I am scribing down this note, collecting and

putting together some pieces of my memories of

the first version of Auxesis and the build up to it.

To dive into the story and journey of Auxesis, one

has to venture into the story of its birth, before

one can discover and experience the cardinal part

of the version 1.0. Organizing a national level

technical festival is no easy task. Add to that our

infancy as an institute, absence of seniors andalumni, the task was uphill. If it had to happen

like it happened in 2011, it had to be on account

of extraordinary efforts and efficiency.

Recounting today, it is a story that would be a tale

after a good amount of years and count my word

on that. And as we are going to dive into it, I

would like you expect some amount of

strangeness in our approach and preparation for

our version of Auxesis. But as a matter of fact, it is

beyond the bounds of possibility, to put forth the

account of an event which is such colossal in

nature or to encompass every bit of it. But being amember of the founding team, it puts me in a

favorable position to witness things from the

other side too. That makes is obvious and

perceptible that, this account of Auxesis, will be

nothing but my personal outlook of the Version

1.0. Enough said, now let us begin.

Auxesis, like most other national-level colleges

fests, did not have an opulent origin, in terms of

money and other resources. It was not a

necessary adoption by the greater Dibrugarh

University family either. It was not even the

flames of desires of tottery and insurmountable

youth energy. It was neither destiny, not fate,

because I believe in the existence of neither.

Those are just manifestations of the human mind.

What it was, we will understand as we read on.All the members of the founding team, a jargon I

will often use to describe the members of the first

committee of Auxesis, were in the last stage of

their teenage or have just conquered teenage. It

can be quite irrelevant to mention that, but it is

an affirmation to state that Auxesis was not a

product of uncontrollable energy of the youth,

who always desires to express their energy in

some form.

Auxesis V 1.0 was the culmination of a number of

pieces of dreams and efforts, some number ofrings, I repeat here, some rings, that once came

together in the premises of Dibrugarh University

Institute of Engineering & Technology, and they

forged the One Ring, in the fires of

bewilderment, much alike the account of the One

Ring in the Lord of the Rings. Drawing out an

analogy, the One Ring here will be none but the

flame of Auxesis, which was lit for the first time

on September 15th, 2011. But the burden of

bearing the One Ring will pass on from one 3rd

year batch of DUIET to another, recurring every

year. Now our job, that is again, yours and mine,will be to find out and forge together the pieces to

build the One Ring.

To know the beginning of Auxesis, the One Ring,

let me take you on a small detour. It dates back to

August 2009. No, Auxesis was not planned back

then. It was the month, DUIET came into being. In

a few weeks to come, a fraternity was to form,

which would be potent enough to be exemplary

in many fields. However, at that point of time, a

strong vibe ran across the newly formed

fraternity that DUIET will be just a shadow ofsome of the established engineering institutes of

the region. Many of us, almost all my branch

mates, sacrificed their seats in the well-

established colleges, AEC, JEC and even NIT, and

took admission into DUIET because they had

great aspirations, judging by the reputation of the

University as a whole. There was not a notion

established till then, in the community of the

engineering colleges of the region, that an


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institute called DUIET was established. There was

no reason for them to take us seriously and think

us as a competition in the long run. In a time

when the world was moving at a brisk pace, the

world of engineering was moving even faster

with hundreds of innovations greeting us every

day, in the global community. Far East in India,

the nation who was reconstructing its lost gloryin the field of education, was established a new

engineering institute. Infant it was, carrying the

burden of nurturing a number of newborns. Little

did people knew or expected something of the

magnitude of Auxesis would come up, which

would be in the front pages of many local dailies,

in a matter of just three years of establishment of

the institute. But something had to happen when

a group of some fearless and like-minded people

meet, and had it to happen inside the walls of

DUIET, which was a spanning mansion and a

sprawling campus at that time, with four roomsand a corridor with no labs, an institute with no

history, no legacy, nor even traditions, then it had

to be something colossal. It had to be colossal

because whenever something happens for the

first time, there is nothing to stand upon, no one

hopes or expects, there is no fear of failure, and

the sky is always the limit. Henceforth ,

expectations were born building up to a

insatiable altitude, flames of hope was lit, desires

and passions flowed in the veins of the students

of the first batch of DUIET, and the first ring was

forged, which happens to be the Ring of Dreams.

The Ring of Dreams was an important one, but

just one of the rings. Time has to be kind to allow

an environment, prosperous enough, which has

the right components to encourage the

germination of a number of other rings and

nurture them. The first ring, inherent with great

power to changes courses, initiated processes

that would facilitate the genesis of other rings.

Meanwhile, time had fast forwarded a bit in

DUIET, on account of the celebration of its

genesis among the members of its fraternity, till it

slowed down to witness the first attempt of its

newly adopted kids to create something which

had physical form. It was an attempt to give birth

to a journal, which later evolved to the form of a

magazine in the imaginary world, boosted by the

Ring of Dreams. The magazine had to have

contents that beared a forward-looking

propaganda to capture the imagination of the

outside world. We had the desire to prove to the

outside world that we are capable of

materializing dreams that were inherent with

quality and possessed the appeal to capture the

imagination of the mass. In short, we had a

reason to prove ourselves. Plans were made to

send copies of the magazine to other educational

institutions of the region as well. Content

columns were designed, stratified under differentheads, which were essentially technical in nature

and quite unintentionally those heads of articles

bore the first sparks of the genesis of Auxesis. It

was categorized into Technical, Creativity,

Literature, Management, Computer Gaming, etc.,

which were sub-divided into heads like Robotics,

New Technologies, Science-Fiction, Product

Management, Industrial Case Studies, etc. But

little did we know at that time that there existed

a system, already established, outside of our

world of our system of operation. That system

encompassed every action of ours and we werebrought back to reality. There were procedures in

the University which required us to take

permissions from designated authorities, to even

conduct a small meeting among ourselves, in the

presence of our faculties, in our own class rooms.

That landed us on the starting point of the

learning curve. We proceeded with almost naught

guidance. But we were always driven high by the

force of our first ring, above a sea whose shores

were not familiar to us to make a landing. The

need for a new ring was felt, and it was the Ring

of Reality, that was eventually forged. Newton,

again made his presence felt by us that if we were

flying high, we needed a force acting downwards

to keep us balanced. It was the implementations

of his findings that we took a downward glide,

into the alley of reality.

Two rings were forged, which eventually pulled

us down to a lower altitude, but not once our

celerity. We are moving at a commendable

velocity, balanced by the forces of the two rings.

The Ring of Dreams was pushing us to higher

altitudes, but the Ring of Reality was exerting

enough force to keep us in the realm of

productivity. We were slowly getting acquainted

with the ambient environment. Frustration kept

creeping at some points of time, but did not have

the horsepower to overhaul the power of the two

rings. Our desires were burning, passions were

ardent, all to do something for DUIET. Come

September, when DUIET was one month old, time

presented us the first opportunity to organize


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something. It was Teachers Day round thecorner, and we set ourselves to organize it in a

grand way. Arrangements were being made and

in the process of organizing, sense of team effort

was building up slowly, with the occasional

showing up of sparks of organizing excellence,

and all these led to the forging of the third ring,

the Ring of Team-Building. This ring had thepower to single-handedly steer and change the

course of any event, and it had to be essentially

the most efficient of all. This ring, not only

possessed the power to boost productivity, but

also could be the cause for destruction and

dishonor. This ring slowly grew in power and

initiated the process of building the founding

team of Auxesis. It followed a rigorous regime to

test, filter and select members fit for the founding

team by smashing them against the walls of time-

management, invincible hurdles. In due course of

time, the ring molded the members, and startedgiving shape to the first prototype of the founding

team. The potency founding team was the

summation of the capacity of each of its

members. But if we consider capacity to be a

finite quantity, then by laws of nature, this high

amount of potency, if harnessed, then the

resultant will be always greater than the sum of

all the individual capacities. As goes the saying,

Rome was not built in a day, the founding team

too was not the product of a single day or few

weeks. Powered by the force of these three rings,

the first prototype of the founding team came

forward to organize Dibrugarh Universitys firsttechfest, christened Techposium, under the

banner of the office of the Assistant General

Secretary of DUPGSU, 2009-2010. Techposium

was a one day event, comprising of two contents,

in the form of Counter Strike 1.6 and an on-the-

spot robotics event. The art of event organizing

was being slowly grasped by us, and was

integrated into our system on-the-go. We were

traversing on the learning curve and faced

intersections in the form of time-management,and other hurdles. At the points of intersections,

we were always presented with at least three

ways to choose from, other than the path that we

are already traversing. Only one way will lead us

to higher paths of learning, otherwise we would

have to call quits. We even suffered wounds in

the form of failures, in the hands of cruel time

when we deviated from the curve of learning. But

we took the wounds, identified the right paths

and made progress to be able to repair our

wounds. In the process, we enhanced our

immunity to failures and fueled our hunger for

success. The further we kept on moving on the

curve, our pace kept of increasing, and

intersections were becoming rarer. We were

learning to dodge on hurdles, maneuver our

moves, take short cuts and adjusted to longer,

indirect paths, but kept on moving in the rightpath. The process helped to forge the fourth ring,

the Ring of Resilience.

Being dreamers, realistic, team-players and

resilient, it was a matter of time that we would

organize something that the mass would

appreciate. Opportunity came in the form of

organizing Engineers Day in DUIET,commemorating the birthday of Sir.

Mokshagundam Visvesvarya. An event was

organized on 15th September, 2010, christened

Mindsparx, which will remain exemplary for along time to come in the history of the University,

for a lot of reasons. Time-management,

organizing skills, event management skills, team-

coordination, adjustment with the ambient

environment adhering to the traditions of the

sixty plus year old Univeristy were some of the

areas excelled by the founding team. The

founding team decided to introduce some new

elements never seen by the greater University

fraternity till then. It was an effort to acquaint the

University fraternity with elements that are

associated with engineering colleges, which waspossible only because of the establishment of

DUIET. It was preparation of just two days.

Mindsparx was stratified into strata of Technical

Events, Creativity Events, Funnology Events, a

Quiz and a Cultural Extravaganza, christened

Chromatic Waltz. The special attraction of

Mindsparx was the guest lecture session by Mr.

Richard Johannes Fenger, Senior Management

expert from Amsterdam, Netherlands. Now dont

ponder over how someone could fly from

Netherlands and more so how could we get hold

of such a personality in just two days. Do not dare

to say its luck or destiny of fate. I never believe in

such crap that something called luck or destiny

exists. Moving on, marking my words that we

introduced few new elements, a rock concert was

held for the first time in Dibrugarh University,

much to the liking of the University crowd. Local

band Ninaad headlined the concert. The

preparation for the event included collection of

money. Sponsorship was collected and money


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was also raised in the form of generous

donations. Idea Cellular was the chief sponsor.

You believe it or you do not, all these were done

in just two days time. And add to that the

absence of any committees. Not once till the end

of the event, we felt the need for any committee,

much unlike these days. As a matter of fact, we

had no committees for any event of DUIET tillAuxesis, which had to have a committee. When

we were told by our faculty that we have to

organize an event for Engineers Day, we decidedthis is the time we show the power of our four

rings, earned by us. A Group of students gather in

front of the only cafeteria in the premises of

Dibrugarh University, on 13th September, 2010,

and it was decided in that small meeting that we

would organize a daylong event to celebrate

Engineers Day. Responsibilities were divided,and work started immediately. People dispatched

in groups to the town to different merchants,begging for sponsorship, and we collected

whatever was given to us. Some could help us by

providing us financial help, others helped us in

kind. I and Chandrasekhar Rao were given the

responsibility of organizing the robotics event.

We had to decide what event we would keep for

the robotics module, design the arena, but

materials for it, build it, and publish bot

specifications, sample arena and possible hurdles

for the event. Chandrasekhar took the

responsibility of building the arena and almost

single-handedly built it in a single night, the night

before the event. He was the carpenter, the

painter and also the engineer. Building the arena

the night before was not possible because we did

not have money to buy things to build the arena.

During the day, we went to different classes,

giving orientations about robotics, explaining

simple steps to build a simple bot. To our

pleasant surprise, more than ten teams turned up

on the day of the event. Any robot enthusiast

would know what a commendable achievement it

was as it takes days to build a bot for acompetition. The participating teams worked no

less hard than us, as it is never easy to build a bot

in two days time with no prior knowledge of

robotics. Similar enthusiasm was on displays in

the other events too. It was particularly a sight to

behold, when quizmaster Mr. Wyangko

Weingkan, unleashed his magic, and kept the

audience captivated for three plus hours. The

best part of Mindsparx was that all events started

on time. Although all events were held in the

premises of RangGhar Auditorium, barring the

Amazing Race, no events clashed and went on as

per schedule. The Amazing Race started in

RangGhar and sprawled throughout the heart of

the town. Participants just wished for a bit more

of it. Nevertheless, the whole process led to the

forging of the fifth ring, the Ring of Action. It is

this ring that aided us in implementations,maneuvers and giving physical form to our

dreams and ideas.

A zillion thoughts, a billion dreams, millions of

fragments of desires and passions, a sea of hope

and expectations and rivers of unassiable efforts

has forged five great rings. The stage was set

now. Belief was bestowed upon us and

responsibilities were entrusted upon us. And at

last it was time that we harness the

insurmountable energy of all the rings and build

the One Ring. But time is not always kind. Italways sets up high tides against the direction of

our motion, for us to sail against if we are to

succeed. Internal clashes crept up. The Ring of

Team-Building was falling weak. The most

dreaded thing, untrust was poisoning some of our

members. It was particularly a day of sourness

for me, when I was convicted of initiating

processes to hold Auxesis for my personal

benefit. It was a heart-breaking moment for me,

and waters of disappointment were drowning me

more than tears of sadness. After working so

hard convincing everybody that we needed atechfest to establish ourselves, it was doomsday

for me. Sometimes, even the strongest of will

powers can fail. Humiliation followed and it was

all for me to take as I was the torch bearer back

then. Evil will always take chances, it was known

to me. But how bitter it would taste, was

understood by me, that night. I was broken. I

vowed a thousand times that I will never again, in

my conscious self, lay my hands for any

constructive efforts for DUIET. The conviction

came from one of my close friends and my hostel-

mate. His senses were so poisoned and he was

out of the reach of the Ring of Team-Building. I

burnt down the portfolio and sponsorship

brochure that I had made for Auxesis, which

contained the skeleton of Auxesis or could be

termed as the first model of the fest, on paper.

Every bit of data that had any relation to the then

doomed fest called Auxesis, were deleted with

some deleting sequence overwriting the binary

sequence of any relevant data, once stored safely


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on my HDD. But somehow the other rings had to

react. They felt the absence of something and

knew something had to be done. All hope rested

on them and they did not disappoint, but forged

the sixth and the last ring, the Ring of

Resolution. The ring had to keep us in track, in

times of difficulties, which can be psychological in

nature, which no other ring could address to. Theorigin of the Ring of Resolution was a charm,

planned to perfection by our old allies, the five

great rings. They deputed Kaustav Moni Kashyap,

my batch mate and close friend, to execute their

plan. KMK invited us to join one and all of our

batch of Professional Boys Hostel for a specialnight, the night of comradeship. Money was

collected and we set up for an outdoor dinner, in

the premises of the outskirts of our hostel, by the

side of our newly constructed football field by the

valiant effort of the boys of our hostel, which was

once a wasteland. Dinner was being cookedoutside and the aroma was consuming us. Music

was loud, the weather was chilly, cards were

being spread out and the people were crazy.

Celebrations were on full swing, but there was no

reason to celebrate till then. Cometh the moment,

cometh the man, and it was an announcement

send out by KMK to all comrades to gather at the

dining hall of our hostel. What followed was epic

and rarely does that kind of things happen in any

hostel, anywhere in the world. When the

gathering was complete, we were told that today

we have to shed all feelings of hatred towards

anybody of our mates, and we will set an example

for people to follow , as to how can such a big

group of people could live in harmony, without

any hard feelings for anybody. The feeling of

hatred was always between individuals for

different reasons, almost all of them arising

because of being human. So with that belief, KMK

summoned to start the proceedings and it started

with names being announced in pairs, who did

not have feelings of communal harmony for each

other, as it was apparent and known toeverybody as to who disliked whom. The pairs

abided to the summons, stood in front of the

gathering, and confessed individually the reasons

why they disliked each other. After confessing,

they shook hands and in the demand of the crowd

of comrades, they knelt down, holding their ears

and asked for forgiveness. It was amazingly easy

to shed feelings of hatred than we might have

thought of. Our mind does not allow us to forgive

someone, because of our so called ego, which is

nothing but a psychological barrier. But when it

happens in front of a huge crowd, shyness creeps

in rather than ego, and it becomes easier to

arouse feelings of love for people whom we hated

for a long time. Nonetheless, the session went on

well and I too knelt down in front of all along

with my ill-treator, who was once my close

friend, and to my surprise, we became friendagain. The comrades then decided that Auxesis

have to be held, for DUIET and for the University.

Dinner was served, glasses were poured, and we

shouted in unison, hailing our friendship. That

night, we went out for an adventure, led by a

fellowship. Aragon, Frodo, Samwise Gamgee,

Gimli, Boromir, Gandalf, Theoden and fellow

comrades led an expedition. The fellowship had

to cross the jungles of the Botanical Garden at

night and it also had to guard Frodo from five

sides so that no harm from the loyal guards of the

University could touch him. Executing ourmission, we felt more like naxals than members

of the fellowship! But that is a different and a long

tale. So I will end its narration here. Amidst all

these, I would love to bring you back to the world

of Auxesis where the comrades decided in unison

that Auxesis will be staged. That meant, action

had to start the next morning.

For action to start, we had to lock the name of our

fest. Now you must be annoyed as that I have

been using the name Auxesis from the very onset

of this tale and now I tell you that we have todecide the name. Do you remember that I was ill-

treated by one of my batch mates? The naming of

the fest was one of the reasons, because I set up a

poll in the classes of our junior batch first and did

not conduct the poll in senior classes. But that is

an irrelevant part of the story now, and let me

remind you that we have to choose a name for

our fest. The next morning we convened a

meeting among our batch mates, in the afternoon

hours. The other urgent things that had to be

decided were the dates, the events and members

of the working committee. In addition to these

things, if we get a pad and few stamps, work can

start. Again it was the gathering of some valiant

comrades but with a larger footprint this time

around, encompassing the whole DUIET

fraternity. Since it would be a fest of the

University and would be chiefly organized by

DUIET, the entire DUIET fraternity has to join

hands and any decision made should be in the

presence and to the knowledge of the whole


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fraternity. We were very particular about it. First

coming to the name, choosing between the

biological meaning, the literary meaning, and

their Greek counterpart, it was the vibes of a

powerful civilization as old as the origin of

mankind, which made our choice obvious to

name the fest as Auxesis, meaning growth and

amplification. Our heads bows down to the greatcivilization for crafting such a beautiful word

with an even more beautiful meaning. Second on

the cards was to choose the dates for the event.

Comrades, who gathered that afternoon,

discussed at length and decided that 15th to 18th

September would be an ideal time as we had to

keep considerable space between other fests of

the region. The third agenda was to constitute the

working committee of Auxesis. Since the

members, as you would know, how they were

rigorously tested and tried by the rings till then,

so it was transparently lingering above thesurface, who would fit in what position. It was a

matter of interest of the individual, rather than

the amount of talent that he or she had in reserve,

that was taken into account and positions were

filled in. The posts of the Faculty Convener,

Student Convener, Event Managers, Marketing

Managers, Social Initiative Managers, Accounts

Managers, Invitation & Publicity Managers, Media

Managers, Web & Creativity Managers,

Hospitality & Accommodation Managers,

Discipline, Reception and Volunteer Managers

and Cultural Events Managers were made on that

day. Later we added Prize Distribution Managers,

Refreshment Managers and Registration

Managers. The posts were displayed to the

comrades and when asked to each individual, if

they are ready to take responsibility given to

them, each of them responded in affirmative and

the founding team was formed for the final time.

SIDHARTHA SANKAR KOWNDILYA, ANINDRA

NARAYAN BYATSHOSH, NITYA NANDA DAS

assumed the posts of Event Managers. RISHIRAJ

PHUKAN, NILAV KUMAR PYNE assumed theposts of Marketing Managers. DEBOJYOTI

BEZBARUAH, AFTAB AHMED, BIJIT MECH

assumed the posts of social Initiative Managers.

MANAS PUZARI, ARUNABH MAZUMDAR,

JYOTIRMOY SARMAH and NANDINI MILI

assumed the posts of Accounts Managers.

BHARGAV DAS, SRAWANTI MEDHI, KAUSTAV

MONI KASHYAP assumed the posts of Invitation

& Publicity Managers. DUDUL DAS, PARAG NEOG

PARARDHA SABHAPANDIT assumed the posts of

Media Managers. BHAIRAB CHANGKAKOTY,

DEBRAJ ROY, SHYAMAL BORSAIKIA and

VISHWAJIT NANDI assumed the posts of Web &

Creativity Managers. SATYAJIT CHOUDHURY,

NISHAL GOHAIN and BULON HAZARIKA assumed

the posts of Cultural Events Managers. SARIFUL

HASSAN MEHBOOB, MANAS PRATIM KALITA and

SAGARIKA BHARADWAJ assumed the posts ofHospitality Managers. MIFTAHUZ ZAMAN,

ANKUR SARMA and PURABI BORA assumed the

posts of Accommodation Managers. RAJESH

TRIPATY and DIPRANJAN GOGOI assumed the

posts of Discipline, Reception and Volunteer

Managers. SPARSHA TAMULY and ABHINABH

SINGH assumed the posts of Registration

Managers. MONJUR ALOM assumed the post of

our Refreshment Manager. CHINMOY TALUKDAR

and GAURI SHANKAR BORA assumed the posts of

Prize Distribution Managers. Most of these posts

were filled on that day apparently, and later somemodifications were made. There were some

voluntary maneuvers by some individuals which

were critically responsible for the success of

Auxesis V 1.0. I will take you to those avenues

sooner, but not at this moment.

There was no huff and puff for the posts, nor was

there any hype, unlike these days and it was clear

to all comrades there itself that if responsibility

was taken by them, they will have to complete

their tasks, cometh any hurdle of any scale. As ofnow, you know that Auxesis was to be held in

September. And at this time, when we are

gathering and forming the founding team, it was

the month of May. That meant we had four

months at hand. But we had end semester exams

in the month of July and it was summer break

after that. That meant, for everybody to work

together, we had just two months at hand. Now,

this is not an encouragement for any new

committee of the future to try organizing a

techfest with two months hand in time, as

because you might not have the power of the six

rings and the experience of organizing so much

before we set out to organize Auxesis. That

afternoon, I was given the responsibility of the

Student Convener of Auxesis V 1.0. It was a big

responsibility on my shoulders and an emotional

moment for me when my batch mates bestowed

their faith upon me. I knew at that moment itself,

that it would be a herculean task. Though

organizing events was no longer rocket science


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for us, yet this time it would be different. We

were going to organize a national level technical

festival and we vowed to remain true to our

words that when subjected to a competency

matrix, Auxesis will stand out as a truly national

level technical festival in terms of quality. Many a

hopes lied upon me to lead and pave the path. I

will have to be at the pinnacle at all points oftime, set standards, so that instead of

commanding somebody to work harder, I could

tell them No need to work harder. Work as much

as I and success will be yours. I had to be sure

that I was working hard enough to set the

standard. When fellow comrades could keep up

to that standard, it completely relied upon them

therein to decide how much harder they are

going to push. There would be no pressure from

my side on them to push harder than the

standard. But if they would fail in keeping up to

the standard, I would have no choice but relievehim or her of their duty, in the greater interest of

the fest and the University, be it my best friend,

my girlfriend or my favorite juniors. The

standard was uniform to the deepest cores of the

organizing team, which included the volunteers.

There would be no discrimination in terms of

work load between volunteers, coordinators and

managers. By work load here I mean the actual

work like sweeping the hall, casting the banners,

collecting thrash, cleaning the venues, pulling of

screens, etc. It can be easy for a manger to direct

volunteers to make their hands dirty with those

kind of work, but it will never be easy for him to

extract good amount of quality work from them

unless he himself gets his hands dirty. This was

made absolutely clear to all our managers and

event coordinators. This can be best understood

when people had to lose their posts when they

failed to deliver, adhering to deadlines. As I

believe that a team can be as best as its leader, it

was my responsibility to be as best as I could to

keep everyone inspired at every point of time and

also keep them reminded of the consequences ofnot putting in efforts. In short, I tried to

implement the carrot and stick approach.

The name, the dates and members of the working

committee was what we were to decide in that

meeting. Mission accomplished for the day! Next

up was the compiling of necessary documents

and scripting of attractive text to rope in

sponsorship money. Pads and stamps were

required to validate those attractive words. Work

started that night and took around three days to

complete. We had the portfolio of the event and

the sponsorship brochure ready. Nobody taught

us how to apply for sponsorship, nor did we have

any clue on what to include in the portfolio and

the sponsorship brochures. We had no

newspaper cuttings of past success to include in

the brochures because we had no past.Meanwhile, as work on the brochures was

proceeding, some of us went to the Director of

DUIET, Prof. HIRANYA Kr. DAS, to get the

permission to organize the fest. He has recently

joined the institute and we were not familiar to

each other. Nevertheless, we were being

supported by our faculty members who let him

know of our past success in organizing events.

Mr. AKAN Kr. DAS, the faculty convener of

Auxesis 2011, was extremely supportive towards

the founding team, and was quite instrumental in

persuading the Director, Prof. H.K. DAS, who wasa prolific personality himself, with years of

experience behind him. The Director could

foresee meaning in our proposal and asked us to

schedule a meeting with the Honorable Vice

Chancellor of the University, and there would be

a decision taken on that meeting. Since we

decided to organize Auxesis as a fest of the

University and not only of DUIET, it was

extremely important for us to get the consent of

the Vice Chancellor and the administration of the

University. We approached the Vice Chancellorsoffice to get a date and timing for the meeting and

after waiting for long hours for a few days in his

office to get an appointment, finally the date was

given to us. By that time we had the brochures

ready, containing the blueprint of the fest,

including the events to be held and the budget,

specifically showing how much was needed for

each event. On the day of the meeting, we went to

the conference hall in the office of the Vice

Chancellor, fully equipped with a PPT, our

brochures and strategies to persuade everyone

present. By persuasion, you might remember weintroduced some new elements to the University

fraternity through Mindsparx. The

representatives of the core organizing team, the

Honorable Vice Chancellor of Dibrugarh

University, Prof. KANDARPA Kr. DEKA, the

Director, the Liaison Officer to the VC and the

Faculty Convener took their seats. My tools, the

HD thirty inch monitor, the PPT were all set. I

began by explaining each of the events and

aspects of Auxesis, as we planned, and went


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about in explaining all details of particular events

upon request. We were very particular about

what to present at what place. Keeping the

ambient environment of the places of

presentation in mind, it would have been very

unwise to present about a rock concert in the

VCs office, in similarity with presenting about a

robotics competition to Spirit Undergroundasking for sponsorship. The Vice Chancellor took

keen interest in the event, as he seemed to be

impressed quite a bit, and kept on asking

questions. Our Director too was amazed and

pleasantly surprised to see our enthusiasm and

the scale of our dreams. It was his realization at

that moment, that something big was being

planned, and its success will depend on how well

it is cooked and served. We could get the

unanimous consent of everyone present there,

and were asked to go ahead. The Vice Chancellor

asked us particularly to include the key andknowledgeable persons of the University and

include them in the committee and to form an

advisory board.

Mission two accomplished in a matter of five

days. Next up was printing of the brochures;

obtain a letter of introduction from the

Honorable Vice Chancellor and our Director to

present to the companies when we go to apply

for sponsorship. Looks easy, eh? But where on

earth will money come from to cover the costs of

printing? The only option was to scratch ourpockets and make personal sacrifices to cover the

costs, because collecting money from all students

was never an option. DUIETs students havealready been paying much on account of Varsity

week, Teachers day, and lot other things andthere was no reason for them to pay more nor did

we have the right to ask more from them. The

only option left was generous donations of

individual students who were like minded and

thought about the welfare of the institute. We

could collect Rupees Fifteen Hundred, and went

on to print in black and white, reducing our costs

manifold. Though we had dreams, we had to

content with what was at our disposal, and we

had to extract the maximum from them. The

brochures were out of the press in two days and

on the eight day of starting our proceedings,

Satyajit, Sidharth and myself boarded a night bus

to Guwahati in search of sponsorship. The next

morning we started our journey in Guwahati and

simultaneously in Dibrugarh, our core marketing

team went out in search of local sponsors. We

had an appointment in S Tel, and went to meet

them riding on great hopes. We had a short

conversation with the marketing manager of S

Tel, which was quite pleasant in terms of warmth

of reception, but not so in terms of giving any

financial aid. That was just the start. The whole

day we loitered around G.S. Road, setting our footinside every big building of corporates who

beared any possibility of being generous enough

to us. News was not so good. Same gloom

prevailed in the Dibrugarh Team too. It is one

thing getting sponsorship for an event like

Mindsparx, and it is completely different to get

sponsorship for an event like Auxesis. We were

playing with numbers, which were huge enough

to raise an alarm of concern in every corporate

house, whether their investment would have a

high ROI. That day we also visited the office of

Operation Smile India, who were indulgingthemselves in the noble cause of curing clefts in

children, employing state of the art technologies,

and all for free. Our efforts for taking initiatives

for the society, very well fitted with their cause,

which they have been continuing for quite a

number of years. We asked for their consent to

allow us to help them in their cause. They happily

agreed and appreciate us for coming up to help

such a noble deed. We informed our social

initiative managers, and they took over from

there, which later became one of our most

valuable assets. Our social initiative managers

employed full hearted efforts to make the

campaign successful. Later on they planned and

executed a number of other initiatives, which I

will come to later. We returned from Ghy, that

very night. That night, I remember scolding, an

activity I quite became famous for in course of

Auxesis, one of our web & creativity managers,

who created an event on www.facebook.com in

the name of Auxesis and sending invitations. My

point of concern was we cannot invite anyone

until and unless we had something concrete toshow them. The first impression was most often

the last one. Auxesis was not a brand till then. If

someone was invited to Auxesis, he would not

know a word about it, he would look to gather

further information about it, and we had none to

show them. We did not have a website till then.

So it a rather obvious for one to have a wrong

impression about Auxesis, that it would be just

another annual festival of some college in Upper

Assam. Our best shot in impressing people would
http://www.facebook.com/http://www.facebook.com/http://www.facebook.com/


10/2210

always be to mesmerize them the first time they

come across us. So our next target was to

complete the website in the shortest possible

time, and I or no one at that point of time had

imagined in their wildest dreams that we would

get a marvelous piece of art handed over to us.

The website will always be the face of our fest

and people will make assumptions about us,looking at the website. A basic layout of the

website was made and I handed them over to our

web and creativity team they handed us back our

pride, the website of Auxesis 2011. It was an

easily navigable website, containing all

information with links from the home page,

compatible with mobile browsers, had cross

browser compatibility, simple in design but

elegant in expression. Bhairab Changkakoty was

the chief architect of the website, later on

maintained and updated by Viswajit Nandi.

The marketing team was well supported by

managers and coordinators of other teams, and

they were toiling hard, sweating profusely in the

heat of April and June. The social initiative team

also planned a number of campaigns and was

aided by a number of other people. Girls and

boys, led by Debojyoti Bezbaruah, Aftab Ahmed,

Bijit Mech went to the interiors of some hostile

villages, where literacy was not a concern and

information of the outside world was not

important for them. Our team tried to find

children having cleft problems. They alsosolicited the help of various government offices

like the social welfare office, the office of the

Director of Health, etc., to identify children with

clefts. This team also partnered with Greenpeace

International to spread awareness among people

about the adversities of deforestation and its

consequences. They also organized charity camps

where our students voluntarily donated clothes,

which were handed over to an orphanage. The

smile, with which the innocent children greeted

them, melted their hearts and also marked the

success of our social initiatives.

Meanwhile, Manas Puzari, our accounts manager,

was efficiently scribing down every expenditures,

incomes and keeping records updated at all

points of time and for all to see. His efficiency was

one of the pillars on which the success of Auxesis

resides. He was later joined by Anindra, one of

our event managers, our Gandalf on account of

his wit, and together they formed a formidable

team on whom we could rely with our eyes shut.

They carried lakhs of rupees in their back packs

on the days of the event, secure enough to rival

the complex security systems of the banks. Being

accounts managers, they were not spared from

the wrath of complexity of organizing a fest like

Auxesis. Even they had to buy spoons, get bus

bookings done, hotel reservations on the go.Efficiency was all that counted when you had to

do a lot of things, other than your designated

tasks. After all, the rings were giving us the

power.

Meanwhile, I was working on the minute details

of the event, researching and reading on each

type of event that we were going to organize. I

studied the websites and event details of many

universities and colleges, spread around the

world, surfing their websites. The research was

so deep that I could conduct any event includedin Auxesis, if I were given the responsibility to do

so. Since I had to be at the pinnacle at all the

times, and address to any problems arising in any

of the events, I made sure that the scope of

Auxesis did not go beyond the boundaries of my

ability to contribute. So, I made sure that only a

handful of events be held, which we could

conduct with profound efficiency, and that

handful was fifty plus. I assigned the event

managers, Anindra, Sidharth and Nitya, whom I

call the three pillars of Auxesis, to make the

schedule of those four days. These three can beclaim to their credit, the major part of the success

of Auxesis. These three, being like-minded, ego

less, with an attitude to readily to take up any

responsibility only helped their causes to

contribute more to the success of Auxesis 2011.

To make the schedule was a herculean task, as

making a schedule for fifty plus events, spanning

four days was no easy task. They had to make

sure that venues do not clash, and like natured

events do not clash. They were working on three

parameters, viz., time, venue and event. Now for

them to make the schedule, we have to know

which events demand what. For that we have to

assign coordinators for each event and get the list

of requirements and specifications from them.

But that would be a long process and would

consume a considerable amount of time. But you

can never be sure of that in DUIET. Anything is

possible here. So I, along with the managers,

called for a meeting, inviting all students of our

branch. While the three pillars were working on


11/2211

the schedule, I was working on the contents of

each event to be displayed in the website.

Two days after we let everybody know of the

date of the meeting, in the afternoon hours, we

gathered in the Department of Computer Science.

The meeting was similar in nature with the one

which filled up the posts of the managers. Eventswere displayed, responsibilities were given,

consent of the individuals was accounted for and

work was designated. Their work was to hand

over a note to the event managers, about their

venue requirements and how much time would

their event consume. Meanwhile, the event

managers made assumptions, which were

amazingly correct to the tenth decimal, and made

a schedule which we uploaded to the website

along with the contents of all the events. The

website was up and ready to be published. We

made the last amendments to Metadata and Metatags, to make the site search engine friendly and

published the website. Few days later we opened

up registrations on the website.

Work was now happening from different ends. It

was not happening from a single front. Vishwajit

was dedicating more hours than anyone can sit

continuously in front of a computer. The

spearhead of our web & creativity team, had

completed the design of the t shirt. We send it for

print to our merchandise partner, E Sparsha and

received the t shirt within a month. The materialof the t shirt was not of top quality as we did not

want to burn a hole in the pockets of the

students. Also, the non-delivery of institute t

shirts, even after collection of money, added to

the list of reasons the students would not want to

pay money for the t shirts. There was a reliability

issue. So we had no option, but to compromise on

the quality of the t shirt, because we had to win

back the faith of the students that their money

will not be used properly. The other spearhead of

the web & creativity team, Bhairab had

completed the design of the poster and we sentthat for print too. The poster arrived within a

week and the design brought bouquets of praises

for the entire fraternity. So we had a lot of things

happening, in a span of thirty days, which

according to the classification in the English

calendar, equals to one month.

Somewhere in between all these activities, I along

with Sidhartha and Anindra went to BCPL one

fine warm day. The torture that we went through

that day would have been a nice workout for a

national level athlete. But if we would add the

temperature and the sadist outlook of the sun

that day, even he or she would have thought

twice before going out for such a workout. We

had to travel on foot, nearly sixteen to seventeen

kilometers, being sent from one office to other.The sun was directly above our heads and as

expected there was no tree to be seen in the

industrial area, throughout the length of the

under construction roads. There were no

facilities to get a drop of water anywhere. But we

were the soldiers of resilience and resolve,

remember? We kept our pace and went about

executing our tasks.

End Semester arrived and preparations came to a

halt from most quarters. I however could not

concentrate on my studies and continuedworking. I kept sitting with my laptop for long

hours, researching and making minute changes to

our agendas and making changes in the website.

To make changes in the website was not smooth

at that time as I did not have knowledge of coding

then. Moreover the site was html coded, and to

make a change in one word of the footer meant it

had to be changed for all pages individually, and

upload them one by one, overwriting the

previous ones. Now that site was over forty pages

strong. I cannot recount now, how many times I

and Vishwajit uploaded the whole site to makesmall changes. Work was to resume after the

vacations. During the vacations, brochures were

handed over to different teams to visit different

companies. Till then we used up almost half the

amount of brochures we printed. There was no

confirmation from any company till then about

financial aid. But we kept our hopes alive.

During the vacations, Nilav, our marketing

manager, Dudul, our media manager with the

occasional aid of few other students were doing a

commendable job of visiting companies andpresenting our case for consideration in

Guwahati. It was not uncommon for them to sit

for hours in the lobbies of some well-furnished

buildings, waiting for someone to turn up, and

after days and hours of waiting, they were being

told that they will go through our proposal, which

is an indirect way of rejecting our proposal.

There are jargons used by marketing managers

and company people, with which our marketing


12/2212

managers were gradually becoming familiar.

Nilav and Dudul were stationed in Guwahati to

undergo summer training in Indian Railways. But

the weightage given by them to each ends, can

well be guessed by you. They were more of being

students of MBA those days than being students

of engineering. Their plight was no better than

product representatives of various companiesvisiting our homes and trying valiantly to sell

their products, usually taking our moms as soft

targets. But Nilav and Dudul were greeted with

no mothers! Scorching heat, long distances, busy

schedule of corporates, depressing comments

were no barriers for our marketing team. The

other face of the marketing team, Rishiraj was

also toiling hard. He was establishing contacts

with companies and was making efforts to close

the deals. It was a matter of closing a deal in

corporate world. Getting leads is another thing,

and converting leads to money was anotheraspect and our marketing team was working on

the latter part. Later during the month of August,

Nilav was well joined by a few others and that

added steam to their engines. The month of

August brought new enthusiasm to the whole

team and suddenly there was a sense of urgency

creeping into everybody to get their tasks

completed. Nilav was joined by Mondeep, Parag

and few others. Mondeep was the Faramir of our

times. Facing the corporates daily, being sent

back by them, being sort of bullied, was not

enough to deter his dedication and enthusiasm a

bit. It was impossible to kill his enthusiasm, just

like the armies of Sauran could not kill Faramir.

Everyday did he went out in the scorching heat,

every day he put forth our case and begged for

help to stage our dear Auxesis in a good possible

way. Words would be inadequate to describe the

valiance exhibited by these people.

The road of the marketing managers was eventful

and was colored by many amusing stories. One of

such, is the trip to Margherita to visit CIL on

sponsorship purpose. Nilav, Parag, Shyamal,

Dudul and Jayanta went in Shyamals car, and on

reaching they presented our case. They were

offered a total sum of rupees five thousand. The

team took authority from there, and obtained a

sum of total rupees fifty thousand only! The total

sum eventually obtained was ten times that of the

sum initially offered. Deals like this can be

achieved only by exemplary efficiency and clarity

of the mind about the task at hand.

In between all these, the organizing team made a

decision to collect a sum of rupees two fifty from

all the students who would take admission in

DUIET, in the month of July and August, who did

not have holes in their pockets contributing

money for different events of DUIET and the

University. We had to take this decision because

we were dearly short of money and had none tospend on all necessary commodities and aspects

of the fest. As already mentioned, we were very

particular to not collect money from the students

of DUIET, who were already pursuing their

studies here, because they have already

contributed enough for different events of DUIET.

Auxesis was going to be the biggest fest of the

University in its entire history, but to collect

money in its name from students, who were

already paying a handsome amount as semester

fee, was not what we dreamt of. We had the

power of the six rings, and knew we would bethrough. Moreover if it has to be the best, Auxesis

will stand on its own feet, attracting sponsors by

its charm and quality and not ride on the money

of students, none of who were earning enough, at

that point of time.

It is the month of August, if you would recollect

correctly. Also you can recollect that there was a

sense of urgency creeping in. Enthusiasm was in

the air. But can you recollect that a number of

coordinators were given responsibilities of

various events? The names of their events werealready locked in the system, the rules were

uploaded, the problem statements were made,

and then what work did they have left to do?

Wonder? The answer is the whole lot. Everything

from the scratch has to be done. It was because; I

made the event rules and problem statements,

and uploaded in the website, not them. It would

be impossible for them to think on the same lines

as with me, and there was every possibility for

disaster. It will be them who will actually conduct

the event, so forcing them to a constrained

environment, to conduct the event in a way I

would like and provide little room for them,

would be sheer injustice and calling for of

unnecessary trouble. So I convened a meeting at

the soonest and asked them to research on their

events and give detailed report of how they

would conduct their event and what would be

their innovative approaches. It was fed into the

minds of the talented bunch of coordinators that

Auxesis is a national-level technical cum cultural


13/2213

festival and there would be no compromise on

quality. It was not only an effort to give them

freedom and space to conduct their events, but

also they could measure their efforts in

formulating their events with reference to the

materials uploaded in the website. It was again

the carrot and stick approach. There was freedom

to be enjoyed, but not enough to get complacent.Everyone knew the consequences of getting

complacent. While this was happening, the

outside world was never aware of such activities.

To them, Auxesis was all set and ready as

everything from schedule to event details, to

registration were available on the website.

Deadline was set for the event coordinators to

submit their reports the next weekend. It was

made profusely clear to each one of them, that

failing the deadline will take them no further as a

part of the organizing team.

We could upload every detail on the website, but

the list of resource persons as guest lecturers,

which is the backbone of every technical festival.

Also we could not announce the name of our

guest bands that would headline Auxesis 2011. In

this moment of need, the Vice Chancellor of

Dibrugarh University extended his helping hand,

which we were glad to receive. There will be

moments in organizing this type of fest, where

someone might be willing to help you, but it

would remain unseen to your eyes. It was the

identification of resources. With the honorableVice Chancellors help, we could invite Mr.

Rathish Babu, CEO, AAT (I) to deliver a lecture on

Entrepreneurship and Creative Team-Building

Methods and Miss Leena Manimekalai, renowned

Indian academic-filmmaker, columnist, poet and

actor to deliver a lecture on Indian

documentaries and world-wide attention,followed by the screening of one of her much

acclaimed documentaries and an interactive

session with the students. We could also invite

Dr. T.G.K. Murthy, former ISRO Chairman, as a

guest lecturer, with the kind help of the Vice

Chancellor and one can say, it was one of the best

achievements of Auxesis 2011. Auxesis 2011 also

witnessed the great man-eater killer of Assam,

Md. Shaukat Ali, who is credited with

uncountable number of achievements and

contributions to the state and its people.

Designing the logo of Assam State Transport

Corporation, being a member of Jim Corbett

association, an eminent footballer of State,

establisher of first photo-studio in Assam, are just

a few of this contributions to the people of the

state.

At the onset of August, my dear friend Parardha

joined our army, which was gaining formidable

strength. Parardha was the media manager of the

fest, who put up insurmountable effort on thatfront. The press conference held just before the

fest was so rich in content and the conduction

was so seamless, that during the question answer

session, senior journalists opined that everything

was so perfectly explained that they had nothing

to question. The press conference was an instant

success. Auxesis was on the front page of many

popular dailies of the region. That provided a

boost to other processes like roping in

sponsorship. I personally have many fond

memories of moments spent together with

Parardha, who was forty percent convener ofAuxesis 2011. There were long bike rides for

different purposes, mostly it being for

sponsorship purposes. We had trips to Duliajan,

to Oil India Ltd., making our way through

torrential rains and the very next morning, we

were game for another adventure to Nazira, to

visit Oil & Natural Gas Corporation, Assam Asset.

It was raining very heavily that day too, and we

set our journey to Nazira, on Parardhas 110 ccStar City, clad in raincoats and helmets and took

spare clothes in our back packs. Sivasagar

greeted us with sunshine and the heat wasgradually growing in strength. We changed our

attire in one of the shops on the roadside and

reached Nazira just on time. We had an

appointment with the Executive Director of

ONGC, Assam Asset, with the help of Gauri

Shankar Bora, the prize distribution manager.

After completing the formalities with CISF, we

were led to the EDs cabin, where we were almost

thrown out upon producing our documents and

brochures. We remembered and could make out

the reason behind the inability of many colleges

to get sponsorship from ONGC. The ED was very

particular about the quality of documents that

were put on his table. He received hundreds of

those every month. In our case, it was few pages

of self-minted documentation on various aspects

of Auxesis, in black & white, which might fail to

grab the attention of even the keenest of

marketing manager of any company. But the next

fifteen minutes, we gave our best and Parardha in

particular could read up the EDs mind, and we


14/2214

could persuade him to give us some financial

assistance. Later on, ONGC turned out to be our

title sponsor. We shared many more adventures,

like publicizing our fest in the hostels of Salt

Brook, in the night hours. In that particular

adventure of ours, we even pasted posters in

front of girls hostels, with the risk of being

caught by the guards or land lords! Being themedia manager, he was entrusted upon to write

applications and letters to different people, each

of them having specific requirements. Believing

or not believing again rests on you, when I say

that we burnt more than one cartridge ink in just

printing applications. Somewhere within me was

growing a sense of respect for this individual, for

his efficiency and dedication. The way he

conducted high profile meetings, the way he

handled the dignitaries, the way he brought

about an atmosphere to the place of gathering by

his magical words, it was all exemplary and atreat to watch. He knew the art of tackling

hurdles with ease and he made the habit of

observing the minute aspects of the tasks with

eagle eyes. We shared the workload a number of

times, and as I mentioned, he was forty percent

convener, and I was carrying around just around

thirty percent of my workload. The remaining

percentage of workload was being shared by the

members of the fellowship.

One important aspect I mentioned earlier was the

confirmation of the guest bands. Our culturalmanagers, Nishal, Satyajit and Bulon were

extremely knowledgeable persons in this field.

The choice for the guest band wired down to the

choice between Rock n Roll and Metal genres. It

was a great debate in Nishals room, days beforethe fest, deciding on our headlining band. Finally

it was decided that Undying Inc., one of the most

successful band of India, would headline

Chromatic Waltz, the cultural extravaganza of

Auxesis. It was news to celebrate for the head

bangers of the region as a concert of this scale

was happening for the first time in the whole of

Upper Assam. The other headlining band was a

difficult choice for us, and it almost boiled down

to the wire, and just before the fest, we confirmed

the band Axis, from Assam, who were finalist in a

MTV Reality show, Desi Beats. The fact that we

had two headlining bands, completely different in

genres, resides in the fact that we were

introducing metal music in Dibrugarh University

for the first time. It was the general perception

that people of the region would not find

amusement in metal music, as much as in popular

Bollywood songs. The culture of rock music was

not openly welcome by few members of the

greater Dibrugarh University fraternity. They are

of the opinion that rock music belongs to western

culture, and is not welcome here. Absurd as their

opinions sound, they are paving a way andsetting up a message to the countries of the west

that do not appreciate our culture as your culture

is not welcome here. It was like introducing

vegetarian food to a die-hard non-vegetarian. It

will be difficult for the non-vegetarian accept it,

as he is used to only one thing. To accept change

is one of the toughest things for mankind, since

time immemorial. It was always left for the

pioneers, a few visionaries to lead the society and

bring about necessary changes. It has to be the

digging of instincts that music is a universal

culture. Much of Bollywood music is nothing buta replication of different music composed around

the world. In our country, a playback singer is

more acclaimed and celebrated than a band that

composes original music. An item song, from

some crap movie would be more popular than an

OC of a hard working band. But someday,

someone has to introduce good things if this was

the case, it would have been highly unlikely that

Auxesis would shy off. Much of this can be

acclaimed to Satyajit, who was extremely

knowledgeable and guided me through, holding

me by his hand, as I was quite a novice in all

these. On a personal note, it was his foresight and

vision that I began to follow and appreciate what

was being followed in the global scale and where

we stand. His knowledge of the ABCD of music

grammar was vital for us to give shape to

Chromatic Waltz. Add to that, his never-

complaining nature, he became a gem for us and

to have an individual like him, up in our sleeves,

it was real comfort for us. Auxesis owes a huge

chunk of its success to this man, as his dedication

not only was for Chromatic Waltz, but also otheraspects like sponsorship, event management and

virtually donating his car for Auxesis besides

being our official driver. I cannot recall the

number of times I scolded and screamed at

Satayajit, Sidhratha, Nitya and some others, but

not once did I get a stern look from any of them,

nor did they abandon the task at hand. My head

bows down in respect of these great individuals,

meeting whom during my under graduation, I

consider as to have left behind a life-changing


15/2215

effect upon me. Moving on, Chromatic Waltz also

had a band competition, christened Ransack.

Bands were invited from around the country and

Nishal was always on the spot, making sure a

good number of quality bands turn up for the

competition. Huge prize money was announced

for the competition. Nishal was the backbone of

the band competition and Chromatic Waltz as awhole, as he was an excellent musician himself,

and knew the exact requirements to stage an

event like this. He was working day in and night

out; to make sure the event can kiss success in its

first incarnation. Ransack, the band competition,

was not widely popular among the bands at that

point of time. It had to be some serious effort to

make it known to a good number of bands, and

persuade quality bands to compete at our

University, which would not have been possible

without the efforts of Nishal. Mere publishing

details on the website, printing a few bannerswould do no good to the success of the event, as

we were yet to establish ourselves, back then and

Nishal was always spot on. It was his reach and

credibility that Undying Inc headlined Auxesis.

Chromatic Waltz also had a fashion show on the

cards, christened Kallisteia. It was to be

conducted in partnership with JD Institute of

Fashion & Technology, a premier institute of the

region, offering courses in fashion and

technology. Auditions were held prior to Auxesis,

and models were selected on the basis ofperformance. The auditions were a huge success,

inviting more anticipation for quality output, for

the final show on the final day of Auxesis. The

event coordinators were Mifta and Mamun. They,

along with our cultural events manager, were a

great addition to the success of Auxesis, as each

one of the worked relentlessly to take Auxesis to

greater heights. Being cultural events managers,

they were not spared of other activities. Though

Satyajit was a cultural event manager, during

Auxesis, he played the role of our official driver,

as he was constantly commuting throughout the

length and breadth of the fest. We had only his

car at our disposal and one more which were

rented to us during the four days of the event. I

remember, scolding him in front of his parents,

and literally dragging him out of his home,

commanding him to be present at the University

premises, to supervise the proceedings, just when

his band planned to jam for the event, as they

were opening for Undying Inc. That was few days

before the event. Such incidents kept on

happening throughout the buildup and

preparation of Auxesis. One such particular

incident was when I asked Parardha, Anindra,

Nitya, Sidhartha, Satyajit, to get out of Auxesis,

when they were giggling over a lame joke

regarding one of the venues of Auxesis!

At this point of time, we were missing out on

something important. We were yet to form an

Advisory Board, involving the greater University

fraternity as was advised by the Vice Chancellor. I

might have forgotten to mention that the Vice

Chancellor of Dibrugarh University was the

chairman of the whole fest. You might remember

that he urged us to involve the services of some

key and active persons of the University. So we

convened a interaction with the administration,

the Teachers Association, the Planning &

Construction department, the EmployeesAssociation of Dibrugarh University, the wardens

of all hostels and all the HODs and Directors of all

centers. In this interaction, we presented the

whole plot of Auxesis to the representatives and

guardians of the fraternity, and we were happy to

receive the appreciation and encouragement of

the house that day. The Advisory Board of

Auxesis was constituted in that interaction

containing all key persons including all the HODs

of all departments and the Registrar of Dibrugarh

University was given the responsibility of the

post of the Administrative Advisor and theDirector of DUIET was given the responsibility of

the post of Technical Advisor, respectively, by the

fraternity.

Days were slowly slipping by and the day of the

event was nearing. We were filled with work load

to the brim. I made two more trips to Guwahati,

once with Satyajit and once with Dudul. I made

another trip to Digboi, one to Jorhat and few

others to Nazira. All trips to Nazira were on

Parardhas 110 cc, with he being the rider, and

every trip was pleasant with unique hurdlesevery time. We used to stop by a bridge in the

outskirts of Nazira, puffed some smoke into our

lungs staring into the fading sun in the far

horizons behind the waters of the river and

wonder about the days that are going to come. It

was always evening, when we leave Nazira!

Amidst all these business, there lay an important

task at hand, invitation and publicity. We needed


16/2216

publicity to make people aware about Auxesis, to

increase our footprint, so that we could get a

sizeable number of out station participants. The

success of techfest is often measured by the

number of out station participants. But before we

focus on publicity we needed to increase the

brand value of Auxesis. But that will take months

and brand value will keep on increasing when wecan show something concrete. So we decided to

do both the things simultaneously. The invitation

& publicity managers went on carrying out their

jobs, and in the meanwhile we started an online

competition on our Facebook page to engage the

fans. The competition was about identifying a

song from a part of the song we uploaded on the

fan page. The parts released, were leads of

different songs composed by bands like Led

Zeppelin, AC DC, Guns & Roses, etc. May be we

were not in a position to dare to dream about

inviting one of them to headline Auxesis, but wecould somehow attach them to the fest. Voila!

Bhargav and Dipankar, went on a trip to

Guwahati, to invite different engineering

institutes and publicize about our fest in those

institutes. It was a moment of satisfaction for us,

when I got a call from the student union head of

NIT Silchar, after the fest that he was very

pleased to see the quality of our fest and

appreciated our efforts. However, he was

displeased over the fact that his college was not

invited. There were some loopholes in the

systems, owing to some shortcomings of the

invitation & publicity managers, barring Bhargav

who did a satisfactory job and Srawanti, whose

efforts brought participants from Nagaon and few

other places. Srawanti was also involved in few

other aspects of Auxesis. The whole process of

invitation & publicity was well supplemented by

other managers and coordinators and some of

our batch mates, who did not hold any posts in

the organizing committee.

Meanwhile it was time for Shyamal, another

spearhead of our web & creativity team to

unleash his talent and mesmerize us with his

creations of the promotional video and teasers of

Auxesis 2011. Nothing that was created by our

web & creativity managers was short of

something magical. It was another masterpiece

from the web & creativity team. The videos gave

a much needed boost to increase the brand value

of Auxesis and were screened in some movie

theatres of Tinsukia, few days before the fest.

It was the month of September; the fest was

round the corner. Teams were made to give

verbal demonstrations of Auxesis in different

departments and centers of the University. All

preparations, in terms of events were almost

complete. The only gloomier part was that we did

not have money till then to stage the fest

according to our aspirations. The Universityadministration decided to hand over to us a sum

of rupees one lakh. So we had the money

collected from the newly admitted students and

the amount sanctioned by the University

Administration and some amount collected from

the local sponsors. But that was nowhere near to

the amount we required. We were quite realistic

about our hopes of collecting enough money,

because we had verbal confirmations from many

companies. We decided to get written

confirmations from those companies and we

employed an aggressive policy in this front,because without this, all activities of Auxesis will

come to a standstill. Eventually, owing to our

aggressive approach, we could collect a sum of

rupees seven lakhs and fifty thousand. This is a

record amount for any fest in India, in their first

attempts. Our major sponsors were NRL who

contributed rupees fifty thousand and CIL who

also contributed rupees fifty thousand in addition

to the already mentioned contribution of ONGC.

Some days before the fest, in the last meeting

before Auxesis, all coordinators were asked toattend. They were told to strictly follow the link,

which will be the critical point of the success of

Auxesis. It was all about coordination. The link

here refers to linkage between Hospitality

managers, Accommodation managers, Reception

managers, Event managers, Volunteer managers,

Registration managers, Update Board

coordinator and Prize Distribution managers.

Sparsha and Abhinabh, the registration managers

of Auxesis 2011, made their final preparations.

Sparsha particularly can be credited for executing

the large chunk of the work load and almost

single handedly managed the central registration

desk. Abhinabh had his own event to coordinate

and despite that, both of them together were a

formidable team. Rajesh Tripathy and Dipranjan

Gogoi, the reception, discipline and volunteer

managers made their final preparations too.

Auxesis 2011 boasts of active participation of a

large number of volunteers who worked as hard

as the managers and coordinators. The large part


17/2217

of the credit goes to these two, who apart from

managing a large team of volunteers, entertaining

the needs of different event coordinators, also

looked after the reception of dignitaries and

guests besides maintaining the decorum and

overall discipline of the entire fest. It was for

these two that no coordinators of Auxesis 2011

complained about non availability of helpinghands in form of volunteers and the entire fest

went about without any incident of quarrels or

indiscipline. Meanwhile Sariful, Manas and

Sagarika were complete with their preparation to

provide hospitality on behalf of Auxesis, to all

participants of the fest, which they would

remember for a long time to come, better than

they could receive anywhere. It was for these

people that the participants and dignitaries alike ,

could taste delicious food, on time, always served

with the motto that guests are gods in our

University. They were well supported by the likesof Bhaskar, Parag and many others. Mifta, Ankur

and Purabi, the accommodation managers also

had their preparations ready and all

arrangements to accommodate the outstation

participants were completed on time. All these

preparations were always, at any point of time

well supplemented by our event managers,

Sidhartha and Nitya, who often used to miss

lunch and dinner. They extended their helping

hands to each of them and were carrying out the

background work behind the scenes always.

That was a lot of buildup. It is time now, and you

have guessed it correct. 15th September, 2011 has

arrived. It is 14th September today, and Auxesis is

going to start from tomorrow. All preparations

are ready. Hotel reservations were made, venues

were prepared, the ASEB was notified of our

requirements as we did not have electricity back

up facility in all venues, sound, lights and stage

equipment were being set up, all invitations were

cross checked, all venues inspected, etc. That

night, after installing the sound and lights, the

sound crew was conducting a sound check in the

auditorium. It was an output capacity of 35000

watts, all JBL setup, including the stage monitors.

They were opening up the sound bit by bit, and

increasing the output every time. It was the third

increase during the sound checks, that a sound

audible enough was heard on stage, but not from

any of the speakers. It was the wreck of a piece

that broke off from the ceiling, and that

determined the wattage the auditorium could

withstand.

Today is Day 1 of Auxesis. Welcome to the action.

After weeks of preparation, today we will test

ourselves in the real world. We opened up the

central registration desk at 7: 30 am and set up

the update board along with the help desk andthe cash counter. The responsibility of the update

board was given to Chinmoy Talukdar, the

previous night. All event coordinators will have

to keep him updated about the timings and

changes therein which will be displayed on the

board by him. The first event of Auxesis started at

9 am. It was a workshop on Hydrogen Fuel Cell

technology and Hybrid Cars conducted by Mr.

Chintan Raj, Faculty, Green Add+, Mumbai. The

coordinators of this workshop were Monaj

Bhuyan, Shilpi Sarmah and Mehtaz Satin. Monaj

had a nightmarish time managing the demands ofthe workshop trainer. The trainer was a very

demanding person and to meet to his needs, was

a difficult job altogether. Once he had to bring a

cup of coffee from Chowkidingee, holding the cup

on one hand and control his bike with his other

hand. At 16:00 hours, it was the Inauguration

Ceremony. AUXESIS 2011 was inaugurated by Dr.

K.K Deka, the Chairman of the AUXESIS Advisory

Committee as well as the Honourable Vice-

Chancellor of Dibrugarh University, and was co-

inaugurated by Dr. H.K Das, Advisor, Technical of

the Advisory Commitee as well as Director,Dibrugarh University Institute of Engineering and

Technology. The guests of honour in the

ceremony were Mr. Apuraj Barua, Guiness World

Record holder of Longest bromide scratch art

and Mrs. Dolly Das, Gold medallist in World

Folklore Competition, Bulgaria. It was followed

by the staging of a drama,Chup Ek Prahashanat 17: 30 hours, by Akhara Ghar, a recognised

and renowned drama society of Dibrugarh. At

19:00 hours, Adroit Vie, the gaming competition

commenced with the prelims of Counter Strike

1.6. The coordinators of this event were Saanu

Likambi, Monaj Bhuyan and Shantanu Kr. Das.

These people had to conduct their event

throughout the length of the night, hence missing

dinner for all three days. As you might recall,

Monaj had little opportunity to find time to eat

during the day too! The days event ended with

the prelims of CS 1.6.


18/2218

Today is Day 2 of Auxesis, the 16th of September.

The day started with FIFA 09 prelims at 8:00

hours.. The coordinators of this event were Amit

Sharma and Bhargav Kr. Das. At 9:00 hours, it

was the continuation of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell

technology and Hybrid Cars Workshop continued

from yesterday. For this particular workshop, we

were little bit wary and had our fingers crossedabout the number of participants that we were

going to receive. So we invited the trainer to

come to our University, one week prior to the

fest, and we took him to different technical

institutes, giving them orientations about the fest.

This had a direct impact on the number of

participants, as eighty plus turned up for the

workshop. We had to build this strategy because,

prior to that, no such workshop was being

conducted in the University. At the same time

that is at 9:00 hours the prelims for Robossault,

which was a War of robots, started. Thecoordinator of this event was M. Chandrasekhar

Rao. Simultaneously, the autonomous robotics

competitions, Autobotz started. The coordinator

of this event was Pronadeep Bora and Himangshu

Ranjan Das. Another event, Bytes n Bugs, which

was a coding competition, started at the same

time at another venue. The coordinator of this

event was Dipankar Pratim Nath and Dhriti Das.

The photography competitions, Hepta Hues &

Digital Ambience started at another venue, at the

same time. The coordinators of these events

were, Arunav Mazumder and Purabi Bora. At

10:00 hours, it was the conduction of Projectile

and Stratz, both being competitions of the

management module, product launch and

business model based respectively. The

coordinators of Projectile were Gaurav Barua and

Joyshree Bharali and the coordinators of Stratz

were Karishma Mohan and NIlav Kr. Pyne. At the

same hours, Warwordz, the open debate

competition on Jan-lokpal was being held at

another venue. This event was coordinated by

Atrimitra Kotoky and Suparna Das.Simultaneously, at the same time, Anatricks, the

circuit building competition commenced at

another venue. The coordinators of Anatricks

were Nitya Nanda Das and Ashmita Rimichi Deka.

At the central venue, at about the same time, that

is 10:00 hours, it was the prelims of Ransack:

Raid The Rostrum, the band competition of

Auxesis. The responsibility of this event was

directly on the shoulders of our cultural events

managers, Nishal Gohain, Satyajit Chowdhury and

Bulon Hazarika. It was the credit of Nishal and

Bulon that a good number of quality bands

turned up for the competition. The bands enjoyed

the sound and gave their best, co

Documents

The Tale of Auxesis