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Ishaan Gambhir

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Lily’s words from the grand finale of one of the most successful TV shows of all time accurately describe what every HIMYM fan is going through right now. But for how the finale episode unfolded and what it held, Lily’s exclamation is not my favourite quote from it.

“Do you know who the gang is to me, Lily? Here’s what the gang is: The gang is a married couple who I never see anymore about to have a third kid, it’s my ex-husband hitting on slutty cops right in front of me and it’s the guy I probably should have ended up with, with the beautiful mother of his child. Who in their right mind would call that group of people ‘the gang’?”

If anyone could punch realisation on our faces as hard as it did, it had to be Robin. For years, the gang remained a not-so-happening affair. Robin was cornered in the show for years because of her frequent travels. Are these 5 really the 5 we knew? How did they get from sharing their happiest moments together at MacLaren’s Pub to this?

The viewers of How I Met Your Mother have all fallen major victims to the what we wish could be called the most cruel April Fool’s joke ever. The wedding, Barney and Robin’s wedding, around which the entire of the final season was woven, ended in a divorce. The mother of Ted’s children, ‘the one’, the beautiful woman everyone was crazy about with the yellow umbrella, died.

We all know how much can happen in just one year with this gang, don’t we? What happened in the 3 years Barney and Robin were married? How could Robin choose her job at WWN over her wedding? What happened in the 6 years between Tracy’s demise and the time Ted showed up at Robin’s house with the blue French horn? Nothing? That’d be one hell of an awkward show-up! The creators promise to release more video in the DVD.

how-i-met-your-mother-series-finale-old-ted-french-horn

One character I specifically feel sad about, apart from Tracy (the mother), is Barney Stinson. Robin had earlier betrayed him when she was dating Kevin in Season 7 and had promised Barney to come clean in front of Kevin about her having feelings for Barney, under the impression of which Barney broke up with Nora. Robin didn’t do so. In the series finale, Barney can be continuously seen cringing at the name or sight of Robin because of their failed marriage, which was revealed early in the episode. “Look, I know there was a time when it seemed like I was capable of going the distance, but if it wasn’t gonna happen with Robin, then it’s just not gonna happen with anyone.”  Among all the loose ends the creators of How I Met Your Mother have left, why Barney’s romantic life was the only one that did not end well, is the most maddening one.

All in all, the series had had all of us laughing, crying, taking sides and also taking dating lessons from Barney over 200 times ever since the show premiered in 2005. It has taught us to value friendship over every other thing because it’s what keeps us going. It has become a cultural phenomenon. For the Playbook, Ted’s driving gloves, the Bro Code, Robin Sparkles, the 8 slaps, Robin’s locket, the mystery of Barney’s occupation, Linus’ Kennedy package,  the yellow umbrella, the blue French horn, Ted being left at the altar and the shattered bottles of Glenn McKenna, let’s all raise one final toast!

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

Image courtesy: www.timeslive.co.za, forum.purseblog.com

The two-day cultural festival of College of Vocational Studies (CVS) concluded amidst drizzles on the evening of 28th March with Hardy Sandhu performing on a makeshift platform as showers restricted the use of electrical equipment on the main stage.

The first day of the festival began with an English debate event. Teams debated the topic, ‘The result of the coming elections rests in the hands of the youth’. Arvind and Anuj won the 1st and the 2nd position respectively. Karil was awarded the Best Interjector prize. All winning participants were from the host team. The debate was followed by rangoli and poster-making competitions held in classrooms.

After a short delay, The Thespian, the street-play and most awaited event of the day, commenced at 1:00 pm. It was organised by Dramanomics – the Dramatics society of CVS. The event saw participation of 7 colleges with each college putting on display a social issue of the country. Shivaji College with their play Bas Samajhne ki Baat hai depicted the ill-treatment and abandonment of the old in our society, was adjudged the best play of the evening. Gargi College’s Joota and Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce’s Chidiya ki Kahaani were the 2nd and 3rd prize winners respectively.

Samiksha (Best Model)

Manthan, the fashion society of CVS organised a fashion competition which was won by the team from Maitreyi College. The award for best costume went to Tarini Singh and best model went to Samiksha Jain, both from Lady Irwin College, whose team was adorning the Cleopatra look.

The second day of the fest began with a Hindi debate on the topic, ‘Bharat se bhrashtachar hatana asambhav hain’. Soon after the debate, the main stage was taken over by rock bands for the Battle of Bands, which was won by Kazaryth.

The weather had become overcast as the musicians of CVS played and growled to the tunes of Metallica and AC/DC, entertaining the crowd that was waiting for Hardy Sandhu’s performance, but as the evening progressed, it started raining and Hardy’s performance was delayed. Finally, the rain subsided and Hardy performed on a makeshift platform near the Student’s Desk instead of the main stage as it was wet and could not accommodate electrical equipment.

A regular conversation of a Delhi-ite right after the purchase of a new phone certainly stresses on the words “cover”, “screenguard”, “clear/matte” and sometimes even “Gaffar”. Let’s take a closer look at the fascinating world of phone covers and screenguards.

Smartphone covers have evolved from being a one-time side-buy of a phone to an important, regular and thoughtful buy. They come in different types, some of them being silicone, 3D, bumper and flip.

Screenguards are also a must for smartphone owners. They come in clear, matte, diamond (shiny) and privacy filter, which only lets the screen be visible to someone exactly in front of it.

These things are mostly bought from local market places which have recently seen an outburst of such shops or thelas. (The proud Delhi-ite’s saying, “There’s a metro exit in each block of CP” is now “There are 5 phone cover thelas in each block of CP”)

But then suddenly, someone from your friend circle suggests going to Gaffar Market, a mobile phone accessories’ paradise, and everyone starts pushing their wallets and phones deeper into their pockets because pickpocketers there are to be feared. If you have a friend with experience of Gaffar Market, he’ll take you to one of the wholesale shops there which sell covers and screenguards at the rate of scrap.

Now, a word of advice: There has been a trend of overcharging of phone covers and screenguards. Some vendors charge as much as Rs.500 for a screenguard despite the fact that ultimately it is just a small sheet of plastic, it’s cost being Rs.5 or Rs.10 at most. DO NOT OVERPAY. Bargain. Keep in mind the following prices recommended by DU Beat.

Cover: Rs.100 (Bargain harder for a bumper, it only covers the edges after all!)

Screenguard: Rs.50-100 (Let the vendor do the labour of applying it.)

 

Image Courtesy : www.productportal.com

 

Every year, societies from colleges across the campus compete neck to neck and put up spectacular performances during the fest season. This year too, saw certain teams shine a little brighter than the rest. We bring you a series with college societies that put their heart and soul into their respective fields and took home the top prizes at various cultural fests. The best college society in each category was selected by creating a tally of the top 3 positions at competitive events held during 13 cultural fests of this season. Whenever a society won the first prize they were award 3 points, for the second position they received 2 points and for the third position, 1 point was added to their tally. For the Western Dance category, with 18 points each, IIT Delhi’s V-Defyn and Sri Venkateswara College Verve came out on top. Jesus and Mary College’s Mudra followed next with 11 points and Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce’s Misba stood third with 8 points.

The Winning Society at a glance

V-Defyn, IIT Delhi

Hover on the information icons below to know more about their victories!

Akash Singhal, the President of IIT Delhi’s V-Defyn says, “Our performance was a complete package.  Our focus was on entertainment and obviously good dancing. We perform to entertain people, so that the audience has fun. That keeps us calm and spontaneous onstage.” Names of the performing members: Akash Singhal (President), Ankit Gupta, S Kousal Raj, Kartikeya Khati, Shirshad Bukke, Ravi Meena, Abhishek Rathod, Saahil Mendiratta, Avinash Masa, Anirudh Mvsk,  Shantanu Singh Raghuvanshi, Uday Katkar, Aditya chauhan, Lovish Ahuja, Aman Shivhare, Devesh kohle, Aditya jhala,  Kshitij Jain

Verve, Sri Venkateswara College

Hover on the information icons below to know more about their victories!

During their piece, Verve from Sri Venkateswara College performed contemporary, breaking, popping and a funny Bollywood sequence on Mere Khwabon Mei Jo Aye. Amrit Raj from the society went on to add, “We were taught by our seniors that there is just one position: the 1st one. We had a disappointing start in the fest season, but I’m glad we had our seniors to support us and help us make a comeback. ” Names of the performing members: Yaman Jindal (President), Aparna Chopra (Vice President), Charlie Cherian, Amrit Raj, Sammarth Singh, Aishwarya Sinha, Sachin Pal, Bharat Singh, Anshuman Siddharth, Tanya Nair, Sandeep Saini, Gaurav, Revantika Gupta, Pratishtha Gulati, Saloni Jain, Shruti Kumar, Suvarcha Gupta, Sakshi Sindwani, Gatisheel Das. Note: The thirteen fests included in our analysis for this series include SRCC’s Crossroads, Gargi College’s Reverie, Sri Venkateswara College’s Nexus, LSR’s Tarang, Hans Raj’s Confluence, I.P. College for Women’s Shruti, Daulat Ram College’s Manjari, Hindu College’s Mecca, Jesus and Mary College’s Montage, Miranda House’s Tempest, Kamala Nehru College’s Ullas, Kirori Mal College’s Renaissance, SGTB Khalsa’s Lashkara. Out of the fests listed, only 12 had conducted a Western Dance Competition.]]>

“Mission Mars”, celebrating the launch of India’s Mars Orbiter, Mangalyaan. Sankalan 2014 saw the participation of 250+ students from 30 colleges across 6 states of the country. The 2-day festival consisted of 16 events, which ranged from those that required specialised computing skills such as Code-a-Thon and Java Juggling to those that did not require programming skills such as Turncoat, the debate event. Further, the events included TexPert, Algoholics, Debug++, Spin-a-web, Sprint, Mind Matters and Techno Speak, the name of each event being a subtle reference to the it’s format. The department also hosted two gaming events, namely Just a Minute, which comprised of simple one-minute games, and Kill ‘em All, which featured the classic first-person shooter game of Counter Strike 1.6.

awarding team trophy

Two new introductions this year were MakeAPP and Chakravyuh. MakeAPP was a developer challenge that required participants in teams of 2 to develop an Android application highlighting India’s on-going Mars Mission. The requirements of the app were a display of fun facts about Mars, a quiz, a countdown to the orbiter reaching Mars and even a Mars weight converter. Silent Assassins, the team from Delhi Technological University (DTU) won the 1st prize for their app. Chakravyuh, on the other hand, was an online treasure hunt in which participants were asked questions as hints and they were required to search and submit the correct answers. Atul Sharma of University School of Information Technology won the 1st prize whereas Aakarshan Chawla from Madras Institute of Technology won the Best Helper Award. The chief guest of the fest was Prof. V.B Aggarwal, Director of IT at JIMS and Founder Head of Department of Computer Science of University of Delhi itself. The guest of honour was Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CEO of MobiSolv. Silent Assassins, the team from DTU, won 6 of the 16 events, subsequently being awarded the ‘Team Trophy’, given to the team that wins in maximum events. To facilitate participants of Sankalan, the department also created, besides a website, an Android app dedicated to the event that displayed the schedule of events, directions to the venue of the festival and contact details of the organisers.]]>