The Manipal Conclave: Day 1 LIVEBlog!
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We are now live straight from the LA, bringing you the latest from TechTatva’15s premier event, The Manipal Conclave.
This post is being updated in real time, please be generous with that F5 key and we promise you won’t miss out on anything.
The Blog is done for today folks! Tune in here for all the action from Day 2!
Hey folks. Amit here, blogging The Conclave live from the LA with Athyunnath Converse Eleti and Avneesh “No!” Chandra!
It’s 5:45PM right now and as is tradition, The Conclave is yet to start. Fashionably late on Indian Standard Time.
Okay folks we are kicking off now!
We have Ipshita Gupta (Gen. Sec. SC) hosting.
Ganesh Nayak up on stage “I now cycle, into the wild.”
A white MIT T shirt and khaki pants he looks more like a student than an ex faculty member.
The Director Dr. G.K. Prabhu walks in to a standing ovation.
He is talking about Dr. Narsimha Bhat, to those who remember, Dr. Bhat was also a speaker at The Conclave last year.
Mr. Nayak worked under Dr. Bhat doing Digital Design. Now comparing the different attitudes you see between a professional environment and working in a environment like a startup.
Okay, Avneesh is experiencing a few Internet issues. He will join us soon. But we still love him. Keep hitting refresh.
“The attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.” – Alan Watts
A quote that inspired him now inspiring the hundreds in the room.
An alumni of the institute we are discussing how he overcame his smoking addiction.
Speaking out against smoking, clean for three years. Ganesh Nayak hitting the majority of the auditorium hard.
“I tried asking a lot of people on how to quit but it was awkward. I couldn’t ask my friends (who were probably smokers) and I couldn’t ask my parents or professors either. But we live in the age of the internet.”
“OK Google! How do I quit smoking?”
3 years and counting. You are an inspiration sir.
Cycle hard, breathe easy. The smoker who quit, the cyclist who didn’t.
We are seeing a lot of inspirational quotes on screen now.
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” – Lao Tzu
“When I got onto a bicycle, [I] couldn’t ride it till the end of the street. In four months, not only did I quit smoking, I could climb every hill in Manipal”.
“It was an open road, I could go where I wanted.”
-Ganesh Nayak on his initial foray into cycling.
Lot of zen here. We are now talking about his long 100km trips which just kept getting longer.
“I kept thinking how this could get bigger. And the Himalayas were calling.”
“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
“Ain’t no mountain high enough.” Stop complaining about cycling from 16th Block to NLH. He went to the Himalayas.
“When you are on a bicycle, you are exposed to the elements, you cannot hide, you cannot run. If it breaks, you have to fix it.”
And then I made it to Kathmandu.
thundering applause
Sorry, the claps just distracted me.
Okay, we are looking at pictures from the trips. Shah, let’s go?
Sure, Athyu, you won’t jog in the morning, but you’ll cycle to Kashmir.
Ganesh Nayak: Groundbreaking cyclist.
He made it through the Zoozilla 5k road! All the way to Leh. Landslides galore, when you have road companions like a cyclewala making it from Kolkatta to Leh.
Khardung La, the highest motorable road in the country, and he made it on a cycle. This is a drop mic moment
Let’s go for drinks with the army. Whiskey, vodka, and Bottled Oxygen. Triple Sec.
Now cycling down to Manali.
“And men may come, and men may go, but I go on forever.” Alfred Lord Tennyson.
There’s no radio network. You can’t call your mom and tell her What’s up ma I am in Leh.
That’s a blow for Shah on Twitter.
Khardungla Pass: Road to Perdition.
“You just come with me, I’m the permit.” Ron Swanson at LA?
Just in case you’re wondering who the man in the picture was that Shah uploaded, it’s Mr. Satyam Das, extraordinary cyclist, self proclaimed crazy man.
Athyu would’ve even bragged about taking a flight to Leh. Just Eleti-ist things.
People carrying Maggi in Leh? Months ago, they might’ve been branded smugglers.
So we met a group of four girls camping with canned Maggi, and snickers and all they lacked was table and silverware. I wolfed down the food. They were the food supply guys for a marathon and they had extra stock.
See now there is finally something we can relate to.
We have now reached Tanglangla.
I swear the pictures we are looking at are class A wallpaper material.
“I’m on… top of the world… looking down on creation” Ganesh Nayak at Taglangla.
Getting major Supertramp vibes here.
Why didn’t Discovery Channel cover this? Haven’t we seen enough poisonous snakes?
Ganesh Nayak is the Manipal’s very own Bear Grylls, there, I said it.
Add a dragon to those mountains and this could’ve been a shot of Skyrim. Fus-ro-dah!
“We had no water to drink because everything was frozen. Apparently we were supposed to sleep with the water in our jacket. So for the rest of the time in the desert we just kept stuffing water bottles in our jackets.”
We saw a lot of wildlife, okay, wildlife is just Yaks.
I kept thinking: Why am I doing this? I quit my job to push a bicycle up a hill. Why?
Karan Johar paying close attention to this LIVEBlog for the plot of his next movie.
There are no easy days in the Himalayas.
Mr. Nayak’s favourite flavor of ice cream: Rocky Road.
We saw snow leopards and snow storms. and well it was just… phenomenal.
We saw snow leopards and snow storms. and well it was just… phenomenal.
Mountains, lakes, mesmerizing beauty. Peter Jackson? Here’s where you shoot The Silmarillion.
What? Paying taxes for your horse eating grass. Don’t worry, this is genuine information. Straight from the horse’s mouth.
Oh well. Cycling is quite the “uphill” task.
There’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There are chappatis. The world’s best chappatis.
That photo of black horses in front of the frozen river looks like Skyrim on boosted graphics. Sigh. Need to get out of the room more often.
No GPS. No internet. Using paper maps. Mother nature is truly unforgiving.
Day one of The Manipal Conclave is officially sold out, and with extremely good reason.
So he couldn’t carry too much water and he had to depend on a river. A river that went dry.
Hey! Avneesh is here! All hail Connectify!
Guess who’s back? Back again? Chandra’s back.
Only thing more difficult than Ganesh Nayak’s Himalayan trip is connecting to iON inside a packed Library Auditorium.
“I was completely blown away by how harsh and beautiful things can be at the same time.” Haven’t we said that so many times?
“Water’s never tasted so good.”
“And then the horseman started shouting ” Bitto, Bitto!” and I knew this was it, this was how it ends. Then I realized he was shouting sheep. And then the magical shepherd appeared. With the most glorious water I have ever had.”
The man, the legend, Ganesh Nayak.
After cycling so long, even Lays chips is like a breath of fresh air.
I paid him a hundred bucks and asked what will he do with it? The nearest market is three days away and he said, “You’re gonna spend so much money on your way here and then back but all this time I will still have your hundred bucks. I will be richer than you’ll ever be.”
#ShepherdSwag
And then I had maggi, and chips and then pepsi. And it was the best I have ever had.
You don’t realize a things value when you have lost it, you realize it when you have been trekking for three days in the Himalayas.
Ten day educational break to learn CPR and First Aid. Traveling ain’t a piece of cake.
“I’d done my research, and there was a college in the Himalayas offering a course in first aid and CPR.”
Ganesh Nayak on his Wilderness First Responder training, received from Viren Peramul (World Champion Rock Climber and Kayaker) and Capt. John Hovey (US Marine Corps).
There he said it. Jugaad.
“How to do good jugaad.”
The ideas of Frugal Innovation, resonant even in the mountains of the Himalayas.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are now at Gangotri.
Ganesh Nayak making a better “Everest” than “Everest.” https://shahhasspoken.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/everest-2015/
Subtle Shah, real subtle.
If you own a cycle, lock it up well tonight. This is an inspiring story.
Subtle Shah, real subtle.
Better yet, if you own a cycle, get moving. What’re you doing not riding it?
“You always have to meet a babaji.” Calling on the spirit of the Wild.
“And then one day I met this Babaji. You always have to meet a Babaji, it’s not a journey unless you have met a Babaji. Steve Jobs went one and I have met a lot of Babajis but this one had a bicycle. He was my personal Babaji!”
“Yo babaji what’s up?” Did he just…
“It’s not a journey if you haven’t met a Babaji. Steve Jobs met one!”
Ganesh Nayak on meeting his Cycling Babaji.
What’s up Babaji?
“What you don’t have, the road provides.” – Babaji
And then I said, “Hey Babaji! What’s up?”
And he said. ” I am going to Nepal and these other places. Just chilling here for now. ”
And I was getting all these good vibes from him. Yeah, “vibes”.
*Crowd explodes in laughter*
Mount Fishtail in Nepal. Breathtaking.
“Going lightweight, there was a huge advantage.” Athyu, take notes.
The road to Muktinath: sights the likes of which most of us can only dream of. Also, good oven-prepared pizza.
“Doing more with less”, “going frugal”, “jugaad” real subtle, TechTatva.
“Lot of places in Manipal that you can go mountain biking, but they’re fast disappearing [due to construction].”
David the Mountain Watcher. Uatu vibes, anyone?
I met some phenomenal people. I met David, and he was a mountain watcher.
I am trying to imagine what David’s #placed status was like.
“Nepal prints maps of mountains every year. In 2014, they printed an extra 8000 meter peak.”
Another 8000 meter peak?
You had ONE job David.
Nepalese Cartography (2014) and the Mystery of the 8000 Metre Peak.
Ganesh Nayak : The Weird Beard man.
“When I went to Bihar, I got so many invitations: come home, come have chai with us, come have lunch with us. It led to so many meals, it led to sleeping in other people’s houses.”
“I stayed away from the cities. If you stick to the villages, you get the best people.”
-Ganesh Nayak
“No matter which village you go to, people will treat you nice. Cities will try to con you.” Smooth transition to the next speaker.
CHAIWALA.
Slumdog Millionaire vibes.
“So the Chaiwalla had a book he wanted me to write in and I realized I was writing in the last few pages and he had this big book full of stories of people expressing gratitude.”
Ganesh Nayak: Been there, done that. *cue Dr. Dre*
“The trip was getting over.”, Ganesh Nayak says, with a hint of sadness in his voice.
We know what he means. This talk could not go on long enough.
“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”
“Two years ago if I told you that I wanted to climb the Himalayas I’d be called a madman. But I went and did it anyway.”
*drops mic*
Give it up for Mr. Nayak.
“MITian and proud.”
“Nothing is impossible, really. Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
And with those words, Ganesh Nayak signs out.
Now signing the memento to place on the Conclave wall.
“Wow.” – Ganesh Nayak on the standing ovation. Yeah, it was that loud.
“Give me one mug of water. I’ll know how to take a bath with it.”
Out director, G.K. Prabhu once saw his CV and forwarded it to his HR. But that evening he took it along with him for there was one curious line, Give me a mug of water and I’ll know how to take a bath with it.
“Every student and faculty stood up. Ganesh, we are very proud of you.” – G.K. Prabhu, Director of MIT.
“He had the best chapati, the best parotha, the best maggi and pepsi but today we had the best teacher. ” – Dr. G. K. Prabhu (Director, MIT)
It takes cycling to the Himalayas to understand the true value of water. Ganesh Nayak goes back to the stage to pick up his bottle.
We are now starting part 2 of the session. After a quick break of sandwiches and chai. No, not the best chai in the world but close enough.
Iphsita is now back, introducing the second set of speakers, from TRIP – The Rural India Project. An initiative to better represent the poor of India in the media.
The Rural India Project: an initiative by the students of MIC, up next on stage.
“Most farmers didn’t commit suicide by choice. They were encouraged by their families, for the government’s compensation. Money with which they could send their children to school, and feed them.”
The shameful reality.
Some twelve thousand farmer suicides in just 2014, according to some reports.
“I was ashamed that despite being a journalism student, despite reading newspapers everyday, I had no idea about the rate of farmer suicides. That’s when I realised how biased the media of this country is.”
“I realized how biased the media houses of our country are.”, TRIP on the lack of media coverage regarding these stories.
“…and 11 year old, exposed to alcohol, cleaning up vomit after hours in DeeTee. All this happening in a student town in Manipal.”
“There are three children working in MIT campus. One child worked in DeeTee. He was cleaning up vomit after hours. This is happening in a student town in Manipal. Why isn’t anyone covering these stories?”
The temperature of the room just dropped a few degrees. Journalism isn’t getting ratings, it’s a calling, a moral imperative, for the chosen few to catalyse change.
And we are learning today just how much the India media failed in doing so.
Kalighat in Kolkata – Mecca of the East.
We are talking about child labour, yes. but it’s more than that. It’s The Rural India Project. A group of students giving voice to the voiceless. Being journalists.
“…with the whole and soul intention, to only tell [stories of rural India].”
Let’s find out these stories. Freeing the still chained eagle pinion of the country with the power of the mic and the notepad.
“We need to feel their pain. Maybe then, they’ll trust us with their stories.”
The government of Meghalaya banned coal mining due to earthquake risks. People lost their jobs, and they couldn’t send their children to school. I met a girl, asked her if she went to school. She looked at her basket, looked at me, and walked away.
While Shah and Chandra tell you about TRIP, I want to tell you what the LA is like right now. Aaina is producing this and you can see the mastery in the storytelling as the lights and sounds play in sync.
There are three of them on stage, each telling a different story in parts. Each story unique, but just as compelling.
“The flashlight on my phone was of more intensity than the streetlights in the village.”
TRIP demonstrates, with pictures to aid them, how the Midday Meal (one of the Indian Government’s proudest achievements) is served to children who have no choice but to eat them on their school’s grounds.
A man gave me shelter in the village. He’s a bamboo digger who is a drummer in a band. His monthly income is Rs. 800, and with that he fed five people.
He refused to take money from me.
You don’t need a big bank balance to be a gentleman. You need a big heart.
We are seeing compelling images, of what the other half lives like. A camera and a drive to tell stories is all that powered these youngsters to seek and tell the stories of Rural India.
“These are the stories that need to be told, these are the stories the country needs to here. We, through The Rural India Project, will continue to tell these stories.”
“Who do you believe?”
“What the media reported about Jharia and what I saw in Jharia are two different things. Who do you believe?”
“What the media reported about Jharia, and what I saw, are two totally different things. Who do you believe?”
We seem to be done with the presentation. A video is on the way.
A mosaic of compelling stories, from various members of TRIP.
“I wanted to tell the stories of people and how their lives were affected, but the one life that was affected was mine.”
Using the power of journalism to tell the tales worth hearing. Uncolored by politics, the mic reaches long and reaches strong. This is quite a TRIP indeed.
Someone has to break that bubble to expose people to reality. That’s what we are trying to do with The Rural India Project.
And with that we reach the end of the story of TRIP.
People live their own lives, not knowing what happens in these villages. That’s what TRIP wants. To break that boundary and expose them to the reality.
A standing ovation for the video. Sometimes I wonder just how limited we are as audience. For we saw something very compelling.
The entire team of TRIP is taking the stage for the concluding speech.
A double standing ovation for TRIP.
They have one final request from us, in the words of Bono.
“We do not want your money, just your voice.”
TRIP needs your voice to help them achieve their goal of telling stories.
Check out their facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/ruralindiaproject.micmanipal
Now, the stage goes to Aritra Shome, for the moderation of the second student speaker session.
On a lighter note. Aritra Shome looking dapper on stage.
We are now doing a student projects session, where we shall hear each speaker tell us the story of their organization.
Wait is that Arnab Goswami (Aritra Shome) on stage? MIT NEEDS AN ANSWER!
We have SolarMobil, Parikshit, Team Manipal Racing and RoboManipal.
Mr. Goswami drilling RoboManipal.
The untalked about inflation in Manipal: within the span of a few years, every club seems to go from four or five members to fifty.
“Well there’s a lot of technical terms” said the engineer Aritra Shome.
We’ve never seen a discussion on technical achievements played this intense.
Researching Hindu baby names to name satellites
Aritra: “So what will the satellite do when it goes up?”
Why is it called Pariskshit?
Well I wasn’t there when the name was decided but we have heard stories of people trying to find Hindu baby names, and even one of our seniors girlfriends name but finally decided on the Sanskrit word experiment.
Jugaad. Namedrop.
I don’t know which is better scripted: this or an Aaina play. I am at a Crossroads.
Avneesh is sitting with a permanent facepalm.
“Parikshit is a thing that is going to space.”
“Parikshit being a thing that is going to space, requires some costly components.”
I should think so. Going to space, after all.
There are too many technical terms for Mr. Shome when Parikshit is speaking. It’s like they are GOING OVER HIS HEAD just like the satellite.
“They jumped over the wall, stole our stuff, and absconded.”
SolarMobil going technical: “We needed to put solar panels on the car. If you’d see, you’d know.”
Frugal Innovations. Namedrop.
We ordered some parts from China, but we had some trusting issues
Seriously guys, this is the website not the newsletter. Reel it in.
“We had the bright idea of using a drill as a lathe.”
Well, what can you say. “All jugaadu people” up on stage.
“All jugaadoo people sitting over here itself.” Best technical minds of our college, ladies and gentlemen.
“The Shafts we had were too big. So we took them to the mechanical shop, used the lathe, shortened them.”
Inspiration, in case you need some for the future: “A cool car, drifting around IC.”
Let’s take a typical day at IC, you have frustrated people going to ION, sly people waiting outside NLH but then I saw a car drifting in front of IC. And that’s when I knew I wanted to do that. – TMR
“One senior decided to go out, downtown, for you know, dinner.” – Rishav DuttaChoudhary, SolarMobil.
SolarMobil: “Some of our seniors went downtown for… let’s say dinner.” We need crowd control in LA
” We had a nice “meal”. We were back for the winter vacation but did not have the funds for the battery and only had the chassis. Then our senior, after the dinner, said, let’s make the car run. Now with what limited knowledge i had of engineering i knew that was not possible. then out senior asked us the come outside, pick up the chassis and said, RUN.” – SolarMobil
“What is the driving force of Curiosity?”
“Curiosity… [something about the human drive to know and inspire and discover]”
“No. Actually, Curiosity is NASA’s Mars rover.”
So most freshman hear the fans running in lab in NLH and wonder what is happening and that is how we attract juniors to our recruitment. – Parikshit
Aritra: “How difficult is the question paper during recruitment? I’ve heard it is.”
Parikshit: “It’s very basic.”
It’s not like it is ROCKET SCIENCE.
Tonight The Manipal Conclave is getting better TRPs than Goswami’s show. All hail Shome.
#AllHailShome
“Okay now this is my favourite section. This is the story part.” – A visually excited Aritro Shome
The Shome must go on.
TMR: “I saw a dark and vulnerable man who quickly anodized my aluminium parts.”
RM: “I asked him if i could use his shower. He was really happy.”
“Instead of my two ugly roommates, I see two girls. I asked myself, was I in heaven?”
Shome: “That’s so much better than Divij’s story.”
This has got to be the best thing ever to happen to the Conclave.
#TheShomeMustGoOn
Shome: “Do you have some of that space beer?”
You know, to be high in space.
Okay, I promise you there is a much more serious article coming up about this session written by Karan. No really, trust us.
Karan has a lot of work cut out for him.
And with that, TheShomeHasEnded.
A thundering round of applause to all the student speakers. The reason people aren’t standing is because they refuse to believe it’s over.
Informative and entertaining. Kudos to Aritra Shome for a stellar session.
#TheShomeMustGoOn
And we now have Ipshita one last time to facilitate the presentation of mementos and letters to all the representatives of The Student Project teams.
And with that, we have reached the end of Day 1 of The Manipal Conclave.
The Post shall be back tomorrow, to cover the second day of The Manipal Conclave.
On behalf of Amit Shah and Avneesh Chandra.
Thanks for joining us on the ride. This is our first LIVEBlog and our servers tell us you guys absolutely loved it.
Cheerio.
Hi. The Manipal Conclave begins soon. Excited?