The tale of Auxesis

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 to every 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 technocultural 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 and alumni, 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 a member 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 of rings, 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 of some of the established engineering institutes of the region. Many of us, almost all my branch mates, sacrificed their seats in the wellestablished 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

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 glory in 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 rooms and 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 different heads, 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 were brought 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

something. It was Teachers Day round the corner, 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 the power 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 timemanagement, invincible hurdles. In due course of time, the ring molded the members, and started giving 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 first techfest, 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-thespot 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 right path. 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 a long time to come in the history of the University, for a lot of reasons. Time-management, organizing skills, event management skills, teamcoordination, 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 was possible 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

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 till Auxesis, which had to have a committee. When we were told by our faculty that we have to organize an event for Engineers Day, we decided this 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 a competition. 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. It always 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 a techfest 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 hostelmate. 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

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. The origin 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 special night, 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 cooked outside 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 to everybody 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 friend again. 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 our mission, 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 to decide the name. Do you remember that I was illtreated 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

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 great civilization 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 the surface, 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 the posts 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 of Hospitality 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 some modifications 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 of now, 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

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 of time, 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 relieve him 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 of not 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 was a 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 Chancellors office 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 we introduced 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 8

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 Underground asking 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 and knowledgeable 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 our pockets and make personal sacrifices to cover the costs, because collecting money from all students was never an option. DUIETs students have already been paying much on account of Varsity week, Teachers day, and lot other things and there 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 foot inside 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 indulging themselves 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 to show 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 9

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 also solicited 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 included in 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 be claim 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

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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. Events were 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 Meta tags, 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 material of 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 sent that 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 continued working. 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 make small 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 and presenting 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

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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 companies visiting 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 another aspect 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 to spend 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 be through. 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 were already 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

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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 honorable Vice 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 that front. 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 of Auxesis 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 cc Star City, clad in raincoats and helmets and took spare clothes in our back packs. Sivasagar greeted us with sunshine and the heat was gradually 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

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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 the media 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 a treat 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 cultural managers, 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 before the 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 and setting 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 but a 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 nevercomplaining 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 other aspects 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 14

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 a whole, 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 banners would 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 of performance. 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 Employees Association 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 the Director 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 hurdles every 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

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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 we can 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 we could 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 University administration 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 to attend. 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

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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 helping hands 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 likes of 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 and the 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 of the 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 ViceChancellor of Dibrugarh University, and was coinaugurated 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 Prahashan at 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.

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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 crossed about 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. The coordinator 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, competing neck on neck, and the judges did not hesitate to say that it was the best competition held outside of Guwahati in any educational institute, that year. The bands that made their way through to the finals were Sycorax from Darjeeling, Bandeh from Kolkata, Agnoustics from Guwahati, Filharmonix from Jorhat and Doorstep Casket from Guwahati. The judges of this event were David Koch, the king of rock music scenario of the North-East, Vedanta Kaushik, the vocalist of Shades of Retribution and Tanmay Ray Chowdhury, the drummer of Papon & the East India Company. Now let me tell you something. I was at the venue at the time of this event. After the night long sound check by the sound engineers, when the first band was doing their sound check at 10:30 hours, shivers were running down my spine and blood was clotting in my veins. One of the two chief sound engineers was standing near the stage, near the amplifier stacks with a walkietalkie in his hand, communicating with the other one who was controlling the mixer boards, showed thumbs up sign to the one at back with the mixers that we are ready to go. Then sound was opened, volume was increased and it was the start of Ransack, our band competition. It was an emotional moment for me, seeing the proceedings in front of my eyes, and at last we were able to stage Auxesis and gift the people of this University a never before experience, sound and lights that the University have not witnessed since its inception in 1965. Also it will be difficult to remember, when a band from Kolkata or Darjeeling came to compete in a competition held in Dibrugarh University! It was the much needed exposure, the name of Dibrugarh University being chanted in far off lands. That was enough on a single competition. A page each for each completion would even be not enough to bring to you every detail, the hardships faced and dedication of the organisers to make each event successful. So we will move to the next event, that was Step Over, 6 on 6 football competition. It was happening at the old playground, covering half the football field and with goalposts of handball. The coordinator of this event was Ahninabh Singh. At 12:30 hours, it was the conduction of Tailspin, the glider making contest, which required participants the wit to make a 18

aerodynamically competent design, within given time, using given materials. The coordinators of this event were, Imran Khan and Tonzim Hussain. At 14:30 hours, it was the finals of Robossault, the robowar competition. The event was well conducted by M. Chandrasekhar Rao. It was his dedication that a new dimension to the world of robowars could be added, here at Dibrugarh University. At 15:00 hours, it was the time for Monographize, the paper presentation contest of Auxesis 2011. The event was coordinated by Saurav Sengupta and Srawanti Medhi. At 15:30, it was the conduction of a much awaited competition of Auxesis, Trivial Paradox, the open quiz. The Quizmaster was Mr. Manimugdha Sharma, renowned as Lord Mani, a prolific quizmaster in the national circuit and the Chief Copy-Editor of Times of India. It was the homecoming of the Lord, after a long period of time, and veteran quizzers of the region along with the known names of Assam quizzing circuit, came in leaps and bounds to participate in the event. The intensity and quality of the quiz can be perceived from the names of the participants of the quiz, which included the likes Mr. Abhra Das, Mr. Dillip Sharma, Mr. Wyangko Weingkan , etc. who are the best quizmasters of the region. The coordinators of this event were Nilav Kr. Pyne and Rishiraj Phukan and together, they drew up from their reservoir of experience after actively participating in the most popular quizzes of the state to give shape and stage one of the most successful events of Auxesis. It was well understood by them that big prize money is not the only point of attraction to conduct an event as successfully as Trivial Paradox. It was sheer dedication and the participants, along with the quiz masters were all praise for the hospitality meted out to them. At 17:00 hours, it was the conduction of Sharpshooter, a coding competition, testing the hacking skills of the participants. The event was coordinated by Pranjit Borah and Mondeep Paul. At 18:00 hours, it was the turn of Bioscope, The Film Festival, in partnership with Cine Art Society, Dibrugarh Chapter. The coordinator of this event was Sidhartha Sankar Kowndilya. Films were carefully chosen to give the viewers a taste of the film industry of foreign countries. From 19:00 hours onwards, it was the time for Adroit Vie to take central stage. In addition to CS 1.6 conducted yesterday, and FIFA 09 conducted in the morning, Age of Empires II and NFS Most wanted

will also be conducted today. The coordinators of Age of Empires II were Nishal Gohain, Mondeep Paul, Arindom Baruah and Pritam Sarmah. The coordinators of NFS Most Wanted were Vishwajit Nandi and Gaurav Agarwala. The competiton was fierce with participants forming long line outside the venue to get their chance to compete. After all, it was LAN Gaming at its best and who would not like to test their skill against some of the best gamers of the state! The competitions went on till late night, well beyond 24:00 hours, extending to the early part of next days morning. That was the conclusion of Day 2 of Auxesis 2011. Between all these rush and hush, it was Monjur Alom, who was the refreshment manager of Auxesis 2011, kept us alive, energising the whole team and guests with his on-demand, constant supply of soft drinks. We used to let him know of the requirements, and he would take his twowheeler, a bicycle and reach the destination on time, without fail. There was no ego on his part to ride a bicycle in an era where people find it difficult to move his or her ass, without the aid of a motor-cycle or other means of transportation. As a matter of fact, the greater lot of organisers, in our times, did not have any vehicle with combustion engines mounted on it, but were extremely effective even without the aid of machines, whose primary aim is to make jobs easier for us. Monjur made the freezing arrangements for the soft drinks to keep them cold and chilly in the month of September, all by himself, utilising home-made appliances and not sophisticated modern technology. But the result was better. Today is 17th of Sepetember, 2011, and welcome to Day 3 of Auxesis 2011. The day kick started at 9:00 hours, with the conduction of HackNEX, the Ethical Hacking Workshop, conducted by E.I Systems, Bengaluru. The coordinator of the workshop was Mondeep Paul, whose hard working nature is already known to you. Weeks of dedication to find participants, arranging for a well-equipped computer lab with high-speed internet connection, which was not available in DUIET those days, preparing the venue, hospitality of the trainer, his transportation and accommodation were some of the few of the things that Mondeep had to manage. A workshop of this scale and kind does not happen with just getting the expert to come to the University and

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making some banners. It needs specific strategies and execution of the strategies to perfection. At 09:00 hours, at another venue, it was the commencement of the Creative Photography Workshop, conducted by Mr. Gourav Roy, Licensed Photographer of National Geographic Channel. The coordinators of this workshop were Rakesh Changmai and Bhaskar Jyoti Das. Simultaneously, at another venue, the Amazing Race kick-started. The coordinators of this event were Rishiraj Phukon and Sagarika Bharadwaj. The experience of Rishiraj in conducting the Amazing Race is well known to you, if you can recall the events of Mindsparx. The only difference this time was that it was much bigger and more challenging. Both of them conducted it with great efficiency. At 09:00 hours again, at another venue, it was the conduction of Unknot the Crime alias Crime Scene Investigation, the Mystery solving competition. The coordinators of this event were Pritam Sharma and Pronoy Dey. The structure of the event was such that participants will not be able to crack the mystery with the aid of just their instincts upon watching a few TV crime scene soaps, but they needed to have thorough knowledge of certain aspects of crime scene investigation, which were announced before the day of the competition. At 10:00 hours, it was the conduction of Sci Raffle, the school level science exhibition coordinated by Nitin Lahkar and Abhinas Kashyap. Also the finals of Step Over, 6 on 6 football competition stated at the old playground. Starting at the same time at another venue was the Lecture Series consisting of guest lectures by Mr. Rathish Babu, CEO, AAT (I) on Entrepreneurship and Creative Team Building Methods and by Miss Leena Manimekalai, Renowned Indian academicfilmmaker, columnist, poet & actor on the topic Indian Documentaries and Worldwide Attention, followed by the guest lecture and interaction with Mr. Shaukt Ali, Designer of ASTC logo, Eminent footballer of State, Establisher of first photo-studio in Assam, Man-eater hunter who spoke on his life and his experience. Meanwhile at the central stage, it was time for another mostawaited competition of Auxesis, Culture Exchange, the competition exhibiting the ethnic culture of India. The coordinator of this event was Netra Kamal Hazarika, who put up valiant efforts to make the event successful. He travelled to a lot of places to get participating team and it was his effort at the end that marked the

beginning of an era, where Dibrugarh University will be able to witness exhibition of rich culture in the purest form. Teams from Arunachal Pradesh and other far off places came to compete in Culture Exchange. At 11:00 hours, it was the conduction of Junkyard Wars, the scrapheap challenge of Auxesis 2011. The coordinators of the vent were Abhijit Kakoty and M. Chandrasekhar Rao, well aided by Sukanya Dutta. The event was so well conducted that the participants complimented the coordinators and lauded their efforts regarding it to be one of its kind in the entire north-east. At 13:30 hours, it was the conduction of Dream Dibrugarh, an school module event, coordinated by Sagar Gogoi and Kookeel Krishna Mahanta, the student convener of Auxesis 2012. At 14:00 hours, it was the turn for Ransack finals. What conspired at the central stage was epic and will be remembered by fans for a long time to come. Quality was what the bands decided to present to the judges and head bangers alike one last time at Auxesis 2011. To our pleasant surprise, the crowd went wild, especially the female head bangers, who erupted with energy and made deafening noises cheering the bands. It was the same crowd we were worried about a few day earlier, whether they would like rock culture or not! 18:00 hours onwards, it was the time for the guest bands to perform. Proceedings started with the performance of Divine Tribe, followed by a drum solo by Nishal Gohain, followed by the opening for Undyinc Inc by Ninaad. Nobody had a reason to be seated in the chairs that night and nobody had a reason to be concerned about security as our Discipline and Volunteer managers with their army of dedicated volunteers were working round the clock. Day 3 ended on a high in the central stage. Meanwhile in the world of gaming, it was the finals of all the gaming competitions from 19:00 hours. Today is Day 4, the final day of Auxesis 2011. Auxesis became so emotionally attached to each one of us that it was difficult for us to let it go. Today each one of will have to bid adieu to Auxesis. It will not be easy for us. But, there was no time for us to get emotional as of yet. It will be an action packed final day. Proceedings started at 08:00 ours with Imprints, the poster making competition. The event was well-coordinated by the coordinators, Aftab Ahmed and Rupanjali Shyam. At the same hours, it was time for Pen

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Your Script, the script writing competition. It was coordinated by Rishiraj Phukan. From 09:00 hours, it was the continuation of HackNEX, the ethical hacking workshop and the Creative Photography workshop. At 10:00 hours, it was the conduction of Inquizon, the school quiz, conducted by Quizmaster, Mr. Wyongko Weinkein, to whom we were grateful for the long association with him since the days of Mindsparx. The venue of this event had to be changed due to some problems in the central stage, as the Kallisteia The Fashion Show crew, wanted the stage to do their final rehearsals in full sound and light. There was a small dispute creeping up, regarding the occupation of the central stage, but it was sorted out by shifting Inquizon to another venue. Meanwhile, at the conference hall, it was the attraction of the whole Lecture Series that had just started, which was a guest lecture by Dr. T.G.K Murthy, Scientific Advisor to Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India and former ISRO Chairman. He delivered a lecture on Indias development in Science & Technology and later on interacted with the students. From 15:00 hours onwards, it was the commencement of the Prize Distribution, at the Central Registration Desk, and our Prize Distribution managers, Gauri Shankar Bora and Chinmoy Talukdar, kept all things under control with sheer efficiency and ensured a smooth running of the whole process. There was no hassle and prizes along with participating certificates of some particular events were distributed. From 17:00 hours onwards, it was the turn of Chromatic Waltz to kiss the central stage, one last time in the inaugural version of Auxesis 2011. The cultural extravaganza began with the performance of Axis, the headlining band for the day, who hailed from Guwahati followed by an entertaining and enjoyable performance by the girls of DUIET, exhibiting six dance forms of India. It was followed by the staging of Bihu, by the University team, and the audience dissolved themselves in the taste of their own culture, the pride of our state. After the conclusion of all these performance, at 10:00 hours, it was the turn for the last event and one of the much-awaited event of Auxesis 2011, Kallisteia The Fashion Show, conducted by J.D Institute, Guwahati. There were six rounds of ramp walk by gorgeous models, exhibiting rich culture, clad in dresses that had the touch of our traditions and daily lives. The coordinators of this event were Miftahuz Zaman

and Mamun Dutta. Miftahuzs plight in coordinating the whole event was no better than Monajs fate in keeping the workshop trainer satisfied. He had to overcome some extreme hurdles and perform in tight conditions, not to mention the instant demands of the architects of the whole fashion show. Nevertheless, all his efforts got meaning when Kallisteia turned out to be one of the best events of Auxesis, and one of the best that the crowd of Upper Assam have ever seen. The event concluded before 24:00 hours. That was it. Auxesis 2011 has come to end. Tears flowed uninterruptedly from my eyes, but it was not a time for sorrow but for happiness to triumph. All the organisers crowded the stage, and we shouted to our hearts content. But barely could we make considerable noises as all our voices were broken owing to the non-stop efforts that we put up in these four days, not to mention about the days of preparations. There were so many of us who barely got any time to sleep, to meet friends, to eat and other such activities. Our friends came to enjoy Auxesis, but some of them we met only for five minutes and others we could not even meet! But we were not subdued by any sorts to celebrate the grand success of Auxesis. Newspapers were all praise for our efforts which came out the nest morning, thanks to the efforts of Parardha, our media manager. It was a moment of pride for us when we could stand up to the expectations of the Vice Chancellor and other well-wishers. We, the organising team including the managers, the coordinators and the volunteers were extremely grateful to the support given to us by the Director of DUIET, the Registrar of the University, all the department heads, the greater University fraternity, the DUPGSU, our faculties and the over whelming support of the first batch of participants of Auxesis. But work was not over yet. We had to make the audit, make utilisation reports, repay the loan taken from the University, dispatch thanking letters and unclaimed prizes, etc. But for a team like this, these were just a matter of the right time to execute. But the ring never liked to depart from its creator. It was difficult for us to let it go. It was because; it will lose its power and shine if we hand it over to our junior batch. The new bearers of the ring will have to forge and earn the six rings of power again from scratch, if they would

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like to bring the One Ring, to its previous state of power and glory. The better on can forge the six rings, the more one can forge additional rings, the One Ring will grow in power and will be able to unleash its full potential. But we had to let it go, for the betterment of DUIET. So we made the audit reports, the money utilisation reports for each company who contributed for Auxesis and handed over to them to our junior batch, one fine afternoon, along with our bank account and the passwords of our official ids. In our times, it was mandatory for all our managers to use only the official email ids, when they had to communicate with the outside world. By the end of Auxesis, each member of our team was stronger and resilient than before. Some of them can now go without food for few days. Some of them can now walk miles in the sun, to execute a simple task, without complaining. Some of them now have the capacity to put on a smile on their lips, even after being illtreated a number of times by higher authorities. It was being learnt by most of them that we have to manoeuvre our way through to achieve something, overcoming hurdles, as it was difficult to mend the world, but learn to apply ourselves. I beg for the forgiveness of those whose names I have not mentioned here, who put their efforts to make Auxesis 2011 an extremely successful one, and consider my act of not being able to mention all names as purely unintentional. It is very difficult for me to recollect everything at this point of time, after more than a year. Also, it will be very kind and generous of all those individuals, who constituted the greater organising team, if you can consider and let go my faults and acts of stupidity and sheer ignorance, throughout the length of Auxesis. Auxesis was a collective effort, the summation of the efforts of all individuals associated. Thanks, love and respect to all. You all made me a better individual and I will remain indebted to you, for my lifetime. Also if you have noticed, that we are more of a family right now, love being called family members, rather that calling ourselves batch-mates. Our batch will always be special as we created history and traditions, as we had to pave the way. And to be honest, we did it the right way. People will have only good things to follow from us, not morally incorrect things. It is also my appeal to all future organising teams of

Auxesis, that take Auxesis to greater heights, each time it is being organised. Stop at nothing and make your way through, thundering through storms of the unkind world. If you do not stand on your own feet, nobody will give you a damn. Always remember, nobody gives a damn about your to dos, or could dos, but only what you have done. Lastly, I dedicate this tale, to all the organisers and everybody who contributed even in the smallest possible way to Auxesis. Every contribution counted and made it possible for us. I also dedicate this to my love, who has been extremely supportive to me and taught me many a things in life, which were practically imparted on a number of occasions, during Auxesis. She clearly understood, and at all instances made me remember that Auxesis was greater than her, me or anyone else. I have the whole world to care for, and there is someone who cares for me. That makes it easier to go about things. And how can I forget my parents, who have made me what I am today. I will not use any words to describe their contribution, but I just bow down to their love and gratitude and endless sacrifices for me. So I have said enough, may be bored you off for too long. Its time to part. Adieu. Live long, stay strong. Rupam Sarmah

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