“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
If you take a moment to glance all over college during Malhar and the days leading up to it, what stands out is that no one is alone in this distinctive journey. Deadlines fly, calls are ringing, and someone, somewhere, is always asking, “Where’s the meeting?” (no one ever knows). The departments come alive in the middle of it all- and it’s an honour to show the full 24-hour ride across departments. Whether you’re a volunteer, a core member, or someone watching from the audience, this is the inside force, motion and fulcrum on how Malhar really moves.
For LA, it’s never the same work, especially in the core. It’s a small ecosystem bustling with ideas and activity. One can envision us sitting in comfortable silence, each one engrossed in their own work. Until someone raises a question, 6 other heads pop up, and then it's an amalgamation of ideas, suggestions and most importantly, passion. Computers rarely meet offline, with all their work done efficiently in online meetings (that they sometimes forget are supposed to take place), but when they do, it’s complete coding creativity. ETC, staying true to their name, takes playing UNO as seriously as they take finding anchors for the events. The UNO rules are the only thing they can't agree upon. But things somehow always fall into place. Their minutes of meetings read like: “+2, +4, no, that's wrong, skip.”
Even over the din of the day, one can hear the drills and chants of Security as they conduct mock evacuations and form human chains. They might have to run back and forth to gain permissions amidst incessant meetings, but all of them look forward to the camaraderie they build post everything. In Hospitality and Logistics, conversations go off-topic and spiral into the funniest stories, but in between, real bonds are built. Their inside jokes are as graced as their guests and venues. When it’s time to work, they’re 100% on it.
If you hear about ghosts on campus, don't worry, it's just Assistance reaching really early. When the rest of us are still wrestling with our alarms, they’re already in college asking, “How much did you sleep?” And unsurprisingly, it's never enough (cue the song from ‘The Greatest Showman’). When you see a full-blown performance happening unprompted in a GD, it's just WPA madness at work. Glancing up from the quad, you can always tell who’s in Marketing—they’re the ones pacing around with a phone glued to their ear, throwing around words of the corporate world like “pitch,” “last email,” and “I’ll just call once more and then eat.” It's not so hard to spot Admin too, traipsing around and muttering something about numbers and CCs. Because relations really take precedence over any other. PR, on the other hand, goes into complete FBI mode. If you thought journalists were hard to reach, think again. They got LinkedIn Premium just to message a reporter. And it worked.
Across the corridor, Creatives are on a different kind of adrenaline. Messages upon messages of, “guys, update जल्दी please!” and “where is the design draft?” are what keeps them working till end hours. And well, it will always seem incomplete to walk up the Hogwarts stairs without encountering DnM working tirelessly and FA selecting their corners and sticking with it. Conversely, IPA is still sitting in the canteen at 8:30 PM. Tired, hungry, but not quite ready to leave. They talk about the day, the work, and the people. It’s called the “family debrief”, ten minutes of honesty before heading home. FnD and Finance can't help having their meetings after 10 pm (yes, even with 8 am lectures looming on the horizon). Finance OC reaches home after 10, announces a meeting at 10:15, and tells everyone to join 10 minutes late because she still needs to change into pyjamas. She does indeed bring the whole team together.
WINC and Conclave seem to share their energy when it comes to countless invites, ideations, and a lot of “This is my dream personality. इन्हें तो बुलाना ही है.” For WINC, it’s like clockwork, conducting the collection for the Yardsale in the morning, seamlessly organising their workshop in the evening and back to meetings at night. Conclave is the embodiment of delayed gratification - after 4 months of curations and contacting consistently, can they lock in the sessions they do! Imagine living these days on repeat. A day in the Texxx department is the coolest vibe around. Their day involves numerous conversations about sorting inventory or conducting walkie workshops in the evenings. One message from the OC is sure to light up their chat with more curated playlists!
These concurrently packed days of each department forge the small steps of the ladder towards its peak - Malhar. What coheres the entirety of it are these people— this fest is made of the dedication and efforts of 21 different departments (20 + the Q) that pour their hearts and souls (& occasionally tears & sweat) into making every Malhar the best they know. This assembles for 5 months until Malhar, leaving traces of passionate contentment behind.
It’s unfettered chatter and undeniable companionship. And well, like our team agreeably said,“It's truly the love and energy I feel for this position.” The grind, the delicate and tangible feeling of holding your team together is a life lived in itself. The Sisyphean tasks of every day become a shared souvenir of helping each other, with laughter and tenderness always present in the forefront. Slowly and steadily, it becomes not only about what we create, but also about how we create it. Like our LA OG, Riya Vora, jokingly mentioned, “Spreading smiles, making lives, it's just how we do it.” which now, beyond doubt, rings true.