The Tossed Salad

December 19th 2008, Sahil and me landed in Bombay for the annual IIT-Bombay fest Mood Indigo. Reaching Bombay was one hectic thing we had to go through as there was a confusion regarding the bus timings due to which we had to miss the first two buses and then board the third one finally.

On reaching the Powai campus and on completing the registrations and other formalities, we headed towards the accomodation and right after dumping our bags at respective places, we went on a campus tour just to get a feeling of what was actually awaiting us.

Mood Indigo seemed dead this year although it was the 50th year for IIT-B. The crowd was depressing and the organizers themselves were in a maze. Mismanagement of events and cancellation of many more put the crowd off. Unlike the yesteryears, the campus wasn’t brimming with life.

When the general feeling of the crowd was conveyed to them, the feelings of the organizers seemed juvenile and vulnerable as they could not take in criticism in a positive way but literally misbehaved with us. I understand that our magazine is not as big a name as TOI or The Indian Express and that we are just five months old but that doesn’t mean that one has the right to misbehave with anybody by telling us “you are black mailing us in the name of Press”.

It is surprising how the misconcepted biggest brains in the country behave when it comes to handling practical situations like these. Any sensible person would have actually taken the criticism and made use of it to improve themselves but it seems that IITians think no end of themselves hence they claim that they are mature enough and do not need to prove it to anyone else.

On the eve of completing 6 months, TTS is organizing an event called ‘Zivotni’, which means life the Czech Rep, on the 25th Jan (sunday) tentatively. In the hope of promoting lifestyle, 3 sessions have chalked out where a food+wine session, book reading+panel discussion session and a rock band performance will happen in 3 diff spheres of lifestyle.

Event Hightlights:

• Confirmed presence by Samir Karnik (bollywood director of heroes, nanhe jaisalmer fame) and Vatsal Seth (actor of just mohabattein and tarzan fame) are in place. Samir Karnik will also be showing an exclusive clipping from his next movie Roshan featuring Bobby Deol.

We are in talks with more guests about the same. Passes for the full-day event shall be available for free from mid-jan.

Also a re-designed site shall see the light on the completion of 6 months.

It was a simple evening over a Lays Cream and Onion big packet, curd and one Thums Up which triggered our energy emotions to such an extent that we decided that it is about time that the then-to-be-launched magazine got its name.

First job was to decide as to what will be the content of the magazine all the ideas which came up in the brain storming session was quickly jotted down in an now-lost A4 sheet and the whole process was so mind-boggling!

We came up with the most innovative as well as the silliest of ideas and it was surprising how in a matter of 20 minutes there wasn’t even a centimeter of space left without a pencil mark.

Once the content was decided, we jumped to deciding names for the magazine -

1. Kaleidoscope - A kaleidoscope is a tube of mirrors containing loose colored beads and pebbles or other small colored objects. The viewer looks in one end and light enters the other end, reflecting off the mirrors creating a juxtaposition of colours. (sahil came up with this name…..was rejected because it was sounding too cliched then).

2. Terrra cotta - Terra cotta (Italian: “baked earth”) is a ceramic. Its uses include vessels, water & waste water pipes and surface embellishment in building construction, along with sculptures. (sahil again…..the name was rejected because it was more appropriate for a sculpture shop)

3. Mauve - Mauve is a pale lavender – lilac color; one of the many in the rangeur of purples. (sahil again! he was probably influenced with the Mauve nightclub in KP, pune. Anyways, this one was rejected because I am sure the Poonawalas would have sued us then

4. The Tossed Salad – instant hit! the name was given by me after all!!! attitude!

Anyways there was a rough survey kind of a thing which was held in which we asked friends around to choose from the four given above. Many said that the name seemed to be too big but then that was the only URL available and so we stuck to it. And by the way, people did appreciate the innovativity which lies behind the name.