Sankraman: Pre-Event Planning
After Deep Ranjani event organised by Pune, we at Thane katta assembled together to form a strategy for our event.
After several discussions, the name "Sankraman" was chosen
05 December '04: First announcement on Yahoo groups. Apex informed
19 December '04: Invitation of participation from kattas. All katta coordinators were informed that their katta was welcome to participate in Thane katta event. They were allotted a slot of 20 min. to present any shows
Thane katta members started meeting weekly
05 January '05: Opening of Registrations.
Soon, our meetings were conducted bi-weekly. Interaction via e-mail and messenger intensified. Almost every night we held an event-conference
Primary asset of our katta is that 90% members in organization comittee had internet access all day and several decisions were taken within a day via emails, only to be confirmed later in offline meets
Most of the members work in Mumbai, hence our meetings would typically start at 8:00 PM and last until 10:00 or 10:30 PM.
In addition to that, majority of members in organization comittee happen to be non-Thanekars, hence time management became very crucial
29 January '05: Countdown
Daily meets. Excitement, tempers running high... :p Plenty of arguments. Total fun.
I guess nobody reached home before 11 pm. Parents had lost all hopes, and repeated appeals 'arey lavkar ye re', 'roj kaay baher jevta', '8 taas zop zaali pahije' etc were conveniently ignored. (After the event, I heard someone say.. 'he kaay, atta ghari jaycha? 8:30 vajlet fakta'.. and she still had to go to Dombivli from Thane)
I think all of us, the 12-15 members organizing this, got habituated to each others behaviour and know each other very well.
Office and personal phones were converted to call-centres. Some of us ran behind their parents, asking them to pay the latest phone bills. Others were at their mercy of their boss, one of whom said -"XYZ, phonevarchya gappa awara"
We went to several places together, had night-out nights at each others places and really enjoyed the arguments and working under apprehension- "will we be successful, or not."
06 February '05: THE DAY
And the results are for you all to see!