Third time’s the charm. True to the adage, the BANG III JAM was a suc….wait for it…
Big things start small. Awesome things keep getting bigger. Legendary things start with 23 (well give or take). Yes, that was the number of people who attended Bang JAM – 3rd edition on the 5th of September 2009 at “the CCD”.
Things started as usual with JAM. Rules were explained, a mod picked and the JAM began. If I were to describe what transpired that evening using tags, the tag cloud would look something like this…(with deliberate exclusion of few tags)
greetings exchanging pleasantries looking around for new junta jam rules of jam normal round misuse of catchphrase bang! weird topic groans moans …..start …… what the F#$k!! good one!! <slur> speech Ds “my very good friend manish krishnan was walking on the road when..” ha ha bang bang!! standard format disconnect round
round stuff ball games “water molecules are round in shape ” bang bang bang!! mutual funds offer documents omanakutti celebrating onam oman
Many rounds in this JAM werent focussed on a topic as much as on the ’round’. One round required jammers to use a girl’s name in every sentence (a different one each time), not easy as there was a pic of Pamela Anderson on a laptop in front of everyone. Those who could focus on the JAM rather than PAM (heh!) were the ones who came on top. And there was one person who tried to use ‘Quick Gun Murugan’ as a girl’s name. Don’t ask!
After JAM came the much awaited, the much planned for, pot-pourri.
Pot-pourri started off with much ado. Tables were cast aside to create more space. A pearl-white board (courtesy : a good colleague of Mudd’s) was setup for Pictionary and the words Pot-Pourri were written in bold on it (just in case there was any doubt as to what was happening). General rules of Dumb Charades (DC) and Pictionary (pixie) were explained. There was to be no splitting of words, no using ‘sounds like’, no talking while enacting/drawing and other dozen not-so-complicated rules were explained to the participants. The participants were also told that teams would be formed at random and no pre-made teams would be allowed. This was met with a furore from some and acceptance from some. Some lazy participants were even seen shifting their seating position by as much as 15 degrees, meaning they did not care either way. Food, condiments and drinks were ordered, and then it was down to business!
And that was the beginning of easily the best post-JAM Bang JAM session. The pot-pourri was a theme based one, meaning all answers to dumb C and pixie were also connects to the theme.
Representatives from each team were asked to pick a chit from a pool of chits available. Each chit had something (that thing you do) written on it followed by and also specified how you had to do it – DC or Pixie. They were of varying levels of difficulty. DC saw things as easy as “Edward Scissorhands” to as tricky as “Pure”. Pixie had its own share of challenges. While a dumbstruck participant was asked to draw “the calcium Kid”, another one was asked to recreate Walt Disney’s famous character Bambi on the white board (the Bambi rendered resembled a 5 legged creature!).
Participants were told they could guess either any of the connects or the theme at any point of time. Examples of “things to do”s included- Boston Tea Party, Kingdom of Heaven, Rolling stones gather no moss, Pina colada etc. And a few “things you do”‘s later, a torrent of epiphanies ensued. And after almost all the the teams had cracked the connects and the theme, a non competitive event- Event X was announced.
Event X turned out to be another round of DC, but with a twist. The members of a team (1-2-3) were asked to stand in a straight line, two of them facing each other and the third one facing away (1-2 3). With 1 and 2 facing each other initially, 1 would start miming the phrase he’d been given, and 2 in turn had to understand it again only through miming! Every thirty seconds, there was to be a “switch” – now the one looking away (3) would turn to face the person in the middle(2) while 1 looks away (1 2-3). A total of 3 minutes was allowed which amounted to 6 switches. Within these 3 minutes, 1 had to convey his “thing to do” to 3 via 2. Add to this, the “things to do” were not easy. “The incredible creatures who stopped living and became mixed-up zombies” was one of the “things to do”, which, to the good fortune of all present there, was not picked by any one. Others were as impossible, examples include “Are you trying to seduce me?”, (was conveyed by a nonplussed 3 as “Hot you, sexy me”!), “A funny thing happened on the way to forum”.
Confusion would be an understatement to describe what followed soon after. Few 1s were seen nervously counting the number of words in their “thing to do” and some of the 3s were seen scribbling on a notepad (Courtesy: Palety’s employer), whatever they could make out of the frantic miming of their respective 2s. To make things amusing (a clever and twisted idea from one of the organizers), the “thing to do” was written on the pearl-white board hidden from the participating team, but visible to everyone else. A laughter riot followed, with participating teams trying their best to score and the audience (knowing the participating team was failing miserably) giggling and thumping each other’s backs and CCD tables in convolutions of hilarity.
Results were announced at the end of event x. The winning team was cheered and so were the losing teams. Few pictures were taken to commemorate the fine evening and also for publicity purposes. The organizers were thanked and appreciated. Participants were seen leaving the premises with a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction on their exhausted faces. Oh yeah ..wait, the bill was paid and waiter was tipped generously (courtesy : someone who was not good at counting). It was a JAM-(not-so)-boree.
….thanks for waiting…cess….success!!
Oh! What an evening it was
Full of fun and literary glitter
Blessed were the souls who were present
For it was a sweet symphony not bitter
So if you are excited and want to join us
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For the next one will have a quiz
Each question tricky, none a sitter
. 1 round of straight forward nonsense followed by a round of structured includeAMovieNameInEachSentence nonsense. (yeah, I code for a living)
