The weary reveller

Adithya Suri is a third year student currently pursuing his B.Tech degree at the Vellore Institute of Technology. He loves to spend his time JAMming and speaking impromptu; he bagged the first in both the Just A Minute and the Extempore events in revels. We bring you an interview with the very same.

Is this your first visit to Manipal? How was your experience here?

This is my first visit here and I have to say, I loved it! The organizers were great, they made sure that we had a very comfortable stay; lots of thought has been put into the schedule too because we could attend all the events we wanted to without any confusion. They were also very encouraging, to say the least.

What do you like most about Manipal?

I love the freedom you guys have here after college. But most of all, I like the people here. They’re very friendly and helpful. They’re lots of fun to be with! Especially your literary club, those guys are great!

How did you like Revels?

Revels was amazing! The events were great and the organizers were efficient. I loved the competition here; it’s sad that you guys can’t come to many other fests because the kind of talent you have here is really good!

What was your favorite moment here in Manipal?

Winning the JAM, hands down!

So, in MIT, we heard of a new rule in VIT which asks people to refrain to only hand shakes in the campus. What is your take on that?

*chuckling* It’s blown out of proportion! If you look at it this way, how else could they have phrased it? They wanted us to refrain from physical contact and they put it in the best way they could. Although that didn’t stop it from becoming a fail. I even remember that there was an offer for free hugs from MITians! But I feel that our college does this because they really care. In they end, however misguided and restrictive their rules are, they do mean well.

Have you attended many fests?

This is in fact my 7th or 8th fest this semester.

*interrupting* What about attendance?

Oh, we get attendance when we go out for fests. VIT is cool in that way, they encourage us to attend lots of fests outside.

Did you know that MIT is actually very strict in attendance? We are very, very rarely given attendance even for the best of reasons or competitions. 

That’s sad! It will be nice if you guys came to other colleges’ fests. Well, looks like MIT has hostel freedom and VIT has academic freedom, it will be great if all of us had both!

Now, a blunt question, how did you become such an awesome JAMmer?

*chuckles* Thank you! It’s nothing much. I just love what I do,  JAMming is close to my heart and I enjoy it. As long as you have command over the language, you’re good. The rest is just practice and confidence. The reason that VITians are the majority in many of the literary events is that we practice intensely for the events. We are very careful in picking the talent for our literary club, we pick people who are good at certain things, a good actor is sure to entertain the audience of an impromptu speech session and so on.

Some advice for budding JAMmers and impromptu speakers?

Know your audience. It always helps to entertain the audience, so be as humorous as you can within the scope of the event. There’s no use jamming your opponents frequently unless you are extremely sure about it. Wait for a few seconds and they are bound to make mistakes, try not to get negatives till the last few rounds.

Something you’d like to tell Manipal?

Glad to be here, would love to be back!

We hung out for some more time as I showed him through the academic block to collect his prizes. He encouraged me to attend the fests of other colleges, telling me: ‘This is what is great about these fests, we meet a lot of new people and learn a lot of new things. I’ve cleared a lot of misconceptions about my college and you’ve told me a lot about yours. You learn a lot, it’s a great experience!”. That’s indeed true, here’s hoping that our otherwise great college eases down the rules on attendance and encourages us to attend other fests!

Vishnu