This post is dedicated to the organisers of the fantastic event- SURVIVOR of Cognito '08. Hats off to Aziz, Avantika, Sumathi, Fizza and Anupama. You guys have done a fantastic job and this post tells just how great the event was!Though i seriously doubt if i can do justice to it!!

The first round was a case study to do with the revival of a sick beer brewery and truth be told, i learnt more about beer overnight than i would have otherwise :D the round served as a warm up. Since the first round was almost a week earlier, the participants were left in suspense as to when the next round was.

The next round was on a lazy sunday(which sunday of mine aint lazy?)We were given 3 hours to formulate a biz plan and damn smart organisers didnt mention the currency of capital and all contestants,to the best of my knowledge assumed it to be indian rupees,including myself. I thought it was a constraint of capital and was pretty glad that i could complete the plan and submit it online on time.

Then came the 3rd round,on the eve of the fest. TO make a biz card. I had no clue why they wanted it nor do i know till now whether it made a difference or not. Created my own company, appointed self as the CEO and cooked up an address i dont know whether exists or not :) i liked it though.

We were asked to report at 7:30am in comfy gear. When waiting for the other participants I was pleasantly surprised to be remembered by a contestant whom I hadnt met earlier as the Classical dance girl (okay he got the classical dance name wrong, but still..hadnt expected it at all)
The 4th round was a physical exercise round. One round which surely made me hate the organisers!! Okay, the idea was really nice and fun and i know i would have enjoyed had i had the stamina ;) the idea of hiding coins at the other end of the campus and giving a severe time constraint.. lol! at the end of it i was glad i got only 5 coins even if it meant i had to crawl under benches!! it atleast made my organisational structure clean and organised.

The next round is one id never forget for sure! sing a song which suits a contestant whose name you have picked as a chit. Me? Sing? right! inspite of listening to loads of songs, nothing really struck me till the last moment that too from a movie which released way back around '95. as usual,didnt remember the lyrics either so everyone was saved of the torture of having to hear me sing. The funny thing here is I attempted to sing (if u can call it that) the song coz it was the only one which struck me and the contestant thought it suit him perfectly. Talk about luck :D

We were then taken to a popular shopping place and given Rs.100 to buy 2 products of which one we had to sell and the other to keep.I had guessed the round earlier. Just sensed it. This round gave me quite a few memorable moments i must say. The first being the whole experience of selling a Rs.21 design stencil for Rs.45.The number of times iv introduced myself in that one hour i dont think iv done it before. Nor have i had to plead with an aunty to let me use the loo and promise to pay Re.1 later. Thank you organisers for confiscating my wallet and negating my chance of shopping sans transport cost and ofcourse, paying the loo aunty later :D iv never heard a person reprimanding for using the loo before! definitely a first time experience.The next thing I enjoyed about the round was chatting up with Israeli tourists. Overall, the experience of the round is quite memorable. Well done organisers!!

I had round 5 guessed aswell which was to market the product we had bought with the other Rs.50. I dont know what the organisers thought of selling but I had quite a few laughs at another contestant's selling ideas. Might be sounding rude but the entire idea of fruit flavoured cigarettes uv got to agree is hilarious!! When one of the judges suggested pineapple flavoured cigarettes, i was sourly tempted to ask if he would come out with jackfruit ones too! lol! I dont know if he realised but flavouring cigarettes could be poisonous. Another contestant definitely made us all laugh by saying that if our stress levels would reduce if we tore his product apart, he would be happy (his product was a stress buster) True. Why would he bother? his product would have to be bought for it to be ripped. One another contestant made us go weak by charming us into tasting non-existent chocolates in our mouths. Kudos!

Next, for round 6 we headed towards the most posh mall in the city and were asked to collect as much info as we could. I must say I learnt a lot there in the mall in terms of marketing tactics of certain brands and their sales, restaurant menus and stuff. We were told later that we were to assume that the mall was a plain structure and we were to sell it to a potential investor with a presentation. I dont know if I had the organisers/judges convinced but I liked doing the presentation. Makes you feel important. :) Mind you, it was an overnight presentation. We had to turn up the next morning with the presentation ready.

Then came round 7 a press meet. lol! I guess you can figure out what happened! I was supposed to be a businessman- one whose project has been stuck because of political issues. This round I know for sure, I must have been the lowest scorer or close to the lowest. Bombed, the minute I spoke about politics.

Round 8 i know wasnt marked. We were to hand write a 4pg essay on Mahatma Gandhi which was torn the next morning once we submitted it. I believe there was a round 9 which included calling us up at 2am asking us to write an essay on some topic i dont remember which was to be torn apart with the essay on MAhatma Gandhi. Luckily the round got scrapped thanks to me not having a cell phone :)

Round 9 included making a video on an issue specific to our city. I made one, with much help from my brother on Bangalore being a global village with an Indian touch. I loved the video and cant possibly thank him for helping me out with the round coz i aint good with tech at all! Just wished the clarity was better though

I had slept at 4am that day after getting the video, essay and presentation ready and I must thank my brother and another friend (Im sure the person knows who) who helped me stay up, encouraged me to keep going and proved to be a great deal of support. We were to report at 6:30am that morning.So, I had a grand total of an hour and a half of sleep. However, the presentation and the video in my opinion went pretty well.

Round 10 I dont quite remember where it was placed was to fill in the names of the rivers of India. This idea how they got I dont know. I never learnt my maps even for my Tenth Boards, so i guess you can guess how disastrous that must have been. In between all these rounds we were asked to fill up a questionnaire of ten questions which i knew was to be used for the stress interview which would be the last round. Sad, my brain wasnt working and I have no clue why i wrote the rubbish i did but that quite clearly explains why the last round flopped bad.

Round 11 was criticism round which was undeniably fun. We were seven of us participating and one by one we were to go up and defend ourselves of the accusations and criticism. This round gave me a chance to vent at the unethical means adopted by a contestant in Round 4. I dont know if he was penalised for it but i hope so. Otherwise the round was pretty funny in retrospect. I must add it was damn good of all contestants to take it sportively and laughing about it later once the round was done. The best compliment i received in the competition must be when they told me they found it tough to find fault with me.I was and am happy with the way i defended myself. I dont know the organisers view about it though.

Round 12 was another fantastic round in which we trade and plan our city. I had loads of fun doing it. Brilliant idea organisers!!

Round 13 was a complete chiller where we were to play monopoly and i as usual had a blast playing. Wish we could have gone playing longer.

Round 14 was the stress interview i completely screwed up. I dont know. When i was outside, i was normal but when i came in, it seemed like a completely person was walking in. I knew less than a minute into the interview, iv lost the game. I still am not able to decipher why i did/said what i had.

All said, the deserving one won :D I wouldnt say I dont deserve not to win but the finals had screwed up my chances. Im happy that I had put up a tough fight.

One more thing which im pretty sure is salient is the bonding between the participants. We knew each other for less than 2 days and yet we felt like friends helping each other out even till the finals. A pat on the back for all contestants id say!

Last but not the least, organisers! you guys absolutely rocked! Just wish you had been a bit more open about the performance in each round after the elimination atleast. It would give better insight into our mistakes. Otherwise you guys were rocking! Well done and keep it up!!