Day 27: MIT Make in India

Day 27: MIT Make in India

So Aish and I went to sleep at about 5:45am…and then I got up at 8:30am. Yay. At least I finally shaved. Let’s not talk about how long it’s been since I washed my hair. In my defense, the bathroom doesn’t have light. We would still have a long, rough day ahead of us. In other news, I want to ride the Big Flipper. 

Aish had some trouble waking up and didn’t end up waking until 11am. I had long before left to the lab, but before I even stepped out of the house, our two favorite camera guys had finally caught me that I didn’t do my interview yet. Darn. After so much skillful evasion. 

I came back to do the interview, and I gave pretty crappy, brief, horrible answers. I honestly could not come up with anything after the night. They kept laughing because I wasn’t really cooperating. Oh well. 

I returned after that swell interview, and tried to work on the finance spreadsheet, business plan, and presentation. I ate a quick lunch as finally more people trickled in. 

Our team kept working on the product and the presentation stuff, and I learned that Raj has the same choice in music as me when it comes to Indian oldies. All the Kishore Kumar, please. 

I am really curious who took pictures of me sleeping on the chairs...those are dangerous.

Then as the day became slower and less productive, Soapnil and Jassi recruited me unknowingly and made me sit down and write their business plan. These people…we even had our business plan before that. I tried to help them and kinda kept bouncing around. Time was getting nearer and nearer to the presentations. Our shark trash can’s sensor kept screwing up and we would continuously tried to move the potentiometer, but electronics have a mind of their own. Occasionally it would work. We just hoped when the people come to see the demo, it would be that occasion. 

Just as Forest, Duncan, and I came back from the corner store (where we had rather confusing interaction with the store lady), the government officials of Kerala had arrived and it was time to give demos. Aishwarya had come out from the sick death and spoke beautifully about our product that was trash. I was dying of cough and lack of water meanwhile. I finally got some water, and then it was time for the actual presentations. I was so dead that I ended up sleeping through most of them, but they were great! Our was good too. Prezi here: https://prezi.com/bugheeud2jl4/t-zero-trash-can/. I managed not to cough through the presentation. 

Soap.

I think it was beautiful. For trash.

Raj continued his talking and we all got certificates for participating in this workshop. Of course, this led to a photo session. I called my dad, and of course Swapnil came and sat down in hopes to hear my elusive Hindi. He soon realized, much to his disappointment, that I speak to my parents in English. Nice try. 

We had dinner and I found out the great news that one of the people who had come gave the soap people 25 lakhs funding! So proud of them. Mayank then made a MIT Make in India Whatsapp (timing being on the last day made sense totally). We all had a Whatsapp session that we were all in the same room but messaging out to each other. Titan really wanted to bathe in all 25 lakhs. I just wanted light in the bathroom. So I can at least see the dolla dolla bills. 

Unfortunately it was time to come back to reality and start packing for the rough morning. Of course, my distractions were too great as usual. I found American water in my suitcase! I then finally washed my hair using a torch as the light. It was great. 

After I was finally possibly ready to go back to Delhi (because I totally wasn’t counting down the days), I went back to the lab where they were hanging out and mostly playing carrom. Jaspreet tried to make me do carrom well, but I was just not feeling it. Also, Just want to say once again that Swapnil sucks at carrom. Aaayaaa Chingy. The Forest method also seems to work well (whenever he doesn’t want the person to make the shot, he just touches them with his finger and makes the sizzling noise. It actually works. 

It was my last night in Kerala and I was too tired for life. It’s funny, though. I felt I came full circle in good ol’ Chirayinkeezhu. When I came on the first day, the first thing I did was play carrom. Now on the last day, the last thing I did was play carrom. No improvement in skills though. 

In about two hours, it would be time to leave...