Geek Gazette – The Then IEEE Magazine

Amidst the boredom of mid semester examinations (date - 2^nd April 2012, the second day of nostalgia as Divy Vasal marks it), Yaadein recently launched and of course with no intention whatsoever to study, comes the second blog in the nostalgia series. I thought that I would pen down about my first student group – Geek Gazette, A.K.A. IEEE Magazine, as we used to call it then. Being a part of its “First” batch and seeing it evolve from what it was in 2008 to what is it today, I do feel proud of us and want to thank everybody who has contributed to it.

Sometime in September 2008 I got to know from Chandranshu about IEEE recruiting members for “some” magazine. Neither was there any introtalk, nor had I heard about it from any senior/ friend before. I thought I would give it a try, because I always considered myself a Geek and thought that there would be no place better than this to show it off. So there we were on the library steps ready for the recruitments. The first round was to write a review on any latest piece of technology, hence, I chose to write to write the laptop that I had bought then, DELL XPS M1530. Wrote a 2 page review on it and left for a Fresher’s Chapo at Divine. Later on had an interview and was informed that I have been selected. I was quite happy as this was the first group I had been selected for.

However, I was always confused; as to why was it called the “IEEE Magazine” (reminder: the magazine was given the name Geek Gazette much later and thats why the group is called the ieeemagazine). Were my articles going to be posted in the international some IEEE publication or what? Nevertheless, we had our first meeting, presided by Vidit sir and Bhumika maam. When I saw them, I did get a feel that someday I wanted to have their confidence, be leading a group as well as they do and much more. So then we were a small team of 30 members and around 12-13 of them in the Editorial Cell. In the first issue I volunteered to write on “Evolution of Mobile Communication”. This was my first try at writing an article for a magazine and yes my first draft was not quite worthy of appreciation. Then I further worked on it with Arnav sir on improving it and did somehow manage to produce a bit better article. At the same time in every meeting we had a good long discussion on choosing a name for our magazine. As far as I can recollect the final contenders were “Nerdwana,” “Geekwana” and of course “Geek Gazette” and somewhere in November we finalized that “Geek Gazette” it would be.

Then around February 2009, we had very few or almost no meetings. I started wondering what could be the reason behind it. However, it was not too far that we had a post on the group with the first draft of our magazine with my name in the “Editorial Section” and my article on Page 11 of the magazine. It was in April that we had our magazine finally printed and distributed.

Then came July 2009; time to start our work on the second issue. I had volunteered to work on 5 issues for this issue. I can recollect a few of them to be “Storage Timeline,” “IMEI Tracking” and “Technologies and Gadgets.” We did have a good start with this issue, but something seemed to be wrong in the magazine. It was later on that I felt that somewhere the feeling of group spirit was missing in this group. We did manage to see the then first years, however, only in chapos. We had Divyanshu sir working alone on editing articles and finalizing them, no one seemed to know about other cells in the magazine. Moreover, others reacting to Geek Gazette as “ye kya hai” disturbed me even more. Still somewhere within myself there was a Silver-lining that things would improve and that too fast.

Now fast forwarding to my 3^rd year, wherein we had with us Arnav sir, Gunjan sir, Ghanshyam sir and Gaurav, sir all set to change the face of the magazine. The word “group” started inculcating into GG members. We had chapos now, many more than what we used to have earlier. We started celebrating our joys together (the first one being Gunjan sir’s selection in Google and Arnav sir’s in ZS!). There were Solani walks, issue release chapos, canteen chapos and much more coming our way. We started printed more than 1000 copies of our magazine. And the semester ended with the first “GG Farewell” with the then second and first yearites working tirelessly to make it a memorable one.

Coming to the final phase of my stay at Geek Gazette, that is my 4^th year. Now there I was, as the President of this magazine, though a bit scared as to how only two 4^th yearites would be able to control a group which has grown from 30 members to mammoth 65 members, expectations doubled, a level of achievement set by our predecessors  to be taken forward and much more. Nevertheless, we set off for our 6^th issue. With group dynamics getting just better, more Solani walks, more bakar sessions, better interaction came the time when I started calling GG as “my” magazine and “my group”. The way all followed me to the C Class club to celebrate my birthday, it made me feel just too special. However, there were other things which needed attention. In the next semester, there was just one thing which made me feel that GG was short of being “the awesome” group – trip. We sat down in Radhakrishnan Bhawan at Rajat’s room pondering over the various options we had in hand and finally decided in for Nainital. The number joining us felled day by day to a meager 20. Yet we were determined to go and at the end of it words don’t suffice to explain the fun we had there. It was then that Mafia seeped into the heart and soul of GG! The Trek- when all (almost all!) had lost hopes and then while coming back down everybody walking together as a single unit with hands in hand and the joy when we finally reached our Hotel just can’t be expressed. Rose, just like a mother, cooking food for juniors, Ghanshyam sir, our dada-ji types loving senior, our family couldn’t have got any better. Finally, we also launched our own Website, kudos to the team for it! To wrap it all our rendezvous with Rasmus Lerdorf !

From a group of 30 students collected together to print a magazine to a family of 65 members working hand in hand to spread the Geekyness! Now almost everybody on the campus being aware of what Geek Gazette is, Any Guy being pissed of by the trip photographs being uploaded, the magazine being distributed equally amongst all branches as compared to the time when only CSE, EE and ECE used to get it, have our own website, having some of the finest writers, artists, 'netas' and finance guys of the campus, GG has moved on to be the amongst the best.

I am not sure if I have justified my role as a President of GG, yet I do hope that I give this group the best I can in the remaining 1 month I have in this institute. Yet, there is much more for this group to achieve and I am very much sure that the following generation of GGians would take this magazine to levels which I can’t even think of right now.

PS: This blog entry solely represents my views on this group and should not be generalized or taken as a fact.