KCG Bazaar

I was up early on the 16^th of March, 2013. Reason was simple, it was the Bazaar weekend!! I wanted to be at the stalls before anyone else, I wanted everything to be perfect. I checked on my team members and set off to the stalls. The stalls were all set and the shamiyana was also standing tall. I don’t mean to gloat, but the stalls looked really good. As I walked the length of the Bazaar, I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that something may go wrong.

At the mehendi stall

                Yielding to my gut feeling, I checked whether the stalls were provided as many power sockets and tables as were requested, whether they had enough table cloths and many such minor details. By and by the stall holders began to arrive with bags enough to fit a month’s utilities. I had them fill in their paperwork and handed them their ID cards. As I was doing this, the rest of my team arrived too. We blocked the emergency exits to prevent them from being used as entries and stationed volunteers at each point. What we failed to note is that the junior students wouldn't be able to stop the senior students from making rogue entries and that we should have stationed some seniors instead. But well, we learn from our mistakes.

                And then we opened sales. It was inches away from becoming a stampede. We had underestimated the crowd, but somehow, the stall holders managed the crowd very well. The day went on with more and more students filing in. The stall holders didn't get a chance to breathe and neither did we. We were practically running from one end of the Bazaar to the other solving minor conflicts (which could’ve gotten real ugly). The inauguration was done by Mrs. K. Saraswathi, the General Secretary of the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry. We accompanied her as she visited each stall and interacted with the students.

                After seeing over two thousand people walk in, the stall holders had recovered their investments and were looking forward to make some profits on Sunday. We weren't expecting much of a crowd on Sunday but we were pleasantly surprised - over five hundred people visited the Bazaar. The crowd included families and friends of the college students and the like. My team and I also found some time to shop and have some fun at the stalls.

                As the Bazaar drew to a close, it was time to pick the winners of the lucky draw. We had two five-year-olds pick four winners, two from each day. We also gave away gifts to every hundredth visitor. The volunteers were relieved of their duties, but they weren't just our college mates then, we had become good friends over the weekend.

                When we finally asked the stall holders to close for the day, I sighed in relief. It wasn't my gut that was telling me something would go wrong, it was just me being paranoid and for once, it was a good thing.