78 – What Happened at Mela? A Conversation with the Co-Directors

Well, sup y 'all.

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Welcome to another episode of the Bhangra

podcast.

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And today I have the two Buckeye Mela co

-directors here to talk to us about.

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what happened, and I'm just gonna give

them their space to allow them to address

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everything that they want to address.

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So why don't you introduce yourselves.

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Okay, hi everyone.

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I'm Saranya.

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I'm one of the co -directors for Buckeye

Mela this year.

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Hi, I'm Sheel.

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I'm one of the directors this year and was

also last year.

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Yeah.

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and yeah, and so essentially the point of

this episode is really, like not even a

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full episode, it's just kind of like a

mini just statement by you guys for more

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or less.

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Lots of folks had a lot of questions and

concerns about Alamo's, I don't wanna even

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say Alamo, but like the cap of Alamo's

behavior.

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And since there's a lot of misinformation

floating around, we just wanna give you

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the...

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space to address whatever you think

happened, at least from your point of

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view.

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So wherever you wanna start, whatever you

wanna say, feel free to go ahead.

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Sure.

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So the run of events was pretty much this

team was running late to their tech time

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and we were trying our best to stick to

schedule because we were running late.

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And as you know, 16 teams, it becomes kind

of hard to accommodate for teams that are

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running late.

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We informed the captain of that who was

not happy to hear that we were going to

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cut their tech time by like two, three

minutes.

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Because obviously they were running really

late and the response we were given was

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something along the lines of like we are

not starting or tell she'll not start

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until I'm ready Whatever they get on

stage.

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We say you're you're getting like 13 12

minutes rather than the 15 He yelled I

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don't know what he said she'll what did he

say?

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So yeah, so.

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specify who the he is for folks

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yeah.

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Yeah, it's Ricky, one of the captains of

Alamo.

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But yeah, we were just to give a little

more context into what Sonia was

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mentioning.

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We were on walkies with one of our board

members who was walking teams up from the

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dressing rooms to backstage and they

weren't ready.

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I think they were still stretching out or

something.

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We said, hey, we've given you extra time

at this point.

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We need you guys to get backstage.

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Otherwise, if you're not there in.

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However many minutes, I don't even

remember.

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We're going to start cutting time.

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We brought them backstage.

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And then we said, OK, hey, you're getting

13 minutes because we've already been

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delayed at least five or 10 minutes

because of you.

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And it's not like they weren't there.

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They'd been at the venue for enough time

to get ready.

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And then so the way they wanted their tech

time to run was they wanted so their

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entire set itself was 10 minutes.

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And they wanted to use the first.

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portion of the minutes for setup, to set

up the stage.

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And so I had spoken with the captain

beforehand.

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He said, okay, give us the first five

minutes to start like setting up and you

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can just play it as soon as it hits the 10

minutes.

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And so I talked to our production team and

they said, okay, we're just gonna play it

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at that 10 minute mark.

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So only three minutes.

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Three minutes passed, they didn't look

ready at all.

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So we said, okay, we're giving him one

more minute.

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We didn't even tell the captain that.

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I don't even think he knows yet.

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Mm -hmm.

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gave them another minute and then started

the whatever the mix.

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They weren't happy, but they continued

setting up.

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I don't think they'd said anything to us

at this point.

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This was during their technically the mela

part of their set.

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And then the music started.

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And then this is when I think Saranya to

correct me if I'm wrong.

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I don't even fully like it's kind of a

fever dream.

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I think they started dancing and then like

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as the captain danced over to our side of

the stage in formation, I think he was

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screaming at us and screaming at our

production team, not board like the actual

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venue production team.

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And then danced to the other side of the

stage and was screaming at another team

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and like a fusion team that was off stage.

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Yeah, am I missing anything?

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Saranya yeah.

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No, that's pretty much it.

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I don't really know if during the dancing

part anything was said.

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I only heard because I had a headset on to

listen to the music and stuff.

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I only heard what was said after that,

after their tech time technically ended.

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And just to bounce off of what she said,

we ended up giving them the full 15 just

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because it was just kind of I was just

adding on another minute at that point.

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So like, let's just give them the full 15.

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Sure.

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But then their tech time ended, which is

when shit happened.

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Yeah, so the music cuts.

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Ricky comes off stage and he's just like

yelling the N -word, calling Sheel the N

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-word, saying, are you happy?

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Are you happy?

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Like you ruined my tech time.

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All the lighting cues are messed up.

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Bombing the N -word while telling his team

to clean up and get off stage.

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That's pretty much it.

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And this was in front of our production

crew in terms of the venue, our

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videographer.

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our photographer and several people on

Legends board who are like representing

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Legends at our comp.

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But then he.

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I'm just going to, sorry, can I interject

here?

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You mentioned the lighting cues.

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I do want to add that every team was told

prior that we needed all of their lighting

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cues in their mix by Thursday because the

venue didn't have enough time to program

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the lighting cues in because they had

another show on Friday night and their

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team wouldn't have enough time.

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So if they didn't get it to us in time,

their cues weren't going to be done, which

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is what ended up happening because we got

their mix heading Friday afternoon.

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Saranya, yeah, continue.

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But that's the part I was there.

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I can speak on because I was there for.

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But yeah, then they ended up exiting stage

and then I'm not really sure what happened

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after that.

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so one of the questions and one of the

things that were floating around was that

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Captain of Alamo was threatening to hit

somebody with a kunda or like waving it

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around, brandishing it, I don't know,

whatever words you want to use.

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Can you confirm or deny that?

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Not gonna lie, when I heard that,

that's...

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Kind of the wildest thing I've heard in a

long.

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I mean, I'm gonna dispel this rumor.

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That's, at least from my knowledge, that's

fake.

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Yeah, no, that never happened.

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I didn't even, I don't even think that was

a threat that was given up.

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With what, yeah.

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Mm -hmm.

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the tech time or not the tech time the

video viewing room and then like wouldn't

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leave.

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And they asked for me.

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At this point, I'd stepped out to go call

the judges and tell them about what had

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happened.

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I didn't say like I told the judges

specifically that we did not mention the

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team to the judges.

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We said, Okay, what what should we do for

consequences?

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What did, oh yeah, okay, so we got them on

the phone and then we were like, okay,

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what do we do?

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This happened with a team.

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And then they were, a couple of them said,

I think one of them said DQ is a

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possibility, maybe two.

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And then a couple of them were generally

against the DQ because they'd seen this

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happen in the past.

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and they thought a DQ would be unfair to

the rest of the team.

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Okay.

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which is kind of along the lines of what

we went from.

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And then I think the consensus from the

judges was that, or across the board for

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judges was that they should, they wanted

to do a 10 point reduction.

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I think originally it was 10 points and

then they said, okay, let's, let's try a

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five point reduction.

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And then if there's, if they give you more

like shit up it to 10 or DQ them.

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And then we,

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Hitu, Saranya and I talked, or yeah, with

also our judging chair.

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And we decided that it wasn't fair to the

rest of their team to give them the full

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10 points because they traveled from

however far just for one person's mistake.

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So we stuck with the three.

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So then question then so why not five?

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Okay, so and like I'm I'm not trying to

like press y 'all or hear the moment first

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time like Just reference So generally even

like I think even specifically on this

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rubric It was mentioned that a pagh

falling off or Chunni falling off Which is

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not enough like Chunni's falling off like

it's almost guaranteed to happen at pretty

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much every

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Pagh falling off once every like five or

10 comps.

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But that's a minus five.

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What was the rationale for going down to

minus three?

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Again, it was, sorry, you got it, you got

it.

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Yeah.

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I think we were set on the minus five, but

then we spoke to the Alamo liaisons

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actually, and they were the ones that were

like, this team has been really nice and

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like, just because one guy messed up, like

don't make their punishment super harsh.

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And at that point, I think we kind of were

like, they were trying to plead to not

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penalty them at all.

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And we were like, no.

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So we just kind of rationed to bring it

down to three just because she, this

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person was very adamant on the fact that

like they were very nice throughout the

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weekend up until that point.

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And it was just mainly Ricky who behaved

that way.

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That was.

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to add that, sorry, that almost every team

member came up and apologized to us in

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between the whatever happened and when we

talked to the captains about their

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punishment.

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So, you mentioned that you did not tell

the judges what team it was, and you kind

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of kept it very vague.

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Did they ever, I guess, when did they find

out what exactly the point deduction was?

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Because it's from the conversation I had

with the judges a few days ago.

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It seems like they found out pretty much

like after the competition.

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Is that more or less like deliberate?

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Okay.

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think it was coded into the Excel sheet.

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They would have had to go through each

square and find the deduction in each

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team.

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But yeah, we had it done from the back

end.

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Okay, and another thing that some folks

were peeved with was turning off the

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livestream for their team.

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Was that something like what happened

there?

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Quite honestly, you gotta do it.

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didn't address that with any of the three

directors.

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He kind of just asked, I think, Sheel for

our videographer's phone number and just

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talked about it with him.

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The reasoning we were given for the live

stream being shut off for their

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performance was due to them not wanting to

publicize their performance because they

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wanted to perform at another comp and they

didn't want to like give away what they

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were doing.

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But in terms of the live stream, we

actually had no idea until they got on

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stage and

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people were texting us that like, Hey, why

is Alamo not being streamed?

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We had, we had no clue.

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Got it.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Sure, all right.

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All right, that's really all the questions

I had.

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I mean, I really literally just wanted to

like give you the space to say your piece

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and dispel whatever the heck happened.

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Is there anything else you wanted to

address at all?

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I don't think so.

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I think we got the facts across.

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The rest would just be not useful.

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I mean, I've got words, but it's not going

to be useful for anyone to hear them.

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Sure, absolutely.

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Okay.

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All right, cool.

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Well, if that's everything, well, thank

you all for coming on.

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I appreciate it.

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I understand, like, you don't have to do

this.

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I mean, thank you for considering the

podcast as a platform to conduct this.

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I usually don't do gossip shit, but I felt

like this was a little bit different.

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So.

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One happy guys come on.

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Thank you again for coming on.

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And I mean, I hope more conversations like

this and like just bad behavior is called

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out like this.

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Cause I think ultimately I've seen teams.

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I don't even say teams because it was in

this case is one bad one, one bad egg, but

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there are plenty of teams and captains who

attempt to throw around their weight and

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bully committees.

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and.

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should be like not just be taken lightly

and kind of brush them under the rug This

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was.

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saying the N slur for?

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Like it's crazy, that is genuinely crazy.

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And like everything, all the other

behavior that you've told me kind of

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behind the scenes, yeah, not okay

whatsoever.

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But yeah, I genuinely appreciate you guys

taking the time to talk to me and talk to

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the rest of the Bhangra Circuit about

everything that happened.

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But yeah, cool.

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Bye bye.

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Yeah dude.