Tarang 2015, the Annual Cultural Festival of Lady Shi Ram College commenced today witnessing a great footfall and some great events. Competitive events aside, the LSR campus was abuzz with students skateboarding (and falling!), gorging on food and running from pillar to post in an attempt to grab the prizes for informal competitions like Beg Borrow Steal.
Here’s a glimpse of the day that was, and the performers that kicked off the first fest of the season:
Yavnika, the stage play competition saw six teams competing for theatrical acts and plays. Dramatics societies from across the University put up their productions on stage, each 40-60 minutes long. Teams from Hans Raj College, Hindu College, Kirori Mal College, Shri Ram College of Commerce and Guru Teg Bahadur Institute of Technology lit the stage up with comedies and tragedies alike. Hans Raj College got the opportunity to put up both its Hindi and English annual productions on stage. A student from Kirori Mal College was named the best actor. Yavnika is a non-competitive event.
Baila, the trademark Western Dance Competition of Tarang had nine teams battling it out for the final title. The finalists were selected through a round of prelims in which 17 colleges had participated. The competition had teams dancing to a medley of Hindi, English and Punjabi songs. The auditorium was jam-packed with viewers who cheered all the teams with rounds of applause and cheers. Jazz, Hip- Hop, Contemporary and Bollywood were the popular styles on stage. Sri Venkateswara grabbed the first place followed by IIT- Delhi and Jesus and Mary College at the second and third place.
Jesus and Mary College’s Mudra set apart its performance with use of varied props like boxing gloves, curtains and towels. Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies’s dance society Blitz and dancers from Guru Teg Bahadur Institute of Technology stood out for costumes for their respective performances. The champions of session 2013-14, IIT Delhi’s western dance society, V-Defyn had a performance, which everyone including the judges, termed as ‘hatke’. Lady Shri Ram’s Western Dance Society, which performed but did not compete, mixed a number of styles including urban hip-hop and danced to the closing act of Baila. Former LSR Dance Society members also came back to their Alma Mater and put up a performace set to the song Chandelier.
The Indian Music Society (IMS) held its Classical Solo Competition Malhar in the first half of the day and had over 20 entries, an exceptional number for a classical solo competition. The participants were given eight minutes to sing any raga, Hindustani or Carnatic, accompanied by a maximum of two instrumentalists. In the evening, IMS, along with the Western Music Society, held Saaz-the Duet Instrumental Competition where participants played Indian, Western and fusion tracks.
Expressions, the English Creative Writing Society held its flagship creative writing competition Writer’s Bloc along with a Literature Quiz- Les Quizerables.
Hive, the Arts Society, had an out of the box poster-making competition called Couch Potato Convention where participants picked chits with names of movies and put them to paper in their own creative ways. Geet Saini from College of Art won the first prize.
Projekt, the Film and Photography Society, had an all day on-the-spot photography competition along with a silent movie-making competition and a screenplay writing competition amongst other events.
Battle of Bands, one of the most popular competitions of any fest had bands like Paperboat, Leaf Tone and Pineapple Acid. Jayant Manchanda from Global Music Institute (GMI), also one of the sponsors of the event, judged the Battle of Bands. He was accompanied by Prof. Nivedita Ghosh from the Department of Sociology, Lady Shri Ram College. Prof. Ghosh is a classically trained vocalist and guitarist. Most bands performed famous English numbers whereas Sammohan presented experimental fusion numbers.
The DJ night, which saw quite a crowd, was the last event of the day and had every one let their hair down. Nucleya and Zaedan, quite popular in the university circuits, largely played English remixes, to which the crowd happily danced with its crazy Indian moves. So much so that all the Punjabis and all the Delhites on the floor were asked to make some more noise. No matter what the music, Indians know how to party!
With the first day of Tarang having been blessed with some blissful sunshine and great events, the University is on the look-out for the fest season to bring some great times ahead.
Iresh Gupta
[email protected]
Alankrita Anand
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