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Nexus 2014

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Held from 27th February to 1st March, Nexus 2014 – the annual fest of Sri Venkateswara College had a lot to offer. Alongside a mix of competitive events, the organisers jazzed up the fest with Jazzy B. With the unexpected rain changing quite a few things for the second day, Junkyard Groove’s rock performance and Sabari Brothers’ sufi night were held simultaneously.

What all happened? What all did you miss? Who won what? We wrap-up the fest in our highlights!

Rock Performance by Junkyard Groove

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In a rock performance that lasted close to an hour, Junkyard Groove played favourites such as It’s Ok and Folk You. They also switched things up in the middle to songs such as Pearl Jam’s Animal and Sweet Child of Mine, taking the crowd by surprise both times.

Sufi Night with Sabari Brothers

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To add a sufi element to Venky’s Nexus 2014, Sabari Brothers took the stage during day two of the fest. The event originally scheduled for 6 p.m., started at around 7: 30 p.m. at the college’s auditorium foyer. The Sufi  legends started with the famous Chaap Tilak, moving on to a Coke Studio rendition of Humein toh loot liya and popular Bollywood number Tumse Milke Dilka hai jo haal. The combination of music and shayari along with a crowd that reciprocated with claps and dance, were the highlights of the evening.

Jazzy B

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Image Credit: Mehak Taneja

The final day of Nexus 2014, might have light on competitive events but was high on energy. The evening started with Mumbai based Krazy Electrons opening for Jazzy B. The band rocked the show with their unique genre called Ethno DnB.

Chatty, the brain behind KE electrified the mood with his beats on the midi based Drum Machine. Ajay Jayanthi, the lead vocalist and Violionist, who comes from a classical background of Carnatic Music enthralled the audience, especially the female ones. The band performed a couple of numbers including, Rage of electrons, Rebel and Eena Meena Deeka.

After their performance, Jazzy B – the star power of the fest came on stage at 7: 30. The Punjabi singer started with the popular Jine mera Dil lutiya. He then moved on to other tracks such as Romeo and the latest Harry is not a Bhramchari. The concert lasted almost an hour with the star mentioning that since he usually performs for a middle-aged audience, he is performing amidst a young crowd after quite some time.

Masti Ki Basti

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A tiny corner in the college’s ground had a range of games and activities lined up. Labelled as the Masti ki Basti, to name a few, the area had Lucky Seven, Mehendi art, Obstacle race and Bollywood Quiz to engage the visitors. With college students coming up with interactive tasks and ideas, the corner did have a few hits!

Winners’ Tally

Folk Dance Competition

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Kamala Institute of of Higher Education & Advanced Technology performing the Chirmi dance / Image Credit: Sonam Satija for DU Beat

First position: Kamala Institute of of Higher Education & Advanced Technology
Second position: Sri Venkateswara College.

Goonj: Indian Vocals (Group)

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First Position: Sangeetika of Kamala Nehru College
Second Position: Gargi’s ‘Samranjini’ and Daulat Ram College’s ‘Alhaya’

Creative Writing (English)

First Position: Ambiso
Second Position:
Saghamitra Aich

Creative Writing (Hindi)

First Position: Bhushan Bhaskar
Second Position: Shruti

Madari – the Street Play Competition

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Kalindi College’s Street Theatre Society performing ‘Do patte ki chappal’ / Image Credit: Gurman Bhatia for DU Beat

First Position: Hansraj College for Rehaayi
Second Position:
 Kalindi College for Do Patte ki Chappal

Film Making Competition

First Position: Ambedkar University for Third
Second Position: 
Sri Venkateswara for Helping Hand.

Rangoli Competition

First Position: Shruti, Riya and Shivangi (Sri Venkateswara College and Hindu College)
Second Position: Dyal Singh College (Evening)

Indian Music Light Vocals (Solo)

First Position: Alankaar and Anju Sharma
Second Position: Sarim Ali

Western Music Vocals (Group)

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Crescendo – The Western Music Society of Sri Venkateswara College / Image Credit: Gurman Bhatia

First Position: Sri Venketeswara College’s Crescendo
Second Position:
Lady Shri Ram College for Women’s Western Music Society
Third Position: Kirori Mal College’s Musoc

Indian Music Duet (Vocals)

First Position: Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences

Western Music Vocals (Solo)

First position: Nirupan from Hansraj College
Second position: Hanita from Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies

 

Indian Music Classical Vocals (Solo)

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Bineet from GTBIT

First Position: Soumya from Miranda House
Second Position: Bineet from Guru Tegh Bahadur Institute of Technology (GTBIT) and Saptak from Hansraj College

Battle of the bands

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First Position: Andolan
Second Position: Red Shorts

Western Dance Competition

First Position: V-Defyn, IIT Delhi
Second Position: 
Dazzlers,
Northern India Engineering College

For more, check out our Facebook album of the fest.

“Aa bhi jaa. Tujhse Pyaar karte hai. Yeh woh gunaah hai jo baar baar karte hai.”

To add a sufi element to Venky’s Nexus 2014, Sabari Brothers took the stage during day two of the fest. The event originally scheduled for 6 p.m., started at around 7: 30 p.m. at the college’s auditorium foyer. The evening started with a felicitation of the guest performers by the college principal, Dr. P. Hemalatha Reddy. She also felicitated the chief guest for the day, Dr. Suchitra Gupta, Deputy Dean of Students’ Welfare, Delhi University.

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Principal Dr. P. Hemalatha Reddy with Chief Guest Dr. Suchitra Gupta.

The Sufi  legends started with the famous Chaap Tilak, moving on to a Coke Studio rendition of Humein toh loot liya and popular Bollywood number Tumse Milke Dilka hai jo haal.

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With the audience seated on the floor and an energetic ambience, the entire atmosphere reeked of the Qawwali mood. The combination of music and shayari along with a crowd that reciprocated with claps and dance, were the highlights of the evening. Despite the rain and the performance by Junkyard Groove that was taking place simultaneously, the energy of the sufi night remained undeterred.

We leave you with one of the many shers that came up during the evening:

“Tujhe aankhon mein basaa lunga kajal ki tarah, tu mujhe dhoondti reh jayegi pagal ki tarah.”

After a major chunk of the day’s activities were washed out due to the largely unexpected rain, Nexus 2014 organisers made it a point not to disappoint the attendees by still holding the Rock Night performances at a different venue. The venue was shifted from the outdoor stage area to the college foyer. This did cause the crowd to thin out and left the performers to deal with a space crunch but none of this deterred the Nexus spirit.

The first performance was the opening act for Junkyard Groove- Dhruv Vishvanath Trio (DVT). They played an all original set consisting of three songs, and covered a small part of the more than famous Daft Punk song Get Lucky as a crowd pleaser.

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After this, the main attraction for the night, Junkyard Groove took the stage and the energy soared. However, a few technical snags marred the initial part of their performance and they had to take a short break. But once they resumed, they played with amazing musical prowess. Out of a set that lasted close to an hour they obviously played favourites such as It’s Ok and Folk You, but also in the middle to switch things up a bit covered the Pearl Jam song Animal and went on the riff Sweet Child of Mine, taking the crowd by surprise both times.

Once this performance concluded with the solo of It’s Ok, both the crowd and the band looked more than happy with the performance. Simultaneously, a sufi night featuring the Sabari Brothers taking place in the auditorium foyer. The two events were followed by the choreography competition, that went on late into the night, causing a slight scuff with the police which was soon sorted out, bringing Day two of Nexus 2014 to a close.

The Western Music Solo competition scheduled for 12:00pm at Nexus 2014 got delayed due to technical difficulties, however the competition picked up pace once it began. The judges for the event were both in-house judges – Dr. Nikhil Yadav and Dr. Ratna Raman.

25 teams from colleges across campus participated in the event. Maximum of 2 teams per college were allowed and 3 accompanying artists were allowed along with each performer.

The performances ranged from Christina Aguilera’s songs to Amy Winehouse. All the performances were well received by the audience, making it worth the performer’s time and effort. Ultimately the winners were declared, the first position was bagged by Nirupan from Hansraj College and the second position by Hanita from Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies.

Sri Venkateswara College conducted a Film Making competition as part of their on-going fest, Nexus’14. The event saw a participation of 11 teams from colleges like Gargi, Zakhir Hussain, Maitreyi and Sri Guru Gobind College of Commerce.

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The teams had to make a short film on any of the three topics given to them. ‘Voiceless Echo’ received the maximum entries, with ‘Through the Looking Glass’ and ‘I Wish I Was Where I Was When I Was Wishing I Was Here’ being the other two. Each team had to make a film of 5-10 minutes. They were permitted to use techniques such as animation.

Ambedkar University bagged the first prize for their film Third, and the host college, Sri Venkateswara took away the second spot for Helping Hand. Their films were judged by Mr. Ankit and Mr. Debashish, alumni of London Film School.

Image Credit: Geetika Varshney for DU Beat

Day two of Nexus 2014 began with the Indian Duet Music Competition named Malang. This year Malang received only 4 entries due to weather discrepencies. The participants were from Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences, Sri Aurobindo College [Evening], an inter – college duo of DDUC – KIIT and from the host college Sri Venkateshwara College itself. The competition only allowed filmy/non classical/ semi classical music and strictly classical music would not be encouraged. Due to weather restrictions the competition which was scheduled to start at 9 in the morning was postponed to 11 30 in the afternoon. The judges were, Mr. Avinash Kumar who is currently pursuing a Phd. in Music from the University of Delhi. He started learning Hindustani Classical Music from Ustad Aftab Ahmed Khan and is undergoing training from Pandit Tushar Dutta. He has won various awards including Madhubhasin Memorial Prize in 2008 and Mutatkar Award in 2010. There were two in house judges as well.

The first performance was by Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences. This duo sang their self composed song which won the hearts of the audience. Ultimately, they turned out to be the winners. We had the opportunity to talk with the duo after the results were announced. They were pretty happy and said, ” The organising of the event was good, the weather issues could be excused. The room had good acoustics and the crowd helped us alot” . Next up were, Sri Aurobindo College who sang their version of Rahat fateh Ali Khan’s- Sanu Ik Pal Chain Na Avey. The third act was the inter college duo, who sang a song from Murder 2 but were disqualified , because their song exceeded the time limit. The last act was form Sri Venkateshwara College and they sang ” Hum to aise hai Bhaiya”.

Another unnoficial duo from the host college who sang “Madari” , the coke studio composition by Vishal Dadlani and Sonu Kakkar with precision. The event ended after this song and the results were declared. The first prize was Rs 2000 claimed by Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences.

The Western Vocals (Group) competition was held among much enthusiasm, with teams 9 teams participating. The competition was judged by Mrs. Nandita Naraina Swamy, Chemistry teacher at Sri Venkateswara College (trained in classical music) and Ritwik De, a musician.

The winners were:

  1. Sri Venketeswara College’s Crescendo
  2. Lady Shri Ram College for Women
  3. Kirori Mal College’s Musoc

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Other colleges that took part in the competition were Miranda House, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies (SSCBS), Gargi College, Jesus and Mary College.

The groups sang popular tracks such as Thriller by Michael Jackson, Somebody to Love by Queen, If You Wanna be My Lover by Spice Girl, and songs by Stevie Wonder.

Fine Arts Society of Sri Venkateswara College organized the Folk Dance Competition on the 27th february 2014 at the main stage.

Due to the clashing nature of events with I.P. College for Women’s Shruti, the total number of participating teams were limited to four. Judges for the event were Rahul Gangani, Aruna Rao and Dr. Sushi Gupt.

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The first team to perform was Shri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce’s gidda, followed by the performance of Kamala Institute of Higher Education & Advanced Technology, which performed Chirmi- Rajasthani Folk Dance. Other performances included Sri Venkateswara College’s Laavni and SGTB Khalsa’s Bhangra.

Each team was given a time limit of 10 minutes to perform. The first position was bagged by Kamala Institute of of Higher Education & Advanced Technology and the second prize went to Sri Venkateswara College.

The group Indian Vocal competition, ‘Goonj’ was conducted by Sri Venkateswara College (SVC) as part of Nexus 2014. Eleven teams from various colleges like SRCC, Hindu and LSR participated with a maximum of 14 team members each. The teams were given a time limit of 10+ 2 minutes.

Sangeetika of Kamala Nehru College won the first prize. The team has obtained five wins in the current season already, with Nexus 2014 marking the sixth one, and were visibly ecstatic. They sang a fusion of Karnataka and Hindustani songs. They believe the key to their immense success this year is the fact that they practiced a lot and “We ensured we participated in every competition we could. We didn’t want to let even a single opportunity go by.”

Gargi’s vocal group ‘Samranjini’ and Daulat Ram College’s ‘Alhaya’ tied for the second position. The group from Sri Venkateswara college also performed as a non- competing team as a conclusion to the event.

The event was adjudged by Dr. Avinash Kumar who holds a Ph.D in Classical Music from the Faculty of Music. The internal judges for the event were Dr. Muralidharana Rao and Mr. KV Giri from the faculty at SVC.