The Collegiate Theatre segment of the Old World Theatre Festival 2009, organised by Old World Culture, was held between the 5th and 11th December. 12 plays were chosen from this year’s performances by DU colleges to perform at the Amphitheatre at the India Habitat Centre. The first play in the festival was The Problem, performed by St Stephen’s College. After this ‘witty comedy’ was Sri Venkateswara with Melange, a collection of plays including ‘Variations on the Death of Trotsky’ and ‘Sure Thing’. Following this light-hearted opening, the second day’s plays were on a more serious note, with Kamala Nehru College performing Bravely Fought the Queen followed by SRCC’s Khoj. On the third day, Miranda House performed Kindertransport, based on experiences of Jewish children evacuated from WWII Germany. This was followed by Indraprastha College’s Interviews with Loneliness. Next on the schedule were two plays that dealt with questions of identities and society – On a Muggy Night in Mumbai performed by Ramjas College and Bombshells performed by Gargi College. The penultimate day of the festival had plays dealing with contrasting themes. While LSR’s Saraab took the audience back in time to the Lucknow of the nawab and the tawaif, Maitreyi College’s In the Name of Honour was based on the stories of caste-based deaths from places around the capital. The last day featured plays from Kirori Mal College. The first was Shaklnama, an adaptation on Dario Fo’s About Face. The next, and last play was Nirdeshak ki Talash Mein, a merger of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author and Mahesh Elkunchwar’s Holi.
The performances were followed by a feedback session with Amitesh Grover, and a workshop on direction with Feroz Abbas Khan as well as one on acting with Rajesh Gopie, one-man cast of Out of Bounds.
Avantika Sukhia
Ishan Marvel
Krishnamani Bhagabati
Lee Wie Mien Jackson
Maria Zafar
Neharika Gupta
Payal Kalra
Siddharth Upasani
Tilak Jha
Vrinda Agarwal
In an extreme attempt to eradicate indiscipline and disturbance from the college premises, Sri Venkateswara recently installed a new rule exempting students from using mobile phones in the classrooms and corridors for any purpose. The issued regulation warns students of strict disciplinary action for not complying with the stated rules. The students are dissatisfied with its installation. Says Aditya Gupta, “It doesn’t make sense. We can’t rush to the canteen every time we have to attend an important call.” The rule is said to have been activated in response to the teachers complaining of recurrent disruption in and outside classrooms during study hours. Also, there have been reports of the office allegedly misbehaving with the students charged accountable. Shijo George, a second year student of Sri Venkateswara says, “I was listening to my music on the earphones while coming to class when an office person snapped my phone’s cord, snatched my earphones and phone, and started taking it away without any explanation. This is not the way to treat college students; the caution could have been more dignified. Besides, framing someone who’s not even causing any disturbance doesn’t really help the case.” Another student, Hina Jethwani, was snatched of her phone while talking to the teacher to decide an extra class. While most colleges in Delhi University do not have these rules, it has been formerly applied in some colleges like St. Stephens. But activities like listening to music on the earphones and messaging when not in a lecture have not been barred whatsoever. Sri Venkateswara however has banned these as well, despite failing to mention so in the circular. This flaw has also attracted grievance from the students. Mrs. Ratna Raman, Head of the English Department, justified the rule stating, “These days, children get a mobile by the ninth grade. This frame of mind of being obsessively connected round the clock since such a young age has encouraged the phone to be used for frivolous activities. Thus the rule might be harsh, but people need to understand the contrast between a privilege and the infringement of rights and act accordingly. Also if the same rules can be adhered to in the theatre, then college implementing these regulations in a college shouldn’t be a complaint.”
1. Kidnap all the polar bears and stuff them into your fridge
2. Give the cattle a strict talk on etiquette and the inappropriateness of farting in public
3. Puncture the tyres of all vehicles in your locality and offer your cycle on rent instead. This way, you save the planet and make money as well. W00t!
4. Save paper, save trees – another wonderful reason to not submit assignments and miss exams (not that we need any, but still)
5. Resuscitate Captain Planet
What with all student haunts filled to the brim, students of the university are always on the lookout for new spots to hangout. Turns out our very own north campus houses several little known sites, which are a lot of fun to visit, of both aesthetic and historical significance. Students of SIFE(Students in Free Enterprise)-SRCC have started a program called ‘DU Darshan- Know your Campus’ in which students are taken on a fun rickshaw ride around these sites. This tour will take you to places like the flag staff tower which is perched on top of the highest point in the northern ridge, and the Pir Gayab, India’s first observatory dating back to the 14th century and surprisingly an Ashokan Pillar located withing campus. If that doesn’t pique your curiosity enough, there’s always the gothic style Mutiny Memorial, which is supposedly haunted! The most popularly requested sites is the Khooni Khan Jheel. Sounds bloody interesting!
DU Darshan falls into the category of another ‘must-do fun things’ that adds to your special college memories. The two hour tour costs Rs 70 per person and is conducted on weekends or anytime else based on request. All you need to do is call and register.
To register or to know more, contact: Gunjan-9899620529, Mehak-9818511118. You can also visit dudarshan.blogspot.com.
While most of us are going to be busy this winter break studying for internal home exams, if you do ever decide to take a break then here are a few movies you could watch:
1) 3 Idiots: Aamir Khan is back again, this time teaming up with Raju Hirani of Munnabhai fame in an adaption of Chetan Bhagat’s bestselling book “Five Point Someone”. Also starring Kareena Kapoor, Madhavan and Sherman Joshi, 3 Idiots is a comedy of ideas that is provocative, funny, wildly entertaining and insightful. A laughter-riot that talks about the most important of human pursuits: self-actualization. The movie is releasing on 25th December, 2009.
2) World Cup 2011: While most of us might have seen trailers of this movie, the movie has an unknown star cast and deals with the nexus between cricket, match fixing and the underworld. With characters like Indulkar and Vallya one can imagine what the director is trying to say.
3) Raat Gayi Baat Gayi : Rajat kappor and Vinay pathak are back too, this time with Neha Dhupia in Raat Gayi Baat Gayi. Raat Gayi Baat Gayi is a film about three couples and a keen observation on the modern day marriage. The film should be funny and is worth a watch, releasing on 31st December, 2009.
4) Avatar: James Cameron, the famous director of the super-hit ‘Titanic’ is back, producing the most expensive Hollywood Film Avatar, which cost $237 million. Every scene in the movie has special effects and is worth a watch with an awesome story line. It hits the theatres on 18th December 2009.
A few other good movies to catch would be Julie and Julia, Its Complicated, Up in the Air. There are few movies that release on January 8th 2009, but that’s when the home exams start so you can catch them once your done or if you just cant study anymore and would prefer seeing a movie
- The Supreme Court has asked the Centre whether it can legalize prostitution, if it is not practically possible to curb the world’s oldest profession with punitive measures.
- Wednesday, saw huge controversy at the Copenhagen climate summit after a draft by Danish government was leaked.
- Michael Owen scored a hat-trick on Wednesday to give injury-depleted Manchester United a 3-1 win over Wolfsburg and top spot in Group B of the Champions League.
- LeT operative David Headley’s cellphone and his Chicago apartment were registered in the names of dead persons and investigations have found that he was leading a double life under directions from the Pakistan-based terror outfit, according to the FBI. Headley changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006 to further his cover, the FBI said.
Google into Google chrome got us excited.
The Qwerty into the touch got us excited.
The ball mouse into the laser mouse got us excited.
The Eicher Map into the GPS got us excited.
The desktop into the tablet laptop got us excited.
While an ordinary brain was sitting at home, enthusiastically celebrating these “inventions”, there were some extraordinary intellect craving for that which went beyond ends.
There are numerous videos that people post on Face Book and most of them vanish in the congested News Feed. But amongst the herd of videos there was one with more than a thousand people “like”-ing it, so I decided to weigh its worth on Face Book popularity. And Social Networking suddenly became a boon.
The Video was about Pranav Mistry and spectacular invention of the Sixth Sense. If you want to weigh the merit of the “Sixth Sense”, knowing that it is the INVENTION OF THE YEAR 2009 would be of necessary help. “Nothing can be and can not be one and at the same time and I am, I am Pranav Mistry.” So instead of sitting at his desk in the insignificant town of Palampur and thinking about how to get into IIT and follow it up with MIT, all he thought about was developing something wearable which would integrate the digital and the physical world and making it unique in unison. He was probably one step ahead of all of us when he fancied a virtual interaction between the real world and the world of data. He obviously had an upper hand when he successfully created a “gestural interface” to interact with information that lay embedded in an advanced digital world.
Pranav’s fast paced cerebrum was on a mission to find a system enabling the sentient human species to surpass natural perception and reach a level where access to accumulated data and knowledge was on constant access. What’s exciting is that he wished for a link to crawl across the confine of a screen and walk in the tangible world. The Sixth Sense was thus, born. In size it is as small as a bean but its effectiveness matches a bag full of them standing on the threshold of an explosion! It comprises of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The link lies in the user’s pocket where the computing device sits pretty. The entire process of capturing, converting and interacting follows. It’s best explained by the man himself, so I suggest you log onto www.pranavmistry.com for a detailed explanation. Don’t blame me because I’m very obviously technologically handicapped in front of maverick himself.
It won’t sound as glamorous if I paint an intricate picture of clicking a picture with four fingers, then posting it on the wall and zooming in and out of it using a the thumb and the lazy index finger. Not to forget that it’s also tired and it needs a vacation. You won’t be impressed if I told you that you can pick up a graph from your book, with the friendly fingers, paste it on your paper interface and alter it? Of course, you will. I’m just testing you. And won’t you be left in disbelief if you picked up a book in the library and a Google search gave you reviews and rankings as you browsed through it? You’re blowing an “affirm” into the microphone.
For more miracles, log onto www.ted.com/speakers/pranav_mistry. You’ll be convinced on why you should listen to him. And once you’re done, explore the genius through his video on the “thrilling potential of the Sixth Sense”.
Merry digitus!