The English department of Kamala Nehru College organized their annual fest, LitLuminous on 27th February, 2015. The theme of the fest this year was borrowed from the J.K. Rowling’s fantasy fiction, Harry Potter and the world of fantasy.
A kaleidoscope of various events, the fest managed to be entertaining as well as innovative in its execution. With events like Horcrux hunt and fan fiction writing competition, the fest was a delight for Harry Potter fans, a lot of whom came dressed up as characters from the series.
Creating a fest on Harry Potter wasn’t easy because the chances of getting it completely wrong were far greater with something so dear and dynamic.
Says the Vice President Rupal Bhandari, ” We owe our childhoods to J K Rowling. KNC turned into Hogwarts today, so much so that even Voldemort found it significant to send his troops to attack us, except his spiders were unavailable and his bees were met with determined PotterHeads. ” The reference to bees being an actual attack by honey bees which occurred in the college due to a hive breaking.No student was seriously injured but it did create a scare among the students and faculty.
Dr. Giti Chandra, an author, researcher and faculty member at St. Stephens College, inaugurated the festival by delivering a speech on the idea of “taking fantasy seriously” where in she talked about various fantasy series, like Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Hunger Games and others being a critique of the world.
This was followed by a panel discussion among Samit Basu ,a writer of books, films and comics , Dr. Chandra and Ms. Anita Roy, who in her own words is a writer , editor , publisher , story teller and performer .This was a passionate discussion about the various sides of fantasy literature, with a focus on Harry Potter. Laughter and cheers were heard in unison a number of times as Potter fans and otherwise enjoyed and participated in the discussion.
Not only was the fest well managed in its deliverance but it also quite innovatively generated an academic discussion on fandom. “Organizing the fest to be something different, something unlike most other fests was a very difficult thing to do, I’m glad that everyone in the organizing team managed to put together such an amazing fest,” stated Saushriya Havelia, an Event Head.
Winner’s Tally
Paper presentation :
1st Prize- Grace Mary S, Miranda house
2nd Prize- Mallika Khosla, Kamala Nehru College
3rd Prize- Ronak Batra and Khushboo Mahajan, MA English Delhi University
Consolation: Ayush Jain and Unnati
Word Duel:
Best speaker (Affirmation )- Ambika
Best speaker (Opposition )- Akshay
Consolation – Bhavya, Charumitra, Aniket
Horcrux hunt :
1st Prize-Shambhavi Vats
2nd Prize-Sumira Vig
3rd Prize-Deepthi Karat
Image credits: Ritu Tokas and Sharmin’s photography
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