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Vayam Performing Arts’ Society all set to perform “The White Saree” at Lok Kala Manch

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‘Jeevita Chellave’ | Lok Kala Manch, New Delhi |27th August 2017 | 7:00 PM

Vayam started off as the theatre society of Shivaji College, University of Delhi in 2006, when a handful of like-minded and creative students decided to form a dramatics society in their college. The society that was formed on the ideals of unity, togetherness and creativity, grew bigger and better by each passing year. Gradually, Vayam started making a mark on the DU theatre circuit by winning laurels and appreciation. Today, the organization has ventured into the sphere of performing arts and boasts of a strong foothold in Mumbai and Delhi with several professional performances under its credit.

With a total of 26 proscenium and street plays based on various social issues, that have won many accolades on competitive and non-competitive platforms across India including National School of Drama, National Centre for Performing Arts, Prithvi Theatre, Jana Natya Manch, Kamani, Siri fort, India Habitat Center, Shri Ram Centre, Sahitya Kala Parishad, FICCI Auditorium, Hindi Sahitya Academy (Indore), IIT-Delhi, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Kanpur, IIM-Ahmedabad and the like; Vayam is constantly growing. The society comprises of a group of hardworking, talented and dedicated individuals consisting of actors, directors, scriptwriters, technicians and working professionals.

‘The White Saree‘ is crafted in the most beautiful, daunting and hypnotising manner, giving away parts of the current reality. The truth of gender roles, identity, sexual urges and the prolonged female oppression and how people need to make some difficult choices to escape the judgments of the society. The play is carved to capture the daily struggles that women have to go through expressing their true feelings of subconsciousness. The drama is filled with anger, love, emotion, dilemma, reality and fiction. It is that essence of sexual expression and the desire to express it freely comes with the constant suppression and emotional discrepancies. As the protagonist struggles  with emotional adherence along with the society’s antagonism that stands in the way of their inner motives we find her chocking onto her own desires.

 

The play engages the audience with dance and theatrical musical aura with jaw dropping plot, facial omissions, and the thrust to remotely claim a woman’s sexual urges and erotic fantasies through liberal expression rather than their lives running parallel to the alter ego which generates contrasting images of sexual motivation which are spurring to be satisfied which were otherwise hidden. The play finds the characters in a maze with suffocating lives inducing hindrance in their individual progression.

 

Event Details

Play: The White Saree

Organisers: Vayam Performing Arts Society

Written and Directed by Amit Tiwari

When: Sunday, 27th August 2017 | 4PM and 7 PM

Where: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House, New Delhi

Closest Metro Station: Mandi House Metro Station

For Tickets and other queries:

Rahul Garg: +91 9873 889 919
Amit Tiwari: +91 9718 358 345
Rahul Saini: +91 9968 997 049

BookMyShow Link: https://in.bookmyshow.com/national-capital-region-ncr/plays/white-saree/ET00060668

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DCW seeks UGC’s response on the Hindu College Girls’ Hostel Issue

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After weeks of protests being organised at Hindu College due to the availability and facilities of the girls hostel, the Delhi Commission for Women has sought UGC’s response.

 

The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has issued fresh summons to the University Grants Commission (UGC), for the latter failed to respond to the earlier ones, say the members of the DCW. On the issue of the girls’ hostel of Hindu College, the DWC stood alongside the students who were protesting day and night. They sought a reply from the former as to there was a Rs. 30,000 difference in the fees of the girls’ and the boys’ hostel. This move was adopted after the panel had repeatedly written to the UGC seeking answers regarding the discriminatory hostel fee for the University as a whole, but they were not obliged with a response.

 

Protests have been circumventing the College for the past few days. They started with the students having foundational demands like reduction of fees for the girls’ hostel, similar curfew timings and rules in comparison to the boys’ hostel, the formation of a Student Council for them (like the one that exists in the boys’ Hostel) for facilitating communication between the administration and the students. The umbrella goal for these gatherings was to lobby for a clearly chalked out transparent admission process, where allotment of seats in the hostel would be made according to a cut-off list while maintaining the reserved seats for different categories.

 

The Commission also complained of many colleges within the University not having hostel for girls, making it even more difficult for them to come to Delhi and receive education. The girls who do come here are forced to live as paying guests in accommodations provided by private individuals who charge them exorbitantly.

 

The student protestors, apart from demanding equality in terms of rules and fees, also demanded an explanation as to why, after such long 117 years of the existence of the college, the authorities realised that girls also study here and they do need a roof under which they can stay. It is alarming that the realisation of the necessity of accommodation dawned upon them after decades, and yet the provision offered remains unaffordable to more than half of the population of this country.

Feature Image Credits: The Times of India

Ananya Bhardwaj

[email protected] 

 

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“DU of my Dreams”: Halla Bol by SFI

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The Student’s Federation of India(SFI) organised an event in the Art’s Faculty, North Campus on 23rd August that comprised of a protest march from the Art’s faculty towards Ramjas College, Kirori Mal College and back. This march was joined by many SFI members as well as a number of the general university student populace who wanted to voice their grievances.

The Student’s Federation of India is a student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) working towards making the University space a comfortable for the quotidian student. The march was driven by a general discourse of the various demands of the students. Some of the points raised during the meet were:

  • Scarcity of hostels accommodations and lowering of the fee structure
  • Installations of sanitary napkin vending machines in the various colleges
  • Provision of University buses
  • Abolition of gender discriminatory rules in the university space
  • Ensure hygienic environment in the university
  • Stop vandalization of University walls by electoral parties

An SFI member spoke to us saying “Government education par zyada paisa khurch karna nahi chaate. Desh bhar ki chatraye bade sapne lekar DU aate hain lekin yaha unhe ek 6×6 size ki overpriced room main rehkar padai karna pardta hain kyunki college hostel provide nahi kar sakti. Humari maang yeh hain ki education funds ko badaya jaye.” (The Government does not wish to spend much on education. Students from all over India come to DU with dreams but on getting ere they are made to live in a 6×6 overpriced room because the college cannot provide hostel accommodations. We demand that the education funds be increased.) Slogans like “Saste hostel lekar rahenge” also resonated throughout the stretch of the march.

The gathering was addressed by the Venezuelan Counsellor, Juan V. Freer who talked about the education model and the politics of a socialist country. The organisation will soon release its manifesto for the upcoming elections which is one crafted and submitted by students across 20 colleges in the University of Delhi.

 

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat

Trishala Dutta

[email protected]

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Events

VIBGYOR: Share Your Shade

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The August’17 edition of VIBGYOR: Share your Shade, organised jointly by MASH Prijecf & Thrive+, was reflection, refraction and dispersion of the most golden beam of sunlight on a Sunday morning. Knowledge and insight filled the cozy space of Coworkin, Nehru Place, as each shade of incident light bounced off its walls in all of its glory and Pride. The three hours were brimming with comprehensive experience-sharing and a completely engrossed audience. The celebration of fluidity started off with an extremely powerful message, in the most literal sense – through dance. Two delightfully graceful dancers, Shivangi Johri and Adya, used Indian Classical dance forms to convey the story of Shikhandi, a Queer character who played a very important part in the Mahabharata, hence re-iterating the existence and recognition of the Queer community. The performance conveyed that mythology and religion did not completely neglect the community; and it was only later that the LGBTQIA community was slowly excommunicated and removed from societal frameworks and seen as the ‘other’. The performance stood to eradicate the misconception that religion shuns anti-heteronormative standpoints, by conveying a story wherein a queer character was the indispensable instrument in accomplishing the perennial aim of the prevalence of good over evil.

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Aastha Singh Raghuvanshi showered us with poetry and smothered us with goose bumps, amidst constant appreciative clicking. The two poems she performed were arrows that killed us instantly. Oh, sweet death! Cupid couldn’t have done a cleaner job. In her words, “our cause is not a story – stories end – but this continues, as long as love continues.”

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The stage was thereafter conquered by Taksh, who’d come out to say “Hey, what’s up!?” This ended up being an amazing session, as stories and experiences flowed both ways. She lightened the mood and loosened the audience up, making them lose those nerves and inhibitions as the sound of synchronized laughter ringed through the air. We thought it was love – complicatedly simple. Taksh exuberated unmatched sass, and deconstructed complicated abbreviations like “LGBTQIA (BCDEFG…)” until it seemed to be a slice of cake.

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The  experience-sharing was carried forward to witty-land by Kunal Koli, who had an endless supply of anecdotes to share, and spoke about the importance of self-acceptance and how it’s completely okay to not put oneself in a singular frame. He stressed that he’d always leaped from one frame to another, and never really felt as though he cared enough to occupy one frame on a wall painted with the colors of the rainbow.
The colors of these two interactive sessions spilled into the break. Stories and questions were being fired at the speed of bullets. The aroma of amazing coffee and delicious cupcakes dispersed into the air-conditioned space and rose towards the heavens. We followed it, naturally – arising together. As did the good music.

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The break was broken off by Afreen, who enlightened us with the tale of her endeavor Queernama, and the countless experiences and tales it encapsulates within its folds. She claimed that no matter how little of a difference each effort, or collective efforts make, stories need to escape through as many pairs of lips as we can collectively muster. They need to be spoken, shared and brought into existence – so that the syllables spoken and suspended in the air can sway with the wind, dancing through the days.

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The event came to a close with Grace, who introduced a very thought-provoking concept of how sexuality can be removed from the way a person may behave — behavior mustn’t always imply a particular sexual orientation. She also spoke about attribution of most of the talk related to gender and sexuality to just a few categories and frames – while we conveniently neglect some kinds of sexualities, sidelining them. “Asexuality is a great way to understand sexuality,” said she. 
Grace insisted that we consider pondering upon the concept of “inclusivity” and how asexual people are equally relevant contenders, who deserve a respectable and equal position on the panel for discussion on matters related to gender and sexuality.

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We left with more than one cupcake in our stomachs, multiple stories, experiences, and an unspoken promise to meet again. And smiles. It was all about the smiles, really.

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Devika Bhatia
Country-coordinator, Thrive+, India

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DUB Speak

The repeating points in manifestos every year in DUSU Elections

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As the election season is round the corner, there are a few questions we need to ask ourselves before you cast your precious vote. For the past many years these student unions have been releasing majestic manifestos. Has there been any progress? Has the University witnessed a change?
If you go through the manifestos of different parties, you’ll realise how similar they are in the amenities, provisions and campaigning techniques. The consecutive years have seen no major change in these manifestos; they remain focused on providing a safe environment for women, affordable hostel facilities, proper implementation of the Choice Based Credit System, formation of a North Eastern Cell, encouragement of anti-ragging and anti-discriminatory practices, and so on.
One might argue that change doesn’t happen in a day but the fact that certain parties have backed a seat or two (or more) in DUSU elections year after year and still the agendas they put forth remain the same is a matter of great concern. The students of the University of Delhi need to question their political presence and the allocation of resources that they garner.
Talking of ABVP, since 2014, certain bullet points have maintained their place in the list of agendas even after them coming consecutively to power. They include having a bank account for all the students of the University, hostels, safety from sexual harassment and discrimination, North East progression and preservation of their culture and rights, etc. It is alarming that such issues of grave concern still remain left to be addressed. The same story continues if we look at the manifesto of NSUI or even that of AISA.
Political ideology and inclination is what separates them because the demands and needs of the students are basic and every party knows the importance to assure the basic minimum requirements in their own ways. The problem arises when after capturing the seats, the funds are misused or muscle power becomes the means to address issues, staff and students alike.
One way by which we, being aware citizens of this University, can ensure greater credibility, responsibility and participation from their side is by continuously questioning them through the means of different forums regarding their earlier manifestos and the allocation of funds. The fact that we are the largest democracy of the world gives us an advantage over these parties who live in a constant fear of losing elections if they don’t perform to the best of their abilities. We have to target this weakness of them because this one vote that all of us have is our greatest strength.
Feature Image Credits: PV Purnima for DU Beat
Ananya Bhardwaj
[email protected]

 

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Arts & Culture

MASH Camp 2017: Young Changemakers’ Haven

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Want to get insights into the most-awaited event of MASH Project? Read on.

Science, Spirituality, and Language

Do you think spirituality and science are opposites? Well, what if a session explained their collective synergy to you? Sarva Dharma Samvaad’s Manu Singh left behind a profound impact on the audience with his unquestionable familiarity with science and the art of championing the rudimentary notion of spirituality. According to him, spirituality is a path of transition from one’s own sufferings to one’s happiness. Providing a framework to the ongoing deliberation, Mr. Manu told us that there is a voice deep within us that can never cease. A voice that ails most of us. A voice that instigates us to question our scientific temper and rationality and simultaneously allows us to explore our inner selves.

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Storyteller and poet Chhaya Dabas introduced fun and engaging activities revolving around poetry and narration. From making the participants write poetry to sharing small tips about gender-neutral language, Chhaya truly left a deep impact.

Teamwork, anyone?

Keshav Gupta from the Dais Foundation, an organisation which seeks to ensure quality education through interventions in curriculums and classrooms, facilitated a comprehensive session on the value of teamwork. From an organizational perspective, as Keshav reiterated upon, any individual is either a process-oriented person or a result-oriented person. A nerve-wracking task intensely based on the principle of “Kobayashi Maru” or the “No-win situation” was given to make the MashKots realize the fact that the quality of teamwork is deeply intrinsic within ourselves, and just needs to be explored at the right time in various situations.

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Skills of the future

Will your current skillset still be relevant after 20 years? With the advent of byzantine technology, the nature of certain jobs is going to change in the near future according to Abhishek Singhal, who is a known expert in the field of career consultancy. A small session on future job opportunities prompted the participants to use their grey cells and to develop futuristic lenses to get a vision of the skills that are relevant for the future.

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The day ended on a high note with two stand-up comedians from WIT (Wannabe Idiot Techies), as Madhav Mahajan and Anmol Shukla tickled everyone’s funny bones with the highest levels of waggishness.

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Grooving to action

Day two at MASH Camp kicked off with an invigorating Zumba session with Payal Grover, a Reebok certified fitness trainer. Everyone in the session danced their heels off to the rhythmic tunes of some famous Bollywood songs. With the same fervent energy contained within, everyone at the camp attended a mellifluous session on Hindustani classical music with Anjana Ghoshal, a researcher and practitioner of music.

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Ansh Vohra, a renowned photographer and one of the co-founders of the “Pind Collective”; a collaborative Indo-Pak art project, hosted a thought-provoking storytelling session where the entire audience was divided into four groups and was expected to work on the building of a story and recite their plot/version of the story out loud.

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Reaching the zenith

Post-lunch, an engaging theatre workshop was organized by Dr. Ramendra Kumar, a director and producer, on the incorporation of theatre in education, music, psychology and daily life.

Eventually, people at the camp found themselves grooving on the melodies of a capella band named Imfresnate. Ranging from desi hip-hop to spiced up Punjabi songs, this band didn’t fail in making people hum (and even dance) along!

Soulful poetry

Rubhen D’Sa, a poet and the founder of Taameer- a community of artists that organizes art events incorporating social issues, recited a poem close to his heart and seemed to have won many hearts in the process. Among other things, with his absolutely soulful narration of his own travelling stories, Rubhen provided insights into a life of a traveller who could get as restless as his unfathomable thoughts and unstable feet.

MASH performances? We’re in!

As the day was rushing towards its culmination, various departments at the MASH Project like Nexus, Communications, and Events gave their departmental performances. Among endless positive vibes of a close-knit collective, the two fun-filled days of MASH Camp 2017 came to an end.

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Until 2018, Alvida.

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Probing the Chatter around Commerce Courses in DU

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What was once DU’s flagship course is now being offered by most private universities. While it remains to be one of the most popular fields of study, does it live up to the hype? Dissecting the nitty-gritties of the curriculum, we find that there is ample room for improvement.

With the advent of the Choice-Based Credit System (CBCS) in 2015, there has been a paradigm shift in most courses. The University of Delhi embarked on a new-found semester system, discarding the erstwhile annual examinations. The rollout was a tedious process, full of delays and uncertainty. The reaction was eventually a mixed one.

In particular reference to commerce courses, CBCS has not enjoyed a favourable position among professors. A few recommendations by the academic council to revamp the syllabi have been welcome changes; including the introduction of the IT Act and computer applications as core subjects, with practical lessons to file ITRs under the subject Income Tax bringing the application aspect to theory. Introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the commerce curriculum is another indicator of the continuous efforts made by DU to make learning more relevant.

Unfortunately, despite all progressive steps, commerce courses continue to teach several redundant and outdated portions. E-commerce, an elective subject offered in the 3rd semester, for example, includes HTML as part of its practical lessons and other generic theory related to online business transactions. Similarly, many core subjects act as mere additions to the theory taught in the 10+2 level, and the non-existence of case studies from these subjects is equally appalling.

One of the Heads of Department of Commerce at a prominent DU college said, “Everything happens under the ambit of the UGC guidelines, which makes the process of recommending changes in the syllabus a bureaucratic one.” Management Accounting is a subject that was compulsorily taught earlier, but under CBCS, it has become a discipline elective subject. According to her, CBCS claims to be choice-based but it undermines the urgency of a few courses and hence offers uneven combinations. Choices are offered, but most colleges do not have the infrastructure, and when one course is pitted against the other, either of those important courses suffers.

The curriculum is also not particularly flexible and is largely poorly designed. Covering the entirety of Income Tax and Macroeconomics in one semester is unjustifiable for both the teachers and students, thus, leading to lack of in-depth knowledge on any subject.

Private universities have started cashing in on this flawed course structure and are beginning to offer a diverse, well-planned layout. What used to be DU’s flagship course is now offered by multiple universities.

Despite this, there are a plethora of career options available for a commerce graduate to choose from. This course witnesses the highest packages being offered to some of its graduates. Semester Four includes subjects which are relevant to the skill-set required by a graduate in any job, for example, the application of Business Mathematics is a tool that would help future managers, and Applications in functions like MS Excel can hugely benefit its stakeholders. If DU continues on this path to revamp the course structure after shorter intervals of time, it can actually lead to value addition of a student’s skill set and make him/her more employable.

A commerce degree in itself is said to never be enough, but it certainly is a stepping-stone to the corporate world. For all the aspiring Chartered Accountants in the pack of freshers, B.Com(H) offers the most ideal course structure.

 

Image credits: NDTV

Vijeata Balani

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Transgender Student Moves to Court Against CBSE and DU

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A University of Delhi graduate who identifies as a transgender has filed a petition against the Department of Publications of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and DU. The petitioner, Riya Sharma, is a 23-year-old student who identifies as female but was assigned a male identity at birth. Sharma’s birth certificate and CBSE documents have gender and name details of her male, pre-transitioned self, which she is attempting to change.

She claimed to have sent two applications to the Department regarding the changes but as per the CBSE guidelines, such changes can be made only before the publication of results. University norms require the changes to be made in the board documents before changes are made in the university documents. As per the petitioner, the Department of Publications of the CBSE required that a sex reassignment surgery is undergone before the change of name and gender. In this regard, she was asked to produce an affidavit and a Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) certificate to execute the change in name. She is contesting this requirement by mentioning a 2014 Supreme Court ruling that allowed for only self-identification as a requirement, and held that insistence on a sex reassignment surgery for declaring one’s gender was “illegal and immoral”.

The petition was initially directed at DU and the Centre but included CBSE after the certificate demand. The Delhi High Court had also issued notices to the parties for not taking an interest in the issue and not changing the guidelines by themselves speedily. Sharma has also faced harassment at the hands of classmates, and while giving examinations as officials made her get a certificate from the university every time she gave an exam. Of her days in the School of Open Learning, she said, “SOL (School of Open Learning) have classes every weekend. Students in the class were constantly making fun of me. They were teasing me with slurs and cracking jokes on my gender. There was no other transgender person in the class and I felt so humiliated. I didn’t go after that”.

The university introduced the ‘Other’ gender option for its postgraduate courses’ forms in 2014 (and for undergraduates in 2015) which was hailed as a step forward. However, instances of institutional and societal discrimination probably also account for the fact that in 2016 only 15 applications of this category were received, signaling that immediate attention needs to be directed towards this category of students.

Sources: India Today, News18 , livelaw.in, Times of India
Feature Image Credits: DU Beat

 
Rishika Singh

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Arts & Culture

Exploring the Concept of Space in Theatre 

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In a theatre space where the performance takes place, the audience is an integral part and constantly needs to be dealt with. It is a space where a relationship is established between the two. The dynamics of this relationship changes according to the space in which the performance is taking place. For instance, in a street play, the audience surrounds the actor and needs to be interacted with constantly. The actor has to engage in a conversation with the audience on four sides at any given time. There is a dynamic change in a proscenium stage where the actor is performing on a raised platform and there is a certain kind of detachment. There are other kinds of theatre spaces like surround stage, thrust stage, arena stage etc. In a surround stage, the audience sits in the centre and the performance unfolds all around them. In a thrust stage, the actor is surrounded on three sides by the audience whereas in an arena stage the actors are completely surrounded by the audience and entrances are made through the audience at the four corners of the stage.

Therefore every director utilises a theatre space in his own unique way to build a relationship with the audience. For instance, Richard Schechner’s environmental productions like Dionysus in 69, Makbeth and Commune aimed to increase the interaction between an actor and the audience. Thus the distinction between actor’s space and audience’s space was removed with the latter being encouraged to participate in the performance.



While I was reading on this topic I came across another really interesting point on the difference between physical space and time and dramatic space and time. The audience is transported to a fictional space and time and enjoys this experience while never leaving their seats. Thus the distinction between a physical space and dramatic space is blurred. Therefore visual setting operating in a theatre space plays a very important role. It might make the audience’s journey comfortable or renders it uneasy.

Image credits: pinterest.com
Feature Image Credits: pinterest.com

Anukriti Mishra

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19 year old DU student molested, accused under arrest

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A 19 year old student of the University of Delhi was molested by a 22 year old man on Friday, 18 August 2017. The accused has been arrested on the basis of a complaint filed by the woman.

In what comes across as a shocker, a student of the University of Delhi was reportedly molested at a metro station. The incident took place on Friday, 18 August 2017, when the girl had gone to the Pulbangash Metro Station in central Delhi along with her cousin.

The police said that 22 year-old Akshay Gupta was arrested on the basis of a complaint filed by the woman, as reported by India Today. The girl, 19 years old, alleged that the man crept up and started touching her inappropriately, before abusing her. This happened while she was entering the metro station with her cousin. Not only this, but the guy also threatened to kill her if she declined his friendship proposal. “When she refused, he started to issue threats. The woman called the police and he was apprehended from the spot,” replied an officer, as per a report on this issue by The Indian Express. She said that the accused had been stalking her for some time before.

The police have arrested the 22 year old after the complaint. The Deputy Commissioner of Police (Delhi Metro), Pankaj Kumar Singh, said that the case was lodged at the Rithala Metro Station and the man had since been arrested.

 

Image credits: The Indian Express

Karan Singhania

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