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Hindu College presents Mecca 2015: Highlights

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This time around Mecca, the annual cultural festival of Hindu College was a four day affair. With each evening lined up with a star performance and societies bringing their best for competitive events, Mecca went off smoothly, with a few events cancelled. While all days of the fest saw a good turnout, the crowd that’d gathered for Bollywood singers Vishal and Shekhar’s performance on Day 3 was grand indeed.

Now that the event has come to an end, we bring you the highlights of each day, with the performances, videos and winners’ tally:

Day 1: Inauguration, Choreography competition and first round of Battle of the Bands

The inauguration of Mecca began with the lighting of the lamp by the Dr. Anju Srivastava, Principal and other dignitaries and heads of various departments of the college including Dr Kaul and Dr Kapoor. This was followed by a speech by the Principal and Tushar Soni, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Hindu College.

Mecca hosted its choreography competition in the college auditorium.  Dance performance by the dance society of Lady Shri Ram College was adjudged the best and it revolved around the life of women in Amazon forests. The choreography society of Hans Raj College, Terpsichoreon won the second position.

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After competitions like choreography and Battle of Bands, second half of Day 1 at Mecca hosted the much awaited nukkad natak competition which complemented Mecca’s Bollywood theme this year. Street production ‘Mannmarziyaan‘ by Abhivyakti, the dramatics society of IP College bagged the first prize at Mecca. The spot for first position was shared by Kshitij– The Street Play Society of Gargi College.

Day 1 of Hindu College’s Mecca concluded with its alumnus Rekha Bharadwaj performing for the first time at Delhi University. The National Award winning singer who is as popular for her sufi music as for her playback singing in Bollywood, gave a soulful rendition to the evening.

Rekha Bhardwaj (1)

 

Day 2: Battle of the Bands, Fashion Show and Indie Music Night

The second and final round of the Battle of the bands began on the second day of Mecca 2015 with the six bands that were shortlisted on the first day. The final winner of the two rounds of the battle was The Hansraj Projekt and the second prize was taken by the Paperboat and with that the much sought after battle finally came to an end.

The highlight event for Day 2 was Panache, the fashion show which saw six fashion societies from Delhi University coming forward to highlight their range of clothing and accessories. Maitreyi College with their production ‘Lord of the Wild’ won the first position. Their act focused on banning tiger trade in India.

The final event that concluded the second day started off with the band F16s playing in the genre of Indies music while a large crowd of students swayed along as the sky shimmered with the stage and sky lights followed by Duallist Inquiry playing their famous Progressive House and EDM numbers with a guitar in the background. The last hour of the evening was taken over by Midival Punditz and Karsh Kale.

Day 3: A Capella, Western Dance Competition and performance by Vishal and Shekhar

The third day of Mecca 2015 witnessed the A cappella competition with a total of six colleges participating. The event was judged by Chayan Adhikari, singer of Advaita and Nisa Shetty, alumnus of Hindu College and now a singer, song writer and performer. The first place was awarded to Lady Shri Ram College, second place to St. Stephens and the third prize was given to Sri Venkateswara College.  

#LSR performing ‘Jailer’ for the A capella competition at #Mecca2015 #festseason #hindu #Mecca2015 A video posted by DU Beat (@du_beat) on

 

In the Western Dance Competition, Mecca saw some of the most popular dance societies of Delhi University perform on a plethora of songs ranging from popular to contemporary songs. Hans Raj Colleges’s western dance society, Oorja won the First prize and SGGSCC was adjudged the first runner up.

Day 3 of Mecca ended with a mesmerizing performance by the music directing duo Vishal-Shekhar. Popular for several Bollywood features like Salam Namaste and Jhankar Beats, they performed on some of their most celebrated songs, like ‘Velle’, ‘Zehnaseeb’, ‘Balam Pichkari’, ‘Chhammak Chhallo’, ‘Om Shanti Om’, ‘I hate love stories,’ etc. They kept a steady interaction with the crowd and gave them all a supremely energetic performance.

 

 

Day 4: Panel discussion with eminent scholars and speaker session with Javed Akhtar

The panel discussion began at 3pm on the last day of Mecca and was headed by eminent scholars such as Professor Romila Thapar, author of the popular classic A History of India, Professor Kunal Chakraborti who teaches at the Center of Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dr. Ish Mishra, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Professor P.K Vijayan from the Department of English, Hindu College.

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The Principal of Hindu College Anju Srivastava and Convener P.K Sinha felicitated the star of the evening Shri Javed Akhtar. The topic of discussion was ‘Mind Your Language’. In a few words he explained how in our everyday speech, we use words which are borrowed from a number of languages like Persian, Italian, Turkish and Gujarati among others.

 

Post by DU Beat.

 

After four days of events and sessions, Mecca 2015 came to a successful close on the 28th of February. Here’s looking forward to its next edition!

Writers: Isheeta Sharma, Iresh Gupta, Sidharth Yadav, Arindam Goswami, Ayesha Sareen

Photographers: Kashish Madan, Chirag Sharma, Abhay Makhija, Paurush

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DUB Speak

Things off campus college students can relate to!

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A lot is often said about colleges from the North and South campuses, even though a majority of colleges in DU are “off campus” colleges. When it boils down to the basics, life at an off campus college is similar to that in North or South Campus, but there are still a few distinct differences. We take a look at a few factors that off campus students will be able to relate to!

You can’t relate to debates between North Campus and South Campus

Whenever people talk about South Campus versus North Campus or discussing whether Satya Niketan is better or Kamla Nagar, you can’t really relate to those discussions. Sure, you might have your preference but it never gets personal for you!

You might have to repeat your college’s name a couple of times while introducing yourself

A lot of people outside Delhi (and even within the city), can name only a few colleges from DU, and these invariably end up being either South or North Campus colleges. When you’re introducing yourself or telling your relatives where you study, you are usually greeted with a polite smile or look of confusion. They might even end up mixing your college’s name with that of another! No Aunty, I said “Deen Dayal” not “Dyal Singh”!

You’ve found a lot of different ways to expand your social circle
Some people firmly believe that being a part of a college with other institutes around it is the best and easiest ways to make new friends. This may or may not be true, but as an off campus student, you’ve found other ways to grow your circle beyond just your college, whether it’s volunteering at an NGO, competing in competitions through your society or joining an organisation on campus!

You find yourself visiting your friends at North Campus and South Campus often

Whenever you make plans with your friends from other colleges, you often find yourself travelling to North or South Campus instead of them visiting your college! To be fair, there probably are more options to hang out at the former.

You’ve made the most of your situation
Whether or not you’d planned on studying in an off campus college, at the end of the day, you’ve made your peace with the negatives (like the commute, in my case) and have appreciated the positive parts, whether it’s a strong faculty or the thrill of making a name for your college. And hey, now you have 5 different retorts whenever you face the presumptuous “North Campus mein admission nahin mila?” question!

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Campus Central

His Holiness the Dalai Lama graces Kalindi College’s ceremony

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th Dalai Lama visited Kalindi College on 28th January to grace the occasion of the college auditorium’s foundation stone laying ceremony. The highlight of the ceremony was his talk which was on the bond between compassion and education. The event, which was held at the college’s amphitheatre, saw a large audience with students and teachers from various colleges. The session began with a song that had been written and composed by the college’s music department especially for this occasion. The guests for the event were then felicitated. Following that, the Principal of the college, Dr. Anula Maurya addressed the students and spoke about the Dalai Lama’s life in brief. She mentioned the three values he lives by; fighting for basic human values, promoting inter religious harmony and the preservation of the Tibetan Buddhist monks’ culture. Professor Dinesh Singh, Delhi University’s Vice Chancellor was then invited to welcome His Holiness. “We have been blessed because the Dalai Lama has chosen to be present here”, he said. He asked the students present to pay heed to his words because education, in his opinion, is nothing if it doesn’t create compassion. After Professor Sahu, Chairman of Kalindi College’s Governing Board addressed the crowd, His Holiness took to the podium and began his talk. He spoke about compassion as a basic human being and how we often get caught up with what he called “secondary level of differences” which included factors like gender, nationality and religion. He mentioned that humans can go beyond merely the “biological affection” that is ingrained among all animals, like the bond between mother and child. As humans, we can go further and extend that to those around us—relatives, friends and even complete strangers. He talked about research studies that had shown the importance of affection and love for the development of the human brain, and that those who receive less affection often grow up to be insecure and fearful.

According to His Holiness, ancient Indian knowledge was very advanced and ahead of that of the West. With this rich tradition of knowledge existing in India, he felt that it is strange that the country is obsessed with “modern technology and knowledge”. He then spoke briefly on how education can lead to compassion and commended the college for its work with underprivileged children. He said that intelligent, educated and warm hearted people were often the happiest. He also mentioned the importance of showing respect not only to those from other religions but to atheists and non- believers too. After that, there was a short prize distribution ceremony for a competition held in the college on Good Governance Day last year. Students were then invited to ask His Holiness questions for an interactive session. He was asked about compassion leading to more knowledge, showing compassion to the violent and about his years in exile. The event wrapped up with a Vote of Thanks by the Vice Principal of the college.]]>

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Campus Central

JDMC and Venky shine at DDUC's Vande Mataram

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Vande Mataram on its grounds. Though the unexpected rain proved to be a hindrance, the event went on as planned, with the Organising Committee doing its best under the circumstances. The competition started with the Principal, Dr. S.K Garg addressing the participants and the audience, followed by speeches by the chief guests, Dr. Suchitra Gupta (Deputy Dean, Culture and Youth Affairs, Delhi University) and Dr. Kamlini Dutt. After the lighting of the diyas, the stage was set for the performances to begin. The first segment was that of the inter college solo classical dance, which saw a participation of 11 dancers performing styles like Kathak and Bharatnatyam. The event was judged by Dr. Kamlini Dutt, Ms. Harindri Kaur and Dr. Sadhna Mal. Janki Devi Memorial College stood first, followed by Deen Dayal Upadhaya College and Shaheed Rajguru College of Applied Science for Women. The winners were awarded cash prizes of Rs. 2000, Rs.1500 and Rs.1000 respectively. The second segment was the Indian classical choir competition, with 6 groups participating. The performances were centred around the theme, “Songs of Hope” and judged by Ms. Manikuntala from Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Dr. Vandana Sharma and Ms. Gaganjeet Kaur. Sri Venkateswara College’s choir took the first prize, with Bharati College and Shaheed Rajguru College coming second and third respectively. The winning team was awarded Rs. 4000. The event came to a close with lunch and the prize distribution ceremony. When asked about the event, Kriti Mehta, a Commerce student from DDUC and Chief Coordinator of Vande Mataram said, “This year we added to the competition by introducing food stalls in campus. The event was focused on the classical styles in India whereas last year, we received semi-classical and folk styles as performances too. This year however, everything from the performances to the costumes was strictly classical and it was great to see the participants rising up to the occasion. Had the rain not been a deterrent, the event would’ve been bigger, but I’m very happy with the effort of the organisers and the performers too!” The Organising Committee of Vande Mataram   Image credits: Poornima Puri]]>

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DU Dhaba

Food Review: Wow Vada Pav

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Wow is a small shop that opened near Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, Karampura in the last few months of 2014. One might not notice the shop at first glance, but once you try out the items on their menu, you’ll be tempted to visit it very often! The chain will be opening a shop at Adarsh Nagar near North Campus by the end of January 2015.

Wow is best known for its wide variety of Vada Pavs from Standard to Cheese and Schezwan to Hot Masala– and a combination of those too! For those who love spice, the Hot Masala and Schezwan are tasty options while those who enjoy milder flavours can go for Aaloo Tikki and Makkai Palak. You can go for these options as they are, or ask for the cheese or mayonnaise version of each of these. All variations combined, they have 48 Vada Pavs on their menu! The price ranges from Rs. 20 (Standard) to Rs. 85 (Masala Paneer Cheese flavour).

If Vada Pavs aren’t your cup of tea, Wow also has Nuggets (Corn Cheese Nuggets with different sauces), Cheese sticks, Chatpata Fries and Magic Butter Pav Bhaji (fancy name, yes). All these items are priced between Rs. 30 and Rs. 65. They’ve also recently added Vegetarian Biryani and Aloo Wrap and Paneer Wrap. If you’d like a beverage to go with your meal, they stock juices and cold drinks with tea and coffee available too.

Go for the individual items if you’re there for a quick bite, and try out the various combo offers for a slightly more hearty meal. For those who’ve tried out Vada Pavs before, you won’t be disappointed with Wow. For those who haven’t tried them yet, Wow is good place to have your first Vada Pav. The menu might confuse you at first, so ask the helpful shop owner for suggestions. Or better yet, order multiple items and flavours. It’s quite likely that you’ll enjoy whatever your order and it won’t even pinch your pocket!

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DUB News

DU Beat’s milestones in 2014

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In the past few days we’ve captured the achievements of Delhi University, its students and its faculty members. We’ve shared some memorable moments, and we thought we’d extend the highlights a little further to talk about a few of DU Beat’s milestones this year. We’ve had a lot of good moments and a few truly exciting achievements that made us feel proud and ecstatic. Now that the year has come to an end, we’d love to share these incidents and relive them one last time.

It was a big year for us online!

Largely due to the work and foundation laid down by our team in the session 2013-14, we saw an unprecedented growth in our community online. This was carried forward by the current team and right now, we have more than 1800 Twitter followers (from about 500 initially), 130,000 Facebook followers (we started off the year with about 20,000!), and our page was authenticated by Facebook! We also set up our Instagram account and Youtube channel this year.

 

We increased our print circulation this year

Ours is a moving target and we’re always looking at printing more copies of our weekly newspaper. We increased our circulation by about 60% and are now distributing in 15 colleges in Delhi University. Here’s hoping we increase those figures even more next year!

 

Engagements and partnerships with youth brands

This year, we also partnered with various brands for campaigns related to the youth.  MTV Rock the Vote and Satyamev Jayate’s Mumkin Hai were two of our most noteworthy partnerships in 2014.

 

 

Interviews with celebrities from various fields

Thanks to the resourcefulness of our team members and a bit of luck, we were able to share some interesting interviews on our platform. This year, we got together for conversations with Aamir Khan, Shashi Tharoor, Kiran Bedi, Kanan Gill, and quite a few Bollywood stars like Sonam Kapoor and Aditya Roy Kapoor. We’re working on doing more video interviews in the future, and improving our interviewing skills too!

 

Travelling around the country to cover events

Another first for our team, this year, we sent our writers and photographers to colleges across the country to cover major fests. Thanks to the friendly folks at IIT Bombay and BITS Pilani, we were able to share in depth articles on what fests are like in colleges outside of DU. We also got to write about the many laurels won by our University during the same!

Post by DU Beat.

 

Experimenting with competitions and graphics on our platforms

This year, we hosted a lot more competitions than usual, ranging from pop culture based Twitter quizzes to those on our Facebook page. Our graphics capturing various aspects of the student life were also a roaring success, what with the Design team and Editorial team collaborating to come up with some funny and relatable posts! 10556939_677349969008059_1343174817168106768_o

 

Launching the DU Beat app and Events Calendar

Summer 2014 saw our Android app hit the Google Play Store. We’ve received a good response so far and are tweaking it further to make it more useful and relevant. The events calendar is well on its way to becoming the go- to resource for many students to keep themselves in the know of all DU or students related events around the year. Contributions to the calendar are welcome!

 

Phew, 2014 sure was eventful! Here’s hoping that 2015 brings with it many more milestones for us as a team, as a newspaper and as a community. Happy new year!

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Campus Central

DU alumnus Koyal Rana to represent India at the Miss World pageant tonight

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th of December at ExCel in London.   She has already made a mark at the program by reaching the finals of the Top 5 Challenges. Currently, these are the events and positions at which India stands: Beach Beauty – Top 5 (Result To Be Announced) Multimedia – Top 5 (Result To Be Announced) Beauty with a Purpose – Top 10 (Result To Be Announced) People’s Choice Award – Top 10 (Result To Be Announced) Apart from these, India won the Best Designer Award round at Miss World. The winning outfit had been designed by Falguni and Shane Peacock. Koyal is a finalist at the Dances of the World event, and was among the Top 20 and Top 32of the Top Model and Sports Round respectively. The Beauty with a Purpose project that she presented was a part of a campaign initiated by her NGO, Moksha Foundation, which is a New Delhi based organisation. Many Delhi University students are members of the same. Her project “Swasth Bhavishya” revolves around the sanitation and hygiene conditions of government run schools in various parts of the city. The team hopes to expand its project further, and believes it stands a good chance of making it to the top at the Miss World pageant. When asked about the support she’s received so far, Koyal said, “I’ve received so much love and appreciation not just from family, friends and people I know personally but from fans and well wishers too. All I’ll be concentrating on tonight is to make everyone who’d been a part of my journey proud and to represent my country to the best of my abilities. I pray that I can do justice to the hope of over 1.3 Billion Indians and my supporters from around the world!” The Miss World Pageant 2014 will be broadcast live tonight at 8 pm IST on Zee Café. You can also watch it live online here. Image Credits: Zee Cafe]]>

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Flicks

Movie Review: Interstellar

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Interstellar has been one of the most awaited Hollywood movies of the year, with a lot of hype surrounding it-something which isn’t surprising given that it’s a Christopher Nolan movie.

The plot is set in a futuristic world where saturation of resources has made Earth unsustainable for humans, and revolves around Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a pilot, engineer and father of two. Cooper along with astronauts from NASA (Dr. Brand, Romilly and Doyle) set off to explore three prospective worlds in another galaxy (courtesy a wormhole that’s been “placed” near Saturn) based on data transmitted by explorers from NASA ( Dr. Miller, Edmunds and Mann) from an earlier expedition. They hope to find at least one suitable new home for the future generations of mankind. Back on Earth, Cooper’s daughter Murfy along with Dr. Brand’s father are attempting to solve an equation related to gravity that could potentially save humans currently living on Earth. Certain anomalies in gravitational patterns play a crucial role in the incidents during the movie.

This has been one of the few experiences I’ve had where the movie hall was completely silent during most of the movie, and barely anyone paid attention to their phones (which is unfortunately very rare these days) because the movie was so gripping and intense!

Everything makes sense at the end with the loose ends tying up in an unexpected manner and once you realise the climax, you’ll definitely be at the edge of your seat wondering what’s going to happen to the characters next. The fine performances by the main characters, Anne Hathaway, Matthew McConaughey and Micheal Caine make the story come alive. Certain scenes will leave you blown away; one death scene in particular, the exploration of Dr. Miller’s planet and the part where the astronauts are travelling through the worm hole. Don’t be embarrassed or surprised if you find your eyes moist during the film, especially during Tom and Murfy’s video messages to their father. Comic relief is included in just the right amount in the form of TARS, the robot’s banter.  Hans Zimmer’s music is brilliant, and makes the scenes even more intense and engaging.

The special effects are indeed spectacular and the depiction of black holes and fifth dimension has been done in a way that makes the concept both understandable and visually appealing. I was particular fascinated by the idea of time as a physical dimension, something which led to a lot of Google searches after watching the film. The theory of relativity of time has been played with well to add another layer to the movie.

However, one aspect that didn’t seem to really add up was the behaviour of certain characters during the course of the movie. Some of the choices made by Dr. Mann, Professor Brand and Tom seem uncharacteristic at times, and can leave you feeling confused about their decisions.  I felt certain parts like Dr. Brand and Edmunds’ story could have been focused on some more (or alternatively, removed entirely), but I guess that just gives the audience more to think about.
Apart from that, I can also see a lot of people feeling as though the plot of the story went above their heads (which also happened with Nolan’s Inception). At times, the science behind the story seemed to overpower the scenes a little too much, which made some scenes feel heavy and stretched.

What I liked the best about the movie is that it reinforces the idea that humans have always been, and always should be explorers by nature; looking towards the next frontier and constantly moving forward. The realisation of our insignificance in terms of the bigger picture and the vastness of the unknown should only propel our growth and curiosity as a race.

To sum up, whether or not you truly liked the movie, Interstellar is a film you’ll end up having lengthy discussions over, long after it has ended.

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Top Picks

5 scary situations Delhi University students dread

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Halloween, as a festival, has always been associated with scary and morbid themes- after all many cultures remember the dead on this particular day. While it’s not a commonly celebrated festival in India (and let’s face it, we hardly have a dearth of holidays to celebrate), keeping with the spirit of the holiday, we decided to take a look at some situations that are scary enough to give Delhi University students nightmares.

The Metro stops functioning for a prolonged period of time

The beloved DMRC is essentially a lifeline for many DU students who travel from far off corners of the city (or to far off corners of the city-off campus colleges, anyone?) In such a scenario, if anything were to happen that disrupts our daily metro commute, whether it’s a technical glitch or a prolonged delay, we’d be left cribbing and annoyed, because most of the alternatives aren’t comfortable or cheap.

Any new change brought in for the current second year students 

Seriously, haven’t these poor kids had enough? DU has always introduced changes in the system, but I think we can all agree that the FYUP introduction and the eventual roll back of the same, takes the cake. Not just that, but this is the ‘guinea pig batch’ who also started off with the CCE system. Any more such changes might set these disturbed students off balance. It hurts to even joke about it!

Studying for the wrong paper/subject

Now, this may or may not have happened to me, but imagine a situation where. for whatever reason, you studied for the wrong exam (internal or external) and realised your mistake a few minutes before entering the exam hall. Terrifying, right?

Getting an ER or a ‘back’, as it’s affectionately called

As if studying for a paper you obviously didn’t understand much of wasn’t scary enough, imagine getting an ER in that dreaded subject! ERs are no joking matter- many students spend sleepless nights tossing and turning, praying that they avoid this ordeal in their college life!

A dangerously low attendance record

The semester is almost over, and the study break is about to start in a couple of weeks. Bunking all those classes now seems like a bad idea. This is especially true for those who study in colleges that are super strict about attendance records. If you’re from one of those colleges, you know you’ve had minor panic attacks over this! Of course, it doesn’t help when you hear of stories of students getting admit cards for exams despite getting an abysmal attendance figure.

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