Rendezvous 2019, the annual cultural fest of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi began on 2nd October 2019. Here is an outlay of what went down at Day 1 and Day 2.
The western dance competition marked the unfolding of the four day long fest with great zeal and excitement. The first round of the event began at 9 a.m. with eyes glued on to the dances which set the stage ablaze. Satviki,Sanjay, a student of Miranda House said, “The performances blew my mind and made me want to dance myself”. Another student from Lady Shri Ram College for Women said, “The teams left us jaw dropped. I really liked team Nritya, looking forward to seeing them in the finals”. “The teams entertained us thoroughly. The hosts added their own quirks, but sexist jokes did resurface again and again,” added a student who wished to remain anonymous. The judges of the event were Akshat Dhanvani and Reuben from Ace Crew.
Mimansa, the street play competition was organised by the dramatics society of IIT Delhi, saw participants gearing up for the preliminary round with vocal exercises as early as 7:30 a.m. After an impromptu session, the competition began at 11:30 a.m. From over 120 online entries, 37 teams made it to the preliminary round. The competition was judged by theatre artists- Rajneesh Gautam from Saitaan Theatre, Yogesh Kumar from Jazba Theatre, and Ankit Dhawal from Theatre Leela. The teams captivated the judges and audience alike with their well-crafted dialogues and punch lines on socially relevant issues such as sex education or the role of government.
“But comedy is more than just humor. It is about confidence, wit and understanding of the audience,” reads the description of Comedy Hunt, competition for talented comedians to up their game of humor. True to its words, 9 shortlisted comedians competed in the finals to captivate the audience. The competition was judged by the comedians Srijan Kaushik and Pratyush Chaubey. It saw the audience rolling with laughter at jokes on hilarious human traits, religion, politics, sex, and relationships, among other things. Comedians Mohit Arora, Zubin Jacob, and Shubham Pujari bagged the third, second and first prizes respectively, collectively getting cash prizes worth more than INR 15000. “We are not an official club. Just a couple of students enthusiastic about comedy,” said a member from the organising team of Rendezvous’19.
Day 1 at the fest also saw aspiring rappers battling it out at the preliminary rounds of Hip Hop Fiesta: Rap Battle in the Lecture Hall Complex of IIT. Judged by rapper MC Kode, the event had 16 shortlisted candidates for the final rap battle. The Lecture Hall Complex in IITD was also home to a number of writing competitions such as ‘My Jottings’ and quizzes such as Shabdvyuh and Chakravyuh.
Mridang, the the Indian Music Society of IIT Delhi organised the first musical event of Rendezvous 2019, ‘Agaaz’, the eastern group singing competition. The event saw participation of 14 colleges who were judged by a panel of two eminent musicians, Dr. Mahesh Deshmukh who has been trained in Indian classical music under the tutelage of one of the finest Sitar Maestro in India, Ustad Usman Khan and has performed at eminent music festivals in India and countries across globe, and Mr. Pt. Chetan Joshi who is one of the senior most flutists of Indian classical music who has introduced several innovations in the sphere of flute playing which have become parts of his repertoire. Alahyaa, the music society of Daulat Ram College bagged the first position for their performance “Original Piece For The Year 2019-2020 in raag Shankara and Chandrakauns”, while Mridang, the music society of IIT Delhi came second for their performance ‘Krishna Morari Kala- a tribute to Lord Krishna’, and the third position was won by shared by Musoc of Kirorimal college and Alaap of Indraprastha College for Women for their performances “Garaj- Garaj Raghmiya Ki Malhar” and “Naam Ratat” respectively.
The second half of day one of Rendezvous commenced with prelims of Beatboxing contest of the Hip-Hop Fiesta. The event had a participation of 126 teams out of which only 16 teams qualified for the final round to be conducted on 4th October. The event had a footfall of about 80-100 students who thoroughly enjoyed the Beatboxing battle. The event was adjudged by N-Grave, a prominent Indian Beatboxer.
Abhivyakti, Hindi creative writing competition took place at LHC-114. The event had on the spot registration and had almost 150 participants. It was judged by Smt. Rajiv Kumar Shukl, Delhi Director at Aakashvani (All India Radio) and Smt. Ravi Shankar, Creative Director at an Advertising agency. The participants were given topics on the spot by the judges. They were first asked to write on the topic “Gandhi aaj mere liye” in reference to the date of the event, 2nd October. The students were reluctant to this topic so the judges gave them two more topics – “Swachhata, tan ki bhi, man ki bhi” and “Gandhi Vichar aur humara paryavaran“. The students were given the liberty to write on any one of the three options given to them. They were given about 1.5 hours to submit their piece and in any literary format they wished to.
At Pratirodh, the protest poetry event, a total of 9 poets took to stage and used the medium of poetry to express their emotions and views about various social and political issues of the world. The organisers defined poetry as a concept of how one “names the nameless”. Being a non-competitive event, it still witnessed a crowd of about 60-70 people. The participants spoke against mob lynching, female genital mutilation, marital rape, and various other issues of the nation. They addressed these crises in the form of art which really influenced the audience and even left them in tears.
In the later part of the afternoon the Dogra Hall hosted the Young India Debate moderated by Tanvi Shukla, News Editor at Mirror Now. The discussion involved well known panellists like Mr. Aman Sinha BJP Spokesperson, Mr. Raghav Awasthi member of the RSS, Yogendra Yadav Political Activist and Sanjay Rajoura from Aisi Taisi Democracy.
The agenda for the debate was, “Is New India More Intolerant?” Mr. Yogendra Yadav opened the debate denying that New India is intolerant in any way. He stated that intolerance has been privileged from a certain class in the society and is being systematically constructed. He said, “When lynching takes place the spirit of new India is violated, however this is due to the political cloud that surrounds it.”
The debate went on to have a heated discussion on the growing intolerance towards caste, political ideology, gender, language, and religion. On the other hand, BJP spokesperson, Mr. Aman Sinha stated,” India has been a tolerant and diverse country right from the ancient to contemporary times.” The other speakers brought to light about the various aspects of tolerance and collated it with the national party regimes. Social media and its democratisation was debated extensively and the young student audience acknowledged the debate with equal fervour through active participation.
Just after the Open Sports Quiz, the IIT Delhi Quizzing Society organized its second event on the first day of Rendezvous’19, Karnival-Open Mela Quiz. Over 60 teams, each comprising of 3 participants came together to fight for the top spot. The event began at 2:30 p.m, with the quizmaster coming up with the first question of the prelims round, where a set of 20 mind boggling questions from various fields and interests were derived to decide the participants of the finals at the end of the first round, top 10 teams were selected to proceed for the final round where another set of questions were waiting to be answered by the super genius participants. The competition was a close affair with an enormous amount of coerciveness & fierce quizzing attitude interplaying throughout the game.
The day came to a magnificent close with performance of the trio, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, which swept the crowd of its feet. The audience grooved to their numbers such as Locha-e-Ulfat, Mitwa, and Dil Chahta Hai.
With great vigour and enthusiasm, the second day of Rendezvous, IIT Delhi was welcomed by excited participants and a plethora of events.
Madhubani Painting Workshop was conducted by Ms. Manisha Jha who enlightened the eager participants on the significance and history of Madhubani paintings. From a communal, caste and gender background she went forth to explain the background of prominent paintings.
JAM or Just-A-Minute tested the wit, fluency, presence of mind and grammar of the participants. The judge Dr. Sanjay Chugh left the audience in splits while the participants tried their best to not stutter. Aashima Anand, Aditi Utreja and Chim Sharma stood out as the ultimate winners of the game.
‘Mimansa’ or the street-play competition revolves around the theme of a social message. Participating societies educated the audience on themes related to human trafficking, sex, bias media, faulty legal system and the likes. The winners of the competition are, Hindu’s Ibtida bagging the first, Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma’s Rangayan at second and College of Vocational Studies’ Dramanomics at third. The ‘Best Actor Male’ was from Deshbandhu, ‘Best Actor Female’ from Janki Devi Memorial College and the ‘Best Musical Play’ by Sri Venkateshwara College. The judges consisted of seasoned artistes; Tarun Kohli from Akshara Theatre, Varun Sharma from Theatreleela Studios and Vipul from Asmita Theatre.
The Mythological debate, Aaj Ka Narad, was also conducted. The event was judged by an ex-IITian, Mr Yatish Kumar. It was an open event with both college and school students participating. The participants were divided into teams of three each with two rounds- prelims and finals. The first position was backed my Mr Shivam Sanoria, while the second and third positions were shared by three contestants each.
A perfect platform to rant your hearts out, Spin-a-Yarn was a fan-fiction writing competition, an open event for both college and school students. The participants were given 2.5 hours to write a story on any of the prompts given. A total of five themes were addressed- Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Death Note and Percy Jackson. For each theme three situations were provided out of which the contestant could choose to write on any one. This competition was subject to internal checking and the results for the same would be announced in about a week or two’s time.
A melodious touch to Rendezvous ‘19 was added by the fusion band competition of Tatva. 8 college bands participated in this event and gave outstanding performances that truly touched the audience’s hearts. The first position was backed by Happy Together (SGTB Khalsa) while the second and third positions were backed by Raag Shas (IITD) and Calico Skies (CVS) respectively. This event was judged by Mr Raghav Verma and Mr Kartik Dhar.
After a tiring day at IITD Rendezvous, comedians Appurv Gupta and Gaurav Kapoor tickled the funny bone in every person by performing their hilarious sets at the Comedy Fest. Addressing all topics like DU students to a typical day with your father, the comedians well managed to throw everyone off their seats laughing.
Sketch-A-Spot was an open and live sketching event with over 450 participants. Participants were asked to discover their own place in the campus and draw the same. The event was judged by Dr. Rajashri Chakrabarti, professor at the College of Art and Shri Saumya Samanta.
Debutante was an intense debating session bifurcated by different rounds. With sharp minds and even sharper tongue, participants ranging over 40 teams battled it out on several themes spanning across several rounds. Over a period of two days, ranging from feminism and Indian politics to pop culture and economics, the participants were welcomed with a variety of themes. The finals remain awaited on the 4th of October.
The prelims for the Mela-Ish Quiz, organised by the Quiz Club of IIT Delhi. Almost 60 teams participated in the event out of which, only eight teams were supposed to qualify for the finals. It had questions from all sorts of topics, covering Music, Entertainment, Art, Indian history, Science etc. The questions very detailed and had the participants scratching their heads. The quiz consisted of about 20 questions and the participants were given a time of 2-3 minutes for one question. The event was judged by the Quiz society itself and was very well informative throughout.
Hindi Samiti (The Hindi society of IIT Delhi) in collaboration with Nojoto, an app that provides aspiring writers a platform to pursue their dreams, organised a poetry competition, Chhatra Kavi Sangoshthhi. The event had about 250 registrations who submitted their poems to the organisers and only 27 participants were shortlisted for the second round. The event was judged by Smt. Rajiv Kumar Shukl, Delhi Director at Aakashvani (All India Radio) and Smt. Kinshuk Gupta, Chief Juror for Konark literary festival. Each participant was given five minutes to present their Shayaris. The audience was deeply touched by the emotions of the poets who well connected with everyone through their poems.
The Dance Club of IIT Delhi organised a Solo Dance competition. They invited registrations through submission of dance videos of people. They received videos of about 300 aspiring dancers, out of which 45 were shortlisted for the prelims. After the prelims, only nine qualified for the final round. The competition was very diverse as the participants performed all different kinds of dance, western, classical, street dance, etc. After the performances of the participants, Deepanshu, A member of the Solo Dance Club of IIT Delhi took it to stage and left everyone awestruck by his dance. The event was judged by Sanyam Bhayana, Choreographer at University of Delhi and a renowned dancer. First position was bagged by Tiger Pop and the second prize was given to Shreewarna Rawat. After the results, the audience chanted the name of the judge askin him to dance. Sanyam took to stage and danced phenomenally, which was clear by the applause from the audience.
Day 2 ended with harsh rain showers and thunder, due to which the Pronite with Ritwiz was cancelled. The weather turned sour, and led to felling of trees. The Organising Committees at Rendezvous uploaded information regarding safety of the participants, students, and attendees. Allegedly a few people were injured and taken to the hospital on campus for immediate first-aid. The thunder washed away the décor and made a ruckus during the pronite.
Feature Image Credits: Gauri Ramchandani for DU Beat
Anandi Sen
Avni Dhawan
Aditi
Abhinandan Kaul
Faizan
Priyanshi
Sriya Rane
Bhavya Pandey
Satviki Sanjay
