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DAY 1 (16th January, 2011)

The Dramatics Society of Shri Ram College of Commerce with their sweatshirts reading ‘100 percent cut off, 200 percent dramebazi’, began the first day of their annual fest ‘Histronica’ by singing their official ‘Oha!’ song. Though the event got delayed as a consequence of campus placements going on in the college, as well as the Indo-US meet, the fervour and energy was soon on display as they filled the air with calls of ‘aao aao..natak dekho…srcc ka..natak dekho’ in tandem with their dafli beats.

The main event of the day , ‘The Street Play Festival’ began soon after. With a stupendous footfall of hundreds of people, the street play festival was filled with scintillating performances by CBS,Hindu,IP (for women), Hansraj, SRCC, DRC, Khalsa and GGS. The street plays through their songs, squeals, screams, calls and subtle satire, spoke of a wide array of themes such as whistle blowing, child abuse, right to education to name a few. The event was judged by Ms.Tejaswini (LSR passout currently practising street theatre in Law Faculty) ,Soumyajeet (Indian representative for Lok Theatre Group) and Mr.Shirish (works with National School of Drama).

Plays titled ‘Tu maar de seeti’ (cbs), ‘zaruarurat kyat hi ‘(hindu),’albert pinto ko gussa kyun aata hai’ (ip for women), ‘dharm’(khalsa), ‘laalsa’(hansraj), ’prathmik’(srcc), ’ugte suraj ka sapna’(ggs), ’mehfooz’(drc) kept the crowd gripped and staring on in awe at the sheer brilliance of it all.

Students devoured on food at the various stalls which included Kolkata Biryani House, Dominos, Brown Sugar and Kwality Walls. After the street play exhibition, the side events commenced. The main filler events were –Shutter (photography event), Twister (game) and Poem Writing. With a staggering participation of 100 students in shutters, 150 students in twister and 35 students in poem writing, the competition was palpable at the fest.

Later as the evening progressed, it started to rain. The judges sat with the teams for comments and suggestions till 9 pm and in their 3 hours dialogue they expressed how they loved the creativity exhibited in the performances. In a well decorated college with ‘angeethis’ to warm the students in the evening, an intellectually stimulating talk with the judges was the perfect way to call it a day.
Navika Chaudhary, member of the SRCC dramsoc, went on to say, “drama is more than just a passion, it’s a way of life, and the dedication and commitment with which the teams performed today proved exactly that.”

With the sounds of “o baake chunar…munariya hoye…o baake ammi boli hoye…o beta…jeet ke aana..’ still in their hearts, everyone went home a winner.

DAY 2 (17th January, 2011)

The second day of the SRCC dramsoc fest ‘Histronica’ was as thrilling and eventful as the first. With more people coming in, despite the chilly winds and extremely cold weather; it was the day for stage plays. The entrance to the college was elaborately decorated with painted matkas and masquerade masks.

The list of people judging these plays is worth a separate mention. The first being Geeta Sudan who herself happens to be an SRCC alumnus and is presently a director at Paradine. She has also acted in accomplished films such as ‘No One Killed Jessica’ and ‘Udaan’. The second being Deepak Dhamija who is currently an entrepreneur, as well as the founder of Shoelace Production. He has also directed 10 plays. The third being Amrita Laalji, who teaches theatre at Shri Ram School and National Open School. She also happens to teach a practical course in ‘drama in exploration’ in Delhi University.

After a warm welcome to the judges, the four plays commenced in the auditorium. The acting was par brilliance and so were the themes and scripts. The sets only added to the sheer brilliance of it all. SRCC performed ‘The Untitled,kyunki kuch cheezon ka zikr nahi kiya jaa sakta’ centred around the electra complex. The second was a brilliant adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel ‘A Mousetrap’ and was titled ‘The Three Blind Mice’. The third play titled ‘Mr.Kolpert’ was a dark comedy and was presented by Ramjas. The last play was based on schizophrenia, was titled ‘Uss Paar’ and was acted out by the team of Hindu College.

Once the plays ended, the judges as well as the audience lauded the efforts of the teams and the judges went on thave a discussion with them. In the dialogue that followed they said that the script of ‘The Untitled’ was commendable because the concept of electra complex is difficult to portray, therefore writing a script on it was a brave move. Also Hindu and Ramjas were appreciated for their remarkable acting. And the adaptation of script of the ‘Three Blind Mice’ was exalted as well.

This was followed by a musical rendition by Harpreet Singh as well as a magictricks performance by Karan Singh. The filler event which happened later was ‘Ad Mad’ and it was won by Akshay and Mariam from Hindu College. They won Rs.1000 and special mugs sponsored by Worlds of Wonder.

It was yet another brilliant day hosted by SRCC’s dramsoc. And in Ayusha Kaul’s (who is a part of SRCC dramsoc) words ,”drama is life,you must live it well,enough said.” This was definitely another ‘well lived’ day.

Mannat Sandhu
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