“Aa bhi jaa. Tujhse Pyaar karte hai. Yeh woh gunaah hai jo baar baar karte hai.”

To add a sufi element to Venky’s Nexus 2014, Sabari Brothers took the stage during day two of the fest. The event originally scheduled for 6 p.m., started at around 7: 30 p.m. at the college’s auditorium foyer. The evening started with a felicitation of the guest performers by the college principal, Dr. P. Hemalatha Reddy. She also felicitated the chief guest for the day, Dr. Suchitra Gupta, Deputy Dean of Students’ Welfare, Delhi University.

The Sufi  legends started with the famous Chaap Tilak, moving on to a Coke Studio rendition of Humein toh loot liya and popular Bollywood number Tumse Milke Dilka hai jo haal.

With the audience seated on the floor and an energetic ambience, the entire atmosphere reeked of the Qawwali mood. The combination of music and shayari along with a crowd that reciprocated with claps and dance, were the highlights of the evening. Despite the rain and the performance by Junkyard Groove that was taking place simultaneously, the energy of the sufi night remained undeterred.

We leave you with one of the many shers that came up during the evening:

“Tujhe aankhon mein basaa lunga kajal ki tarah, tu mujhe dhoondti reh jayegi pagal ki tarah.”

Day two of Nexus 2014 began with the Indian Duet Music Competition named Malang. This year Malang received only 4 entries due to weather discrepencies. The participants were from Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences, Sri Aurobindo College [Evening], an inter – college duo of DDUC – KIIT and from the host college Sri Venkateshwara College itself. The competition only allowed filmy/non classical/ semi classical music and strictly classical music would not be encouraged. Due to weather restrictions the competition which was scheduled to start at 9 in the morning was postponed to 11 30 in the afternoon. The judges were, Mr. Avinash Kumar who is currently pursuing a Phd. in Music from the University of Delhi. He started learning Hindustani Classical Music from Ustad Aftab Ahmed Khan and is undergoing training from Pandit Tushar Dutta. He has won various awards including Madhubhasin Memorial Prize in 2008 and Mutatkar Award in 2010. There were two in house judges as well.

The first performance was by Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences. This duo sang their self composed song which won the hearts of the audience. Ultimately, they turned out to be the winners. We had the opportunity to talk with the duo after the results were announced. They were pretty happy and said, ” The organising of the event was good, the weather issues could be excused. The room had good acoustics and the crowd helped us alot” . Next up were, Sri Aurobindo College who sang their version of Rahat fateh Ali Khan’s- Sanu Ik Pal Chain Na Avey. The third act was the inter college duo, who sang a song from Murder 2 but were disqualified , because their song exceeded the time limit. The last act was form Sri Venkateshwara College and they sang ” Hum to aise hai Bhaiya”.

Another unnoficial duo from the host college who sang “Madari” , the coke studio composition by Vishal Dadlani and Sonu Kakkar with precision. The event ended after this song and the results were declared. The first prize was Rs 2000 claimed by Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences.