Weekly Blog #10
Last week, from August 28th to 30th, our college’s English Department held its second installation of Vividha, our very own literature fest. Our theme this year was Revisiting Classics. On these three days, we organized multiple events, competitions and workshops for the students of our department, other colleges in Bangalore and the Japanese students who joined us as part of the exchange program.
Day 1 started traditionally. First, we had our Inaugural Ceremony where our Chief Guest Mr. Rajaram declared Vividha 2024 open, along with a few motivating words. Then began our first event: a Session on Art and Stories by Apupen, a graphic comic artist. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the event as I was busy helping my friends (who were event heads for the songwriting competition) by taking pictures as part of the media team for Vividha. However, I was lucky to take part in the Zine Making workshop. This has to be my favourite part of Vividha for sure. It was a fun event, and we had three different activities in total. The first one was a trio activity where we created a new character. In the second one, we wrote a six-word story, and in the last one, we made our zines with a personal story.
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Day 2 was quite a busy day for me. I was now officially a part of the media team and there was a lot of running around the college campus taking pictures of the decorations and events. First, we had a Poetry Writing Workshop by Pratibha Nandakumar, where we learned about spoken poetry and watched a few videos about it. A student panel was also conducted, and students spoke about their experiences and opinions on classic works of literature. We also had a lecture on Revisiting Classic Literature by Dr. Cherian Alexander, who happened to be the one who taught literature to the English professors in our department. The highlight of this day, however, was watching A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed by Hashmi, our college’s very own theatre club. Honestly, I walked into Loyola Hall with very little expectations from the play. To my surprise, the play turned out to be beautiful. The sets, the costumes, the dialogue deliveries; the totality of the play did not disappoint.
Unlike the second day, Day 3 was much laid back and easy-going. I did not have much of the media work either. We attended a public lecture by Meena Kandasamy, where she spoke about feminist, decolonial and anti-caste perspectives in classic Indian literature. Our fest came to an end with the Valedictory Ceremony, and a few group pictures.
Preparing for Vividha was a tiresome experience. We put in our blood, sweat and tears to put together every minute aspect necessary to make Vividha, well Vividha. Whether I was working as a part of the graphic team or the decor team, I would always have a voice in my head asking when this fest and all its work would come to an end. But now that it’s done, it has gone past so quickly and smoothly in the blink of an eye. Now the future awaits us in the upcoming two years, where we take the responsibility to keep Vividha’s torch burning bright.
