The best of the fests

students choice

Now that the year is drawing to a close, college students are getting nostalgic — 2012 has been hectic but satisfying for the students, especially the core-committee members of different institutes, who pitched in their best to ensure that the City witnessed some fabulous on-campus fests this year.

With programmes ranging from colourful cultural extravaganzas to fun events and slightly more serious competitions, these fests have drawn huge crowds of students from across the City.

Some of them have morphed from small-scale events to large get-togethers, with extensive footfall and plenty of participation. Metrolife speaks to a few students to find out which they feel were the best fests of the year.

Medha, a student of Dayananda Sagar Institutions, admits that one of her personal favourites was this year’s edition of Utsav, hosted by BMS College of Engineering.

This was the 25th time that the college is hosting Utsav and it was obviously one of the City’s more-popular events — apart from lots of competitions, there were also B-boying artistes at the programme, who kept the crowd on their feet.

“I loved Utsav 2012 because the events were very different from the competitions normally held at college fests. Some of the best colleges in Bangalore came to compete in them and because of this, the entire programme was very
entertaining and eventful,” says Medha.

Niroop, one of the organisers of Utsav, says that the trick to putting together a good fest is to tackle every little detail of the organisation, no matter how small.

“When we were working on Utsav, the students handled the entire affair — right from the sponsorship to organising the intricacies of the fest. Everyone put in effort to ensure it was a success.

We divided ourselves into small groups and made sure that each group was headed by someone — and that the head was answerable to others. The crowd at the fest was huge — a lot of students came in just to see the various events, even if they weren’t participating,” he says.

Chirag, a student of Ambedkar Medical College, feels that when it comes to medical fests, St John’s Medical College’s ‘Autumn Muse’ and his own institute’s annual affair, ‘Synapse’, are a cut above the rest.

In terms of the cultural fests, which have a wider audience, he feels that NLSIU’s much-talked-about ‘Strawberry Fields’ and IIM-Bangalore’s Unmaad
are definitely marked on most college students’ calenders.

“‘Strawberry Fields’ is famous in Bangalore’s music scene. A lot of brilliant talent is unearthed during the fest. And as for Unmaad 2012, I loved it because of the quality of the competitions that were held as part of it,” he explains.

Dhanush, a student of BMSCE, is very clear about the fests which he thought rocked the City’s campus scene.

“I think Jyoti Nivas College’s ‘Artemis’, Mount Carmel College’s ‘Cul-Ah’ and Christ College’s ‘Crescendo’ were particularly good,” he shares.After speaking to students from various colleges, Metrolife has compiled the list of the top ten fests.