Our official college fest 8th mile (which was returning after a 5 year hiatus...) was never an event which caught our imagination. Rumors were abound about fund shortages, bad publicity among local colleges. The scheduling of the events was horrendous to say the least (51 events in 2 days...).Some of the reactions from RVCE dudes...
The snooty Deb Soc dude:" Bah, i dont really care about the fest. But belting NLSIU in Parliamentary Deb. will be nice..."(drools at the thought...)
The Northie hostelite (and forced volunteer) :"Plz buy the fest t-shirt otherwise seniors hame uDaadenge.."
Arbit 9+ pointer:" I would definitely look forward for the two day Robotics workshop (beams at the thought of building a line follower bot)...."
Lost in love macha:" I hope she turns up for the fest..."
Quiz corper to admin: "sir i need projector to conduct the gen quiz"
Admin:" Sell ten fest t-shirts and the projector is yours.."
Qc(to himself):" MC, BC, bloody i will put only peters..."
And somehow enthusiasm rubbed on to the others as the dates of the fest neared.
I enjoyed participating in many of the events and more so being a part of the audience. The events ranged from Ikebana to photography to short movie making to street play...
The fest ended with two concerts. One by world folk fusion music macha raghu dixit (which i missed unfortunately for i was busy beholding the short movie comp.).
The other was by Pravin Godkhindi, a familiar name if you watch Raaga Ranjini on Etv but to the uninitiated he is a second generation flautist in his family and his known for his command on the instrument and also for his pleasant fusion music.
He began the concert with the song Krishna which is also the name of the band. It was in raag Bhoop (mohana in Carnatic). A melodious simple raaga which brought about a sense of peace and goodness in the atmosphere. He later paused for a while to explain to the audience how to shout "Krishna", when the band played the crescendo part of the composition. He was amazed by our co-ordination. Later in an attempt to connect film music with classical raagas he played popular kannada hits composed in the same raga like "naa vaa duva nudiye kannada nudi"
Next he moved to Raag Bhimplas (closely resembles Abheri in Carnatic) where he played hits like, viraha nuuru nuuru taraha, gaganavu yello, tum hire-Criminal, Banna nanna olavina Banna, Gori tera roop..., Tu cheez badi hai-Mohra among others... and we never knew that these hits were based on something classical like Bhimplas...the rest of the band members gelled beautifully with him; anticipating his variations and sometimes providing their own!!
The last raaga was Mishra pahadi. He first demonstrated his skills with the instrument by playing out the sweet sounds of nature. The birds chirping, ripples of a nearby river.. I don't know about the audience but myself being a music aficionado this rendition certainly transported me to a different world altogether. He then resumed to playing popular hits in the same raga like tere mere hooton se, malgudi theme, Dooni saagali, Tum paas aaye-Kuch kuch hota hain, papa kehta hain, pardesi pardesi jaana nahin-raja hindustani...
He gelled very well with audience and proof is the fact that he made us all to write down the names of the famous tunes he played in a sheet of paper for a small prize in the end...
At the end he asked us all to pursue/listen to classical music now that they got a taste of it. It was a memorable evening. And getting his autograph was an icing on the cake.....
And thus the fest, like the big fat Indian wedding which would somehow transform from chaos on the brink to picture perfect, went to become a great success....
