VOL 3 (2018)
BITACORA
Annual Lit Fest 2018 - Participatory Cultures 2 – 6 April, 2018
Do you know what‘s better than a Literary Fest? A week long Literary Fest and that‘s exactly what we did this year! We started with the Life Writing creative writing competition on the 2nd of April, inviting people to pen down any aspect of life- theirs or someone else‘s. As around twenty six writers huddled together in the Arts Quad, multiple sheets were asked for, lines written and re-written, and it seemed that we had finally found the time to pour our heart out about this puzzle called life. On the same day, we had the Literary Quiz. The Seminar Hall boomed with the sound of buzzers and hands shot up with the speed of lightning only to win the quiz on comics! After 3 rounds of multiple questions (including aural and visual ones), we found out that Harsh Digwasia, Mohit Verma, Bhumuka Arya and Neha Goyal had mastered the world of comics, as they stood first and second respectively - taking their prize money to buy more comics perhaps! Putting a twist on our favourite childhood game of dumb charades, we organized a Literary Dumb Charades event this year on the 4th of April. The event attracted students in considerable numbers, making for 6 teams who trusted their sign language enough to enact and guess book titles and movie adaptations pertaining to literature. Each round was dedicated to different categories like pop culture, canonical texts, women-centric novels and children‘s fiction. As the difficulty level rose so did the not-so-quiet whisperings, and the pace of the game quickened. The twist of fate was such that at the end of the 3rd round, four teams found themselves in a tie - calling for a rather unexpected option- a second round! And just like that, the day of the main event arrived. To say that people arrived in big numbers is one thing but to say that people arrived equally mad would mean that our Mad Hatter‟s Tea Party was a success. And that‘s exactly what happened: Cat-Woman, Matilda, Frankenstein, Samantha Jones (two of them), Lady Macbeth and L from Death Note amongst others sat down to have tea and biscuits with the Mad Hatter. It was a whacky morning with an even whackier audience who participated in the madness, kicking off our Annual Lit Fest 2018 with a great start. The madness continued as we tried to settle the Literary Dumb Charades dispute in its second round. As it turns out, the English Department of our college has some really witty guessers. All three years won – with the eldest, the third years, standing first, and the first and second years settling for a tie. After the many games and hoorahs, it was time to lend our ears to Ms. Mridula Koshy. Dr. Anjana Neira Dev chaired the event. Ms. Koshy delved into the working of her community library Deepalaya, her journey with the help of other professionals, the joyful toil of providing the amenities, her famous story of Tushar published in The Caravan, and her favourite books. Answering the many questions on how one can help out at her organisation, Ms. Koshy provided us with internship details at her library and emphasised the need to spread the roots of the library to all sections of the community and make knowledge more accessible. We met members of Feminism in India, who enlightened us about ‗gender ethical reportage‘. Over the course of the workshop, we looked at problematic headlines and news pieces and recreated them in a more inclusive and ethical manner. Talk about taking matters into our own hands! Post a hearty lunch, we sat down for yet another inspiring session with India‘s first graphic artist Orijit Sen and acclaimed journalist Neha Dixit; the session was chaired by Dr. Aneeta Rajendran. Both discussants talked about how art is socially transformative and gave us a glimpse of their work and projects. As it turns out, our speakers had also collaborated on a project, a graphic
65
