What if – all fests were one?

Imagine the possibility, a highly unlikely one at that but one where you step past the weird gate to the Barn and witness something unusual. There are food stalls as usual, but the banners read of the most random bunch of sponsors ever, announcements of a dance solo at the EEE auditorium and a tech talk at the A13. Confused? But no time for that. Duty calls. On such a short notice,  merging a cultural and a technical extravaganza can leave one torn apart by the two different teams they are a part of. If you want to make matters worse, throw in the interdepartmental war.

Could it even be possible? There are many institutes that hold a joint fest. To us though, it would be quite an odd sight to mesh an exhibition of innovative projects and a workshop on how to mix mocktails under one roof. It would take many compromises, losses, and the downsizing of individual fests. There would be rules in place. The first rule would be you to not talk about fests the way we did. The words “Pragyan” and “Festember” are never to be referenced, and if the situation arises, the name may be referred to as – “you-know-that-fest” and “you-know-that-that-fest”. Secondly, only two guys to a fight. So forget about that department craze, because the visitors from outside might actually think we are all truly mental. As a cop-out, we are going to let NITTfest live on.  

For convenience, we could call it Fest X. It might as well be in the odd semester as the naming does give “you-know-that-that-fest” vibes. Considering it would still only be three and a half days, this would mean a drastic decrease in the number of events and workshops. The reduction of events would depend on the manpower, seeing how some would require the same organizers. The Orion can take only so many events, and robots shifting through lines, opening up the LHC could help. Workshops also happen at the Orion, to fit in everything – the schedule would be jam-packed. That would ultimately mean no delays – not very realistic. A cut here and there is a must. To decide on how many of the technical type or of the cultural type would be an argument. Our teams don’t work with the motto of “let’s get 10 guys down”, they work to bring in as many as possible. Working on a method to even out the two types coming down would be difficult, but doable. The crowd could increase, remain the same, or worst case decrease.

Also featuring Pritam strumming his guitar after a thought provoking lecture by a Nobel laureate, to strike a balance between the polar opposites is a challenge. Would we brand ourselves part cultural and part technical? In fact, it might actually be better not to entirely change what we call the fest. A change in name could result in the loss of brand value each of our fests hold. The drama of deciding which name we would pick, crazy it would be – and hence would it influence what we focus on – the cultural or the technical?

Would we break the monotony or break into fractals?

What a weekend that would make for – exhausting, confusing, and a break in the long tradition of our institute’s annual attractions. It would be advised to count backwards from a hundred, for this nightmare is over.

– Harshini Ramanujam