Festember - WikiHQ

Festember is a cultural festival organised at National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli (NITT). It is a 4-day event held annually in the third week of September. It was first incepted in 1975 by then students of NITT, and has now evolved to be one of the largest cultural festivals organised by a student community in Southern India. With humble beginnings as a fest with zero rupee budget allocation, it grew rapidly with sponsorships and collaborations. It now boasts an annual participation of more than 15,000 students from over 500 collegiate student communities across India.

History

Festember began in 1975 as an intra-college fest. Within a few years, it transformed into a fully-fledged inter-college event. Almost 40 years later, it continues to dominate the south Indian college cultural scene, winning the title of Best Cultural Event of the Year, an award given by the Tamil Nadu State Government, in the year 2005.

Since the first Festember in 1975, participating colleges compete to win possession of the Festember Rolling Trophy (called the Ilayaraja Trophy). Several celebrities and dignitaries have graced the festival, including Illaiyaraja, Javed Ali, Naresh Iyer, Anuradha Sriram and Ganesh and Kumaresh amongst others.

'Festember', a term coined by one of the then REC-T students, stands for a "Fest to Remember". It started as a zero budget fest, in a little town called Thuvakudi, and every department of the college pitched in within the area of their expertise. For the first editions, design and ambience were overseen by the Architecture Department. The shields and medals were forged in the workshops of the Mechanical Engineering department.

The college that gets the most points across several events wins the Festember Rolling Trophy. The Rolling Trophy was originally named the "Ilayaraja Trophy" after the maestro himself performed at Festember in 1978. The Festember' X Rolling Trophy was won by Vellore Institute of Technology, while the Festember '11 Rolling Trophy was won by Sastra University. Sastra University won it again in 2012, and managed to maintain their streak for nine consecutive years, until 2019.

Festember '12 and '13 saw the ProShows being conducted in a temporary open-air theatre, a first for Trichy. Festember '14 was the first edition to host the ProShows in a newly constructed open-air theatre, named the Golden Jubilee Convention Hall (GJCH), with a capacity of more than 5,000 people. Festember '15 introduced the Indie stage for the first time, while Festember 16' saw a new addition in the name of Culture Gully where a couple of informal events were held. In 2017, the official Festember Blog was launched on Medium, serving as a gateway for the creative outlet that Festember strives for.

Themes

Festember has explored a myriad of themes since its inception in 1975. The organizers have gone to great lengths to express and showcase the theme through ambience and theme-specific events. Mascots each year have also been designed and adapted to communicate the theme.

{| class="wikitable"

! Year !! Theme !! Tagline

Guest lectures

|2020

|Fantasy Realm

| -

|CelebritySchool, LensFit, Fever 104 FM, Radio One (India), Film Companion, DHL, Bank of Baroda

|Rajhesh Vaidhya, Vijay Yesudas, Shilpa Rao, Mali, Stephen Devassy, Naveen Richard

|Sanjay Pinto, Shweta Mohan,

Ganesh Venkatraman, Ehsaan Noorani,

Haricharan, Nikhita Gandhi,

Jaaved Jaaferi, Harun Robert

|2019

|Cinema Paradiso

|Relive the Reel

|JioSaavn, City Union Bank

|Karthik Iyer, Masala Coffee, Benny Dayal, WACX

|Anu Hasan, Naresh Iyer

|2018

|An Arabian Odyssey

| -

|British Council (Title Sponsor), City Union Bank

|Sunidhi Chauhan, Pineapple Express, Skrat, Switcheroo, DJ Sabrina Terence

|P. Vasu ,

Ashwin Sanghi ,

Nithya Menen ,

Aruna Sairam ,

Karthik ,

Karan Arjun Singh,

Shakthisree Gopalan

|2017

|The Orient

|Rise and Rave

|OnePlus (Title Sponsor), Maruti Suzuki Colors of Youth, City Union Bank

|The Non-Violinist Project, DJ Shaan, Red Bull Tour Bus featuring RJD and Thermal and a Quarter, Amit Trivedi

|Srinivas,

Jonty Rhodes,

Baradwaj Rangan,

Michael Karp

|2016

|Cultural Syncretism

|Bond Boundlessly

|City Union Bank (Title Sponsor), Coke Studio (India), MAK Lubricants

|Guns n Hoses, Ambi Subramaniam, Bindu Subramaniam, Sachin–Jigar, Aceaxe

|Sid Sriram,

Mahesh Dattani,

Suresh Triveni,

S. Sowmya,

Pratap Pothen,

Sean D’Mello (Pages)

|2015

|Les Automatistes

|Break the Monotony

|Paragon (title sponsor), The Times of India, Luvit, Coca-Cola

|Rukmini Vijayakumar, Kash Trivedi, Alvar and Millas, Mushroom Lake, The Family Cheese, The Black Letters, Skrat, Shakthisree Gopalan, Pritam Chakraborty, Abhijeet Sawant, Antara Mitra, Nakash Aziz, Aditi Singh Sharma

|Prashant Bhushan,

Harish Iyer,

Anita Ratnam,

Unni Krishnan

| 2014 ||Hawaii||Ride the Hawaiian Tide

| ||Vishal–Shekhar, Candice Redding, Karthick Iyer, Avial, Shakthisree Gopalan

|Jatin Das,

Parthiv Shah,

Ananda Shankar Jayant,

Kaneez Surka,

Alicia Souza,

Anu Sridharan

| 2013 ||Halloween||Be There But Beware

|Adobe (Title sponsor), Hero, Nimbuzz, Celkon mobiles Unlike its contemporaries, there is no separate competition for Eastern and Western. Any style of dance is allowed, any kind of music is allowed. With its graceful moves and wild leaps, ChoreoNite garners a huge audience and is one of the most visited events of Festember.

Music

Shruthilaya

Shruthilaya is a classical music competition for vocals and instrumentals. The stage has heard innumerable high-level musical masterpieces in the past. Participation is highly selective with limited entries allowed to take part. The uniqueness of Shruthilaya lies in its Carnatic Quiz, which represents a touch of the avant-garde.

Tarangini

Tarangini, the singing competition of Festember, regularly attracts droves of budding artists, who bring the audience to life with their peppy, feet-tapping playlists of Tamil and Hindi songs.

Fashion

Fashionitas

The pioneering Fashion Event of Trichy City. 'Fashionitas' was introduced in the 2012 edition of Festember as an Individual Event, offering the highest Cash Prize for an individual Event in Festember. It has since grown on to become a team event, with various fashion teams from all over the country gathering to showcase their own designs on their models.

Another event called Mr and Ms Festember also started for individuals to showcase their personality, ramp walk and talents, similar to the format of a beauty pageant.

Picturesque

As an online event, Picturesque targets the participants ability to work around a camera, the lighting and modelling itself as an art in the digital space. With lucrative cash awards, it continues to be one of the most participated in events of Festember.

Cinematography

Take-One

Take-One is the short-movie making competition of Festember. Movies with any theme or genre are permitted, with a duration of up to ten minutes. With eminent judges from the movie industry and themes ranging from fantasy to social messages, Take-One remains the viewer's delight.

Dramatics

Theatrix

Every year, the Thespians' society of NIT-Trichy organize "Theatrix", a 45-minute dramatics competition. Original scripts, pre-written scripts and adaptations are permitted, however, the play should not have been staged at any earlier Festember festival. With major participation from all the big colleges, audiences witness some chilling performances in front of the spotlight.

Artistic events

Dominoes

Teams have to arrange their dominoes within a one-metre square area marked on the floor. At the end of the competition, no domino is allowed to cross the perimeter and the most impressive arrangement wins the prize.

Chisel The Climax

A story is given to each team. Based on this description, the participants need to sketch the ending to the story prompt given. Judging is based on how interesting the painting turns out to be, how much it fits to the given prompt, and also on their artistic skill.

Graffiti

Graffiti painting competition, where the topic will be given on the spot and all necessary materials will be provided. Judging is based on degree of adherence to the theme, creativity, style, usage of the space provided and artistic quality.

Literary Events

Around 40 literary events take place each year in the Tamil, English and Hindi Lits categories. These events generally witness the most number of participants who battle it out to win with their quick-wittedness.

English Lits

Around thirteen literary events, based on the English language are conducted each year. They include regularly known events like quizzes, debates, Just A Minute speech, Dumb Charades etc., Crossword etc., while also hosting new and innovative versions of the same, like themed Quiz events or What's The Good Word, a contest based around vocabulary, pattern matching and speed.

Tamil Lits

Fourteen literary events consisting of crowd-favourites like Kalakkal Galatta, Sakalakala Attam, Uyarthini Semmozhi, etc. bring out the importance and pride of the Tamil language. A new online event called Tamil Labyrinth was also recently introduced. DG Vaishnav, Kumaraguru, MEPCO, JJCET, Sastra, SRM and EBET have regularly topped these events in the past.

Hindi Lits

Rochak Mantrana, Vaad Vivaad, Antakshari, De Dana Dan, Halka Fulka and Taatkalik Bhashan are just a few of the thirteen-odd Hindi literary events conducted. IITM, VIT and SRM have been proven to be the best to date.

Workshops

Workshops form the soul of Festember. Every year, around 5 to 6 workshops are conducted on topics ranging from areas as diverse as Fencing to Glassblowing, and they are a huge crowd-puller. They last for a few hours, giving participants a basic understanding of the topic, and still allowing them time to enjoy the other festivities. The themes for the workshops are kept as unique as possible so that every student gets a chance to learn something new each year.

{| class="wikitable"

! 2008 !! 2009 !! 2010 !! 2011 !! 2012 !! 2013 !! 2014!! 2015 !! 2016

!2017

!2018

!2019

!2020

| Photography || Archery || Photography || Break Dance Solo || Beat Boxing || Hip hop || Screenplay Writing

|DJ || Kendo

|Handwriting Analysis

|The Melting Words

|Visual Effects

|Perspective Drawing

| Crossword Solving || Cartooning || Ventriloquism || Fencing || Skateboarding ||Tango||Pyrography

|Caricature ||Mocktail Making

|Aikido

|Glass Blowing

|Wildlife Photography

|Art Direction

| Creative Writing|| Independent Film-Making || Photo Gene || Flair Bartending || Popping || Archery || Pottery

|Sound Design || Graffiti

|Magic

|Capoeira

|Freestyle Football

|Chess

| Western Dance || Hypnotism || Dance|| Jive || Salsa || Glassblowing ||Latin Fusion Salsa

|Crime Scene Investigation ||Mind Reading

|One Stroke Art

|Parkour

|Charcoal Drawing

|Magic and Mentalism

| Overall Styling ||Dance ||DJ || Illusions || Frisbee || Photography || Parkour

|Lyrical Hip Hop||Slacklining

|Nunchaku

|Standup Comedy

|Pointillism

|Pen Mandala

|Theatrics

|Magic

|Rifle Shooting

|Freestyle Football ||Card Throwing

|Hypnotism

|Boomerang

|Fencing

|Mini Golf

|Salsa

|Beatboxing

|Solo Dance

|Ventriloquism

|Electronic Dance Music

|Old School Hip Hop

|Ventriloquism

|Theatrics

|Clay Modelling

|Paint Pouring

|Beatboxing

|Bassed on Rhythm

|Fencing

|Roller Skating

|Couple Dance

|Cardistry

|Locking

|Boxing

|Light Painting

|Lyrical hip-hop

|Argentine Tango

|Hip hop

|Yoyo

|Salsa

|Micro Art

|Tango

|Juggling

Outreach Events

In an attempt to spread the name of Festember far and wide across the nation and increase its reach, Festember conducts several themed outreach events in collaboration with several corporations and locations, to provide a platform to those deserving of it. Some of these events include.

Rolling Reels International Film Festival

Rolling Reels International Film Festival is an integral part of Festember. Started in the year 2015, receiving international stature in 2020 as one of the outreaches of Festember, RRIFF is a short film festival that looks to find young talent from the many film makes in India- a platform for young film industry aspirers to make their presence known. It is a two-day cinematic extravaganza with several workshops sure to enthrall young film makers and actors who will get to interact with experts in the industry which is sure to help them hone their skills and talents.

RRFF 2015, the first edition, was held in Hyderabad at Kollywood actor's Nagarjuna's studio Annapoorna Film Studios, attended by directors Balaji Mohan, Madhumitha and many others. The presence of actress Amala Akkineni made the fest more memorable. This edition of RRFF also had the association with Thoongavanam, a film starring Kamal Haasan.

RRFF 2016, held in Chennai at BOFTA was an even bigger success. With over 250 entries from across the globe, the movies were judged by the late Biren Das Sharma, Professor, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata. This edition had an art direction workshop conducted by T.Ramalingam of Kabali fame and a guest lecture by actor and director Prathap Pothen.

RRFF 2018 took place in Chennai and was judged by Ashwin Saravanan and the veteran directors N. Lingusamy and Mohan Raja.

RRIFF 2020 introduced a new international category for films, with films from over 20 countries, being judged by Oscar-nominated Tomm Moore. The panel discussion on OTT vs traditional film platforms also received high acclaim due to the names associated with KC Anand, Anthony Gonsalez, Arun Chidambaram and Dilip Kumar, along with Nikki Galrani organising an enthralling live show.

Gigahertz

Gigahertz is a semi-pro rock band that draws enormous crowds and provides a great opportunity for Festember to spread its wings beyond Trichy. Preliminary rounds of Gigahertz take place in Chennai and Bangalore every year.

Festember Football League

Festember Football League is a new addition to the outreach events, having started only in 2017. It sets an arena for quick-paced five-a-side matches with rolling subs, set up in a knockout tournament style. It takes place in Bangalore and Chennai.

left|thumb|FSR LogoFestember Social Responsibility (FSR) is the social responsibility wing of Festember. Since its inception in 2012, FSR has embarked upon various endeavours to benefit the masses through many events known for their creative names. Due to the efforts of a group of hardworking and inspired students, FSR has managed to go beyond the college boundaries to various orphanages, schools, and cities. The flagship initiatives of FSR are:

Gold Dustbin

right|thumb|The FSR team at Synthika Trust The Gold Dustbin event, usually held at the end of the academic year, is the first event in the FSR calendar. Student volunteers collect items from hostels on campus, and after thorough segregation, these items are sold. The money acquired by selling these items is used to organize the ‘Gift a Birthday’ event at the Synthika Trust in Lalgudi, Trichy. In 2015, the money generated from this event was used to set up a library in the REC Middle School in an event called 'Pages'.

Pages

Pages was social responsibility outreach conducted by Festember in Chettinad Vidyashram School on 2 September 2016 in association with the NGO Teach for India and popular children's magazine Tinkle. Pages is primarily a book collection drive where school students, teachers contribute books which would go as proceeds to Teach for India to educate children in rural India. The event was launched with the sub-editor of Tinkle, Sean D'Mello, as the chief guest who later conducted a small workshop with the school students focusing on story writing.

For the 2019 edition of Pages, which took place on the 12th of September, students of Star School at Karur donated over 2200 books that helped us set libraries in North Gandhigramam School at Karur and St. Joseph School at Ayyampatti. Apart from that, a quiz competition and a Poster designing competition were conducted on themes of sustainable development for the students of classes 4-5 and 6-8 respectively.

Young Astronomer Talent Search

A small step towards this was the Young Astronomers Talent Search organized by Festember Social Responsibility at St Johns Vestry Anglo Indian High School in association with Tata Steel and Space Kids. A diverse array of events such as model exhibits, essay writing, word games, role play and debate were conducted. Students set up astronomy models centred on the work done by ISRO for the exhibits. Each contest had two categories for students of standard 6 to 8 and standard 8 to 10. An initiative to promote awareness of astronomy among students and tribute A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's an indisputable contribution to the field.

Cancer Awareness Month

Festember took up several initiatives to spread awareness about cancer and to raise funds for cancer victims. A breast cancer awareness session was conducted on the campus by specialists from Harshamitra Super Specialty Cancer Centre in Trichy. Festember also joined the No Shave November moment, where volunteers were asked to give up shaving for a month and donate the amount typically spent for that purpose. The amount collected was a big sum of Rs 20,000, and it was collected from over 1,000 participants. The money collected was donated to the Indian Prostate Cancer Foundation, an organisation dedicated to raising awareness of Prostate cancer in men. The money was then used to conduct a screening session for Armed Force veterans.

Paperback

The Paperback initiative of FSR aims at reducing paper wastage. This event involved students actively volunteering to give their unused exam answer sheets, which would otherwise go waste. The collected sheets were reused in various Festember events. Also, the team didn't restrict themselves to the fest and took a step forward to serve society. Booklets were made from the remaining sheets and distributed to Illuminate; a government certified charitable trust that aims at developing the lives of the children of the marginalized communities. This Paperback initiative is unique and a true realization of FSR's goal to create ripples of change throughout the year and for the years to come.

Peace Rally

The "Walk For Peace" event conceived with the idea of taking the message "Individual peace contributes to world peace" was organized by Heartfulness Meditation Organization (USA). The event started with HFN relaxation to the participants and followed up with a rally through the artery of the city with high visibility. With support from the corporation of Tiruchirappalli, the event was a grand success with over 600 participants.

Play

With the idea of reviving the lost art form of Street Play or "Therukoothu", Festember Social Responsibility visited two schools in Tiruchirapalli – Kamakoti Vidyalaya and Bishop Heber Higher secondary school during the week before Festember. In true "therukoothu" style, the team brought out the importance of physical activity for children of the current generation, complete with meaningful songs, relatable characters, and humorous wordplay.

Metrole

right|thumb|The FSR team during the Metrole rally in [[Trichy]]In 2013, in an attempt to increase awareness about social issues in the area of a large audience, the FSR team headed to Trichy and commenced Metrole. They marched on the streets of Trichy and conducted a rally to educate the masses about the depreciation of the Indian rupee, and what the common man could do to alleviate the problem. During the course of the rally, impromptu street plays were held, focusing on related issues like Brain drain, Gold Trade, buying foreign products against indigenous products, etc.

Early Ember

For the 2019 edition of Festember, the FSR team visited the nearby REC Middle School and St. Joseph's School Ayyampatti to spend a fun-filled day with the students. The students were taught beatboxing through workshops, played games and conducted a talent show. The motive was to inculcate an idea of Festember and its fun in the kids. It provided a delightful start for Festember 2019.

Aashi

Aashi is a social drive conducted by the Festember Social Responsibility Team to promote awareness about the daily routines of people who are differently-abled. In its first edition in 2017, 50 volunteers brought smiles and laugh to the gifted students at Vidivelli Special School in Trichy during the Autistic awareness month of April. The second edition of Aashi invited volunteers to spend a morning with the strong-willed women at the rehabilitation centre for blind women, Mannapuram, Trichy. The drive succeeded in instilling the courage to face challenges in all the participants.

Channelled Clarity towards Charity

Channelled Clarity towards Charity is an inter-school event conducted each year at various schools in different cities by the Festember Social Responsibility Team. In 2017 the event was held at SBOA, Chennai and in 2018 it was hosted by the Akara World School. The competitions range from literary events to poster making and many more. A nominal registration fee is collected from each participant and the accumulated amount is directed to charities to help the blind, handicapped and people in all walks of life. This drive brings together a variety of students and gives them a platform to compete and challenge as well as nurture their social calling.

In the 2020 edition of CCC, students from participating schools took part in seven activities, and the proceeds collected were donated to CRY (Child Rights and You), which works towards providing education to the underprivileged. This drive brings together a variety of students and gives them a platform to compete and challenge as well as nurture their social calling.

Earth Hour

On 30 March 2019, the Festember Social Responsibility Team organised a drive to rekindle connections with the Earth. An enumerate number of people, ranging from students to professors joined the event. They were allowed to walk through moon-lit paths while all their gadgets were turned off. The ground was made bright by the glow of the wristbands that were provided to all the participants. A star-gazing session was also organised at the NSO ground of NIT Trichy towards the end.

References

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/fun-and-frolic-abound-at-festember12/article3960308.ece

External links

festember.com
NIT Trichy, Festember