Month in Review: January 2020
Written on February 6th, 2020 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}January was quite an eventful month, in terms of campus life and college activities. As soon as students came back from their long and much needed winter break, a line of events kept them preoccupied throughout the month.
Read on to recap our “Journey through January”.
Verba Maximus 2020 - Literary Fest
(January 18-19)
To kick-off the semester's fests, we had Verba Maximus 2020 in the third weekend of the month. This year's theme was Twisted Tales which aimed to explore a different take on classic stories and fables.
No fairytale is complete without its larger-than-life characters and this VM had a fair share of famous personalities on campus. Megha Rao, an extremely popular poet was invited to judge VM Slam and entranced the audience with her own performance after the finals. The classic Comedy Night was headed by Varun Thakur who had the audience in peals of laughter throughout his show. To top it all off, the morning of the second day included a flagship workshop conducted by Terribly Tiny Tales, the iconic microfiction platform that has a permanent presence on all our feeds. The workshop was taken by the Chief Curator of TTT, Joel Thottan and attracted many talented writers. (interview with Joel Thottan here)
However, this year did see a noticable decrease in the footfall of participants from outside the college. When asked about this, ELAS Secretary, Mohammed Burk justified the drop due to many colleges in and around Hyderabad having their exams during the same period.
One factor that did set VM apart this year, not only from its predecessors but from the other fests on campus were the completely new food stalls. While some mourned the loss of (affordable) favourites, like the Frankie Stall, others relished the novel choices.
Despite the twists and turns, the fest was largely successful and was an enjoyable experience for everyone involved.
ARENA 2020 - Sports Fest
(January 23-26)
The immense efforts put in by all the departments made Arena 2020 a massive success. The Sports fest left the students with countless memories: some sweet, some bitter. This year, the BPHC Boys' Football A team made us proud, bagging a gold. The Girl’s Football team also managed to grab the second position after they lost a gut-wrenching final during penalties. The tennis and basketball girls’ teams also ended up as the first runners up as they lost in a nail-biting, neck tight finals.
This year, some unexpected events also took place which showcased the lack of sportsmanship in the BITSians during the football match which manifested in slight tensions. During the finals as well, the crowds were shouting support for BPHC from the sidelines which haf the effect of unnerving the opposing goalkeeper. Although there was a gap between the fellow teams, nothing serious happened that might have resulted in any quick decisions from the administration.
Sports apart, the students also enjoyed the food stalls on all four days. On Saturday night, the students grooved to the EDM and BDM night, although many were exhausted after their matches and didn’t show up. The prize distribution on Sunday evening pleasantly concluded Arena 2020.
Find out more about ARENA - 2020 here, in this article covering the football and frisbee matches.
CELEBRATIONS ON CAMPUS
DJ Night: The Light and Sound Department hosted a DJ night on 11th, right after the movie screening, at Stage 2. The songs played were mostly Bollywood with a little bit of English music mixed, and people grooved to the catchy music until the very end. The whole ground revved with energy.
Lohri: Celebrated to mark the end of winter and the arrival of spring, Lohri is one of the most important festivals of Punjab. Our campus celebrated this festival with a night full of music, dance and lots of other fun events. Starting off with the traditional bonfire, the night proceeded with an energetic performance by the Bhangra Society, followed by a bunch of fun competitions, like ethnic clothing ramp walk and Mr Beard. At the end, people danced to the DJ's beats as popular Punjabi songs filled the air.
Republic Day: The Republic Day celebrations, which was preceded by the 1.7 and 3.4 km marathon, began with the unfurling of the national flag by the Prof. S P Regella, followed by songs and recitals commemorating the spirit of the very Constitution which was brought into effect on this day, 70 years ago.
Sankranti: With Pongal notably being South India's biggest festival, all the students and faculty with southern culture in their veins gathered in front of Stage 2 on the morning of January 15th. Sugarcanes were erected, kolams (rangoli) were drawn and sweet pongal was cooked as the 100+ gathering enjoyed their brethren's company. People also turned up in huge numbers to fly kites on the football ground. Immense participation was also seen for the Bhogi fires, Rangoli competition, Kite flying, other fun events (like treasure hunt and water chugging competition) and "Sankranti Lunch" organised by the Telugu committee Brindavanam. People participated in huge numbers with immense enthusiasm. The water chugging competition gathered everyone making Sankranti more fun and memorable. Brindavanam also arranged for the special Sankranti Bojanam which brought back the traditional taste to campus. Post afternoon was when the Tamil Sangam rose up to the occasion, featuring a special Tamil lunch. With items familiar to the South Indians served on a banana leaf, the guests were nostalgically transported to a Tamil wedding, with students voluntarily being caterers to accommodate the students’ eagerness to have a scrumptious lunch. The day was wrapped up with a screening of the Tamil blockbuster 'Kaithi' screened in F103 6pm.
CRUx TALK
The 24th of January saw Pranav Ramaroa, a 2011 batch alumnus pay a visit to campus to share some of his knowledge with regards on how to go about college as a Computer Science student. He started off by walking us through his years in college, from working towards building a solid CGPA in his first year, to getting selected for GSoC in his fourth.
The talk was crisp and to the point and addressed a lot of pertinent questions that are common amongst a wide range of students: such as the importance of CGPA, what projects to work on, perks of higher studies, importance of competitive coding and how to crack job interviews.
After tackling all these CS specific questions, he took a more general route, emphasising on how important it is to stay motivated, enthusiastic and healthy (physically and mentally) throughout one's college life.
MENTAL HEALTH TALK
An invigorating talk centred on the topic of Mental Health was organized by the Rotaract Club. The talk was presented by Dr. Swetha from the "Pause for Perception" team. In a span of 45 minutes, she covered topics like anxiety, depression, methods of counselling and general well-being. In this interactive session, she explained the nuances that differentiate depression from sadness, the difference between being worried and having anxiety. She took examples from her daily life and tried to draw parallels as to what is healthy behaviour and what isn't. According to her, an increase in substance abuse could be an indicator of degrading mental health. Overall, it was a much-needed informative talk which the campus would benefit from on a regular basis.
WIGH (Winter Institute in Global Health)
In today's fast paced world, people often overlook the significance and importance of health. To help shed light on its importance, the department of biological sciences of BPHC organized a 10-day International Winter Institute of Global Health from 8th to 17th of January. All medical students, faculty, professionals, etc., had the opportunity to receive intense learning experience under a tutelage of diverse multidisciplinary team of instructors, including US and Indian experts from premier institutes to understand the challenges of a fast globalizing world and the vitality of health amongst this. WIGH was very impactful in creating a cultural change and ushering in a new wave of a practically prepared set of medical personnel.
MOVIE SCREENINGS
The first month of 2020 was busy with movie screening of numerous sensational movies, few of which include Bala and Commando 3, which garnered a lot of appreciation by students, especially because these weren’t just hyped up films, they were message oriented. Brindavanam, the regional association for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, organised a screening for the recently released Telugu movie Ala Vaikuntapuram lo. Thanks to the availability of subtitles, everyone could watch and enjoy the movie, and the room reverberated with screams and whistles for almost every scene.
Movie slumber party which was held during Verba Maximus screened movies like Ford v Ferrari, joker, Irishman, Evaru and Soni gathered a lot of students for their favourite genre. The students thoroughly adored the screening, although there were some setbacks in the audio system, which created a bit of malaise for the students. Nonetheless, the atmosphere was magnificent as it can only be created during college screening. All in all, the month of January was a fun filled month in terms of movies.
All in all, it was a great way to kickstart the new semester, and year!
Stay tuned for the roller-coaster ride through February.
Compiled by Shreya Guda and Akshita Reddy. Design by Venkata Tharun Gangula.