Youthopia 2008 - Talent wiith attitude
Ninety three colleges, vying for the coveted trophy. Ten gripping events spread over eight action-packed days. Combine the two and you get a cultural extravaganza – Youthopia.
The first edition of this cultural fest, which kicked off on 16th January, is being held at Wadia College in Pune, thanks to the efforts of ‘Sakal’ newspaper (a Marathi daily) and ‘Mudra’ Foundation (a young environment-friendly NGO which adopts villages). Way to go guys! Even though we are just half-way through the competition, I feel compelled to pen down (a.k.a. type) a report on the fest for its sheer magnitude (and it has nothing to do with the fact that my events are already over).
The organizers ensured transparency in the rules by conducting a General Secretaries’ Meet a couple of days before the event, wherein they answered all queries and cleared all doubts. I attended the meet in my capacity of being the Cultural Secretary of my college – what I liked best was that we were offered sandwiches there. Also handed out were rather attractive brochures depicting the events in a lucid fashion.
The reason why all the colleges are at each other’s throats – a competitive points system put in place, and the winner takes all (or at least, the gleaming trophy). At the moment AIT (my college! yeah!) is leading the pack with CME and COEP close at its heels. The events which have already reached completion are Debate and Mind Games, while the top teams each in Choreography, Western Music and Light Indian Music have been selected from the elimination rounds.
The events which are yet to take place include Photography, T-shirt painting, Antakshari, Rangoli and Mad Ads. Also worth a peek would be the ‘Masti Zone’ (tarting 21st) and the Kunal Gaanjewala show on the penultimate evening.
Day 1 The lineup on the first day was of Debate and Western Music. The Debate, christened as ‘Viewpoint’, was a grueling affair with contestants parrying and arguing their way through three rounds, before the debaters from COEP adjudged the winners. (I did participate in Debate, and my team made it to the semi-finals. Why didn’t we go further? I blame the judges ;)).
‘Mind Games’ also started off with its first round on the same day – an aptitude test ala CAT, yet much smaller. Teams which used their wits to qualify for the finals were in for a surprise the following day.
Day 3 The description for Mind Games was given as ‘Business Games’, but all the finalists were left perplexed when they were provided with blank pages, imperial sheets, a couple of sketch pens and a pencil. The task at hand – to make a newsletter covering Youthopia in four hours. The business-oriented minds soon got to work – writing, drawing and sketching in a completely alien playing field. It was a lot of fun though – plus they issued the participants with ‘Press’ I-cards, which most of the guys used as a means to talk to attractive gals (my teammate garnered a lot of phone numbers that way). The final result in Mind Games – AIT held the first two positions. (I normally like to be construed as modest, but I can’t resist letting it out of the bag that my team came up trumps here.)
Days three and four were set aside for the eliminations of Tap-Ur-Toes i.e. the Choreography competition. The scintillating performances got the audience in the groove for the perennial crowd-favourite. The hall was jam-packed with hardly any space to breathe, as the dancers performed near death-defying stunts, and swayed & shashayed in perfect synchronization (well at times the synchro wasn’t perfect, that’s what provided the lighter moments).
The first leg of Youthopia definitely had its share of thrills & spills. I now raise a toast in anticipation of an even more exhilarating second leg (Butter with yours?).
Comment
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Comment by Nilesh Bhonsale on February 16, 2008 at 3:28pm - Well just to add on to provide a common platform to the aspiring talent.....another objective of Sakaal - Youthopia is to give an opportunity to celebrate the sheer thought of being YOUNG......We are sure that in the times to come , Sakaal YOUTHOPIA will give lot of interactive opportunities to the youths to voice their say not necessarily only through curriculum but their overall atititude to be the future policy makers.
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Comment by Shweta Brijpuria on February 8, 2008 at 12:39pm - Youthopia is an effort to bring youth to a common platform and give them an opportunity to show their talent. Sakaal is soon coming up with Club Youthopia to let the fun going.
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