The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Culture, colour, country the theme of Saarang 2006

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 25, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Culture, colour, country the theme of Saarang 2006

Special Correspondent

IIT Madras' cultural festival begins with a classical music concert IIT Madras' annual festival begins with a classical music concert

VIOLIN DUET: Ganesh and Kumaresh, violinists perform at Saarang's inaugural concert at the IIT-Madras on Tuesday evening. — Photo: M. Vedhan

CHENNAI: When the curtains went up for this year's edition of `Saarang' on Tuesday evening with the Ganesh-Kumaresh classical music concert, the co-ordinators drove home the unofficial theme for this year's edition of the fest: colour, culture and country.

The mascot `Mayura - the peacock,' the national bird, symbolises the diverse colours of the country and its culture, as Rajesh Kumar Reddy, Cultural Secretary of Arts, explains.

"We decided to make `Saarang' as India-centric as possible this year," Hemanth Kumar, Cultural Secretary of Literary events adds. "We've included folks arts, puppetry and even classical dance as a part of the festival this time."

"Culture is different to everyone. For some it's music. For some, it's theatre. For some, it's dance, fine arts. Saarang is the place for everyone to come together and realise their individual self," says Hemanth.

Earlier in the evening, Rajiv Menon, chief guest for the inaugural function, struck a similar chord recalling his days at Kendriya Vidyalaya in IIT and his memories of `Mardi Gras' (as `Saarang' was called back then). The cultural festival was an influence in his life, he said. "Culture is not what you inherit from parents but from people around you," the filmmaker added.

Lauding the efforts of his students in putting together a festival of this scale, IIT-Madras director M.S. Ananth also asked visitors to take note of the speed restrictions inside the campus and take adequate care to preserve the wildlife around.

"In spite of the small changes that we insisted upon, the enthusiasm of the students is contagious, if not intoxicating for people like me, three times their age," V.G. Idichandy, Dean of Students, said. "It is the 16th year that I have been involved with organising the festival, the last three years as Dean. For the faculty, it is a time of headache and high blood pressure, but all of us are now trained to keep smiling in spite of what goes on within," he added.

"We got 1,350 registrations online and then we had to close registrations," says cultural secretary Rajesh, hoping that about 1,000 outstation students will show up during the festival, some of them from places as far as Chandigarh and Delhi. To ensure that students of different colleges get an opportunity to interact with each other at a closer level, the organisers this time, have put together a treasure hunt called `The Rush,' an group event that requires students of three different colleges to come together in teams of 10 each. `The Rush' will be held on January 29. To capture the essence of `Saarang' in print, the organisers will also bring out a daily newsletter, Repertoire Dogs, in the tabloid format.

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