IIT Madras’ annual Saarang festival kick-started in the city earlier than usual (on January 9) allowing students to have fun before semesters begin. The five-day college cultural fest will play host to 50 events, 500 colleges with over 50,000 visitors expected this year. The ISO 9001:2008 certified, entirely student-run festival, this year, in association with the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), has launched Radio Frequency Identification (RF ID) bands that all visitors will be issued. Each participant will receive a personal barcode that will be their identity throughout the festival, with multiple functionalities that include automatic Facebook status updates.
While music events such as The Hindu NXG Rockstar and Decibels come with big prize money, literary events such as Cluedo, Crossie, Scrabble, and What’s The Good Word are also planned in the wordplay section of the festival. The India Spell Bee Finals will see the best of young spellers in the country battle it out for the top spot.
Saarang 2013 will also host 10 workshops in fields ranging from dance to story-telling to magic. The design fest is planned as a mini-festival in itself, comprising lectures, including one by the rupee-sign creator, besides one on fun caricature.
Choreo Night (January 10) will see a dance off between some of the best dance groups in the country with proceeds from this event going to charity. Sunburn Campus (January 10) will feature Dualist Inquiry and Asia’s youngest Disc Jockey, DJ Shaan. This event sees Sunburn come to Chennai for the first time. DJukebox is a new contest for school and college DJs and Saarang Eunoia is a tie-up with various NGOS for the cause of better nutrition, literacy, expression, and rural development. Students at Saarang this year will also attempt at a record for the Largest Mosaic out of Sticky Notes.
The Parikrama-NXG Night (January 11) will see a free performance by the band. The evening is also when the best bands from the NxG Rockstar preliminaries will battle it out for the top spot. The most famous of Saarang’s events, The Rock Show (January 12) features the British metal / rock band Anathema, while Saarang Popular Night (January 13) will host the musical trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. Stand-up comedy show by Evam is another free-for-all event.
