Festival Diary

A clean job

The ‘sanitation army,’ constituted with the participation of 219 students in the Kozhikode South Assembly constituency, showed how waste could be managed effectively. They are engaged in on-the-spot trash collection. They are instrumental in maintaining cleanliness at the festival venues. Following a directive from the Kerala Sanitation Mission, they are also engaged in reminding people of the need to dispose waste properly.

On recording

Spectators recording events using mobile phones is a usual sight at most venues. At the Gujarati Hall, the venue of Kolkali (high school), volunteers had a hard time asking people not to record the performances, as per an instruction from the authorities concerned. The request was also made over the public address system but it fell on deaf ears. Parents argued that it was their right to record the performance of their children.

Rules for all

The city police have been very strict in enforcing parking rules from the start of the festival in the city. They blocked some of the link roads to prevent unauthorised parking and help pedestrians. They had stated that the rules would be applicable to police personnel too. But one could see private vehicles of some policemen occupying ‘no-parking’ spaces.

Novel experience

For Anusha Shankar, K. Parvathi, and Ardra Raj, first-year B.Com. students at Malabar Christian College, the festival is proving to be a novel experience. “We are part of the volunteer team from our college assigned duty at the dining hall,” says Parvathi. “We were supposed to be here tomorrow, but since there was a shortage of hands, we were asked to join today itself. We are glad we did, as it has been a great experience serving food to so many people,” she says. Parvathi used to compete in the folk dance event during her school days, while Anusha had contested in the light music event.

(Contributed by Mithosh Joseph, Aabha Anoop, and P.K. Ajith Kumar)