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Students take part in the love letter writing competition at the Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College on Wednesday. Picture by Biplab Basak
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March 20: The Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College has found its inspiration for the fest’s love-letter writing contest from where else, but its alumni.
Old Crush, New Flame was the love letter-writing theme given to 65 current students who today participated at JECLAT, held in association with t2.
The organisers hit upon the idea after the reunion of the college alumni on March 16, when many an ex-student reminisced about an old crush.
“During the reunion, a number of former students who are engineers and are well-settled, recalled their old flame and relationships on campus. In many cases, these relationships did not culminate in marriage,” said one of the organisers who did not want to be named.
The students who took part in the contest said it was a different kind of experience. Of course, hardly anyone writes letters now. They write mail.
The letters that Metro procured showed that several contestants chose to write on paper that they had designed with drawings of hearts, lips and ribbons.
One letter was addressed to “My Dear Chipmunk”.
Another contestant chose to begin with a song: “Amar bhitor o bahirey antarey antarey achho tumi, hriday jurey (loosely meaning, you reside in every part of my life and fill my heart).”
“It was an off-beat sort of event. While writing the letter, I had a different but pleasant feeling, which I cannot express in words,” said Anamika Ghosh, a third-year student of computer science.
Sneha Jha, a fourth-year student of information technology, said: “Initially, I was puzzled because I did not know what to write. I thought for some minutes and then wrote the letter.”
Which letter Sneha wrote is not known, but her competitors, all budding engineers like her, also put a lot of thought into what they wrote.
The participants were told not to write their names in the letters. The winners would be identified through pseudonyms they had used while registering for the contest.
Sudip Manpuria, a student who conducted the event, said the competition of writing love letters was held for the first time in any college fest in north Bengal. The campus love fest did not end with letter writing, though. There was also a contest called Made for Each Other.
Contestants had to form two-member teams. “Both members of the group were taken to different rooms and asked questions about the other member. They were also asked to sing duets and dance together,” said Bishal Jha, a representative of the organising committee of JECLAT.
The letter writers will know on Friday how they fared in this labour of love.
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