Microphones and instruments replaced books as student festivals kicked off at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Patna) and National Institute of Technology (NIT-Patna) on Friday.

The three-day cultural fests would have a series of cultural and technical events in which many technical and non-technical institutions would take part from all over the country.

Anwesha, the IIT-Patna fest, boasts of events from diverse fields such as cultural, technical, literary, management since its inception in 2010. Similarly, NIT-Patna's techno-cultural fest, Corona, and Melange, the cultural fest, will provide budding artists a competing platform in diverse fields such as music, dance, theatre, photography, literature, fine arts, quizzing and debating.

U.S. Triar (director-in-charge) and G.K. Chaudhary (dean, students' welfare) inaugurated the NIT-Patna fest.

On the first day, more than a dozen cultural technical events were held in which students took part with gusto.

The IIT-Patna annual technical cultural fest, Anwesha, also began on Friday.

In an event, Picsay, participants had to pen down thoughts based on portraits. Technical events held today included Electro-Exquizite, the electrical engineering quizzing event, and machine mania, the mechanical engineering event. Other events included Uphill Trouble and Dare Wheel. The fest will end on January 24.