Pota (right) rocks the stage on the last day of Reflexons 2013 and (below) the crowd grooves with him. Pictures: Pabitra Das

What: Reflexons 2013, the annual fest of the department of computer science & engineering, Calcutta University, in association with t2.

When & where: December 18 to 22, at Rajabazar Science College.

Reflexons roster: One of the biggest crowd-pullers was Code Combat, a programming competition where students had to code the questions they were provided with, ranging from spiral primes to encryption and decryption.

“Coding is one of the biggest and foremost driving factors of sophisticated modern technology,” said Rupam Banerjee, a member of the organising team. “Thus, the aim of this competition was to give the participants an insight into the real world of programming.”

With 13 teams, of two members each, fighting for the top spot, St. Xavier’s College emerged victorious. “This was my first time participating in a competitive event and the experience was just great,” grinned Subhayan Bhattacharya, one of the winners.

Far away from codes and programmes, but equally popular, was the band competition, titled Bandwagon. Over a dozen bands took the stage to rock the fest and how! From soft rock to heavy metal, the competition saw some of the most promising emerging bands of the city jam away to their hearts’ content. The judges, which included Hip Pocket bassist Sankha Subhra Ghosh, expressed their delight at the standard of the competition, and also offered tips and suggestions to the budding rockstars.

Hindi folk rock band Nishaan aced the event, with the judges drawing a comparison with the Pakistani band Jal.

The fest concluded with a performance by Abhijit Burman, aka Pota, a former vocalist of Bangla rock band Cactus, who started off with Shudhu tumi ele na and got everyone to gather in front of the stage and sing their lungs out. Mon kachhe dakchhi tokey and Ratri ami thakbo tomaar shathi followed and soon the audience turned the auditorium into a mosh pit.

Computer and information science student Surabhi Sarkar was ecstatic. “The performance was awesome and it was great to see that people really enjoyed. I had a blast, couldn’t stop dancing.”

Arnab Paul