The fest at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (BVB) this winter saw fun competitions, on stage and off, that helped students relax, enjoy and gain confidence.

“We started this fest in 2014 and hold it every alternate year. The event is important as this is outside their daily routine. It makes them venture into unknown territory and plan, organise and interact with students from other schools. It builds their inter-personal skills,” said principal Arun Kumar Dasgupta. “All won’t win, and it’s important to learn how not to win, graciously, since that is life. But the students will try, and that will raise their bar.”

There were events like retro music, where bands revisited music their parents grew up with, video games like the football game EA Sports FC 25 and the combat game Tekken 8. Creative-writing students wrote either a dialogue between their present self and future self or a dairy of their shoes, covering the path they took.

For whiz kids, there was an app-building contest too. “We’re making an app for those unable to speak or type. They would be able to gesture at their phone and say, the camera would click pictures for them,” said Priyanshu Mondal and Sai Siddharth Maharana of National English School.

Unity in diversity on ramp

The judge for the fashion show and “just a minute” was actress
Tanika Basu, who is also an alumna. “I would get in trouble a lot in school,” she confessed, adding that the school had helped her in finding herself. “As for the fashion show, I will be looking for the confidence students exude and see if they try to break the set moulds of beauty,” she said.

The students did impress her. They could choose from various topics all based on Indian or Bengal’s culture and heritage.

Girls shake a leg in the Western dance contest

One of the host school’s two teams put up an act showcasing traditional costumes of different states. “I wore a black and red jamdani panjabi and danced with a dhunuchi to showcase Bengal,” said Ryan Bhattacharjee. The student from Punjab performed bhangra, the Kashmiri girl in a pheran picked up a flower basket and so on. At the end, the students held up the Indian flag to show unity.

Rubaina Routh was part of the other BVB team that showcased weaves of Bengal. “I came in my granny’s Dhakai jamdani, and she was so excited when I asked her for it. She was happy that I was showing interest in our heritage,” said the girl who wants to be a model. “This is my first fashion show, and it’s been fun.”

The Army Public School put up an attractive show too on the costumes of deities. “We wanted to try something different,” said Eeshani Debnath, who had come dressed as Durga. There was Saraswati with a lotus (the veena was too heavy for the show), Brahmacharini with a rudraksh rosary and Narasimha (where a boy comes with the lion god painted on his back). “We’ve even imagined Kalki, the yet-to-appear Vishnu avatar. The scriptures say he is associated with a horse and snake. It wasn’t possible to get a horse on stage, so our model sports a white snake painted on his arm,” she said.

Another fun event was Just a Minute where students had 60 seconds to perform whatever they pleased. Garima Pal of BVB delivered a line from the balcony scene of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but surprised the hall by following it up by singing — and playing on the violin — My heart will go on from Titanic!

Ayush Podder of Aditya Academy entertained with some beat boxing, and as soon as Sk Tanis began preparing to step on stage, a murmur rippled through the audience, growing louder till everyone could clearly hear what was being said: “Virus!”

The boy was dressed in a curly salt-and-pepper wig and a suit, and carried a nest in one hand and a pen in the other. “Life is a race,” he began, sending the audience into peals of laughter. He had transformed himself into Virus, the nickname for the strict professor 3 Idiots. “The rules said no Hindi so I had to deliver the lines in English,” said Tanis from Asian International School. My teachers helped me get my look right, and I’m glad the audience recognised me.”

Back to basics

The Western dance had students groove to hip hop beats. The judge was Souvik Roy, associate choreographer of Star Jalsha and Zee Bangla Dance Bangla Dance, and he shared practical tips for the budding artistes to improve. “The students should watch videos of themselves dancing to check what is lacking. Sometimes they have a weaker side, usually the left, and that needs more work. Others make the mistake of facing only for the centre of the stage, but what about audiences seated on the sides?” he said.

Above all, he asked dancers to strengthen their basics. “Many youths go to dance teachers and ask to be taught steps to a particular song but that’s the short cut. They first need fluency in hip hop, classical or whichever style they choose. And be it Eastern or Western, expressions are a must,” Roy said.

Another judge was Ratnabali Ghosh, the “alpona lady” who captured hearts painting alponas on doorsteps of strangers’ homes and public spaces as a gift to the city. She judged the competition to create alponas on earthen shoras.

“Alpona is a folk art, created for beauty and utility. It used to be created daily at the entrance of houses or a little ahead of the puja room, as it is traditionally made of chaal bata. The idea was for the alpona to attract insects so they spare the prasad,” said Ghosh, who had learnt the art from her mother Pratibha Sengupta, who was a student of painter Nandalal Bose. “But religion has nothing to do with alponas. This is art and I’m delighted to see so many students trying their hand at it.”