Mon Saluer: CULT FEST, a process more than an event!!

Published in KY Souvenir IT BHU

CULT FEST: A PROCESS MORE THAN AN EVENT

“All the management I needed to know, I learnt by organizing our cultural festival(Mood I)”

A self-made manager, an IT revolutionary, a thought leader and an engineer by training and an entrepreneur by heart, Nandan Nilekani, an IIT Powai alumnus and CEO, Infosys.

Huge marquee, expansive tents, roaring crowds, live bands, impulsive audience, hip-hop discos and hundreds of fluttering bodies…a chaotic scene interspersed with various competitive events in dance, music, theatre and literary- a typical scene at a college festival or in running lingo “cult fest”. But, this is a mere façade of frantic activity behind which another level of psyche operates: A level where only those participate who have nerves of steel, go-getter attitude and a lust for triumph, a level which surpasses boundlessness of mind and body and reveals true instincts in exacting conditions, a level which creates superhuman out of common people. This is the level which holds those who make such carnivals happen.

One should wonder why these mortals surrender all their faculties to the mission of putting together a three day pomp and show? What is their motivation, their driving impulse…making us marvel at that inexhaustible gusto? How these people get along with receiving both adulation as well as ruthless criticism for the way they shape the fiesta?

Any festival is as large as the other but it is mutually agreeable that a cult fest is the most diverse and eventful owing to the sheer turn outs. A cult fest becomes the bench-mark of social presence and charm among the college student circuit and hence a symbol of vanity. In fact, a college may not be popular for the courses or placements as much as it is for the cult fest it hosts.

Anyone remotely associated with the festivals , whether at our college or elsewhere, will swear that none of it is child’s play, that the stakes are too high and that when everything goes as planned , the experience is all worthwhile. A cult fest begins with a vision and a single point agenda of making it larger than the previous one and grander than it has ever been. The dream is hatched in the moony eyes of those who take the mantle upon themselves. This is the last dream that they see as they literally adopt the condition of insomnia. Thus begins their sleepless and desolate excursion into the world of anxiety and fretfulness and the days ahead are a drill teeming with angst, ecstasy, despair and at each instant a fresh resolve to scale unforeseen summits. The entire team is mobilized and the chain reaction gets triggered. One goads the other and in no time a large intertwined network of fully fanatical souls appears. Then suddenly the path in front unfolds a mire of plight waiting to swallow any pipe dream. Splitting hair over the facilitation of funds,tackling red-tape of the apathetic administration, haggling with the band agents, scurrying for logistics and in general meeting the hype and expectations of students, such is the scene building up to a cult fest.

All in all, the extravaganza becomes a litmus test for the entire team., testing all the leadership and management fundas. From teamwork to people management, from finance to salesmanship, from pressure handling to meeting deadlines, it becomes a corporate environment in microcosm. So the question one still asks… Why do it? No, it is not for the money, hardly enough to cover expenses so nothing to skim off. Not even for power, at least not in absolute term. And certainly not for fame because many a time people present do not even notice you unless you are already a popular figure. Then what keeps the ball rolling? It is nothing but the feeling of self-worth, a desire to influence results by your decisions, a gratifying sense of accomplishment seeing a dream shaping into reality and above all, a redeeming chance to etch content ment on the minds of those who go home exultant.

So when you visit a “cult fest”next, remember, there is more happening than what meets the eye! A frontage of fun and frolic hiding the grit of few unsung heroes...



VIVEK SYANIA

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