Oculus 2022 – Cultural Events

Carnival

Who doesn’t love a good fashion or beauty pageant? They’re highly engaging and bring out the best in people in terms of creativity. The Carnival was nothing short of a high-end fashion show.

Various college students participating in the Carnival gathered at the quadrangle, along with the highly-talented judges on a not-so-regular Sunday. The event started with the students of R.G.I.T. dressed as infamous characters from Bollywood movies. Our college, SPIT, was the next to showcase themselves as popular musicians from the Hollywood industry. This was followed by the students of VIT giving a breathtaking performance whilst being dressed as various animal avatars. All of these performances were a breath of fresh air and to add more, the students of Thakur College showcased patriotism and feminism through their performances. This social message performance received constant applause from the crowd. “Wakanda forever” is what was on everyone’s mind when the students of St. Andrews College presented themselves. And at the end, the students from the S.M.T. University came dressed as renowned pop-culture female characters.

With every performance being more thrilling than the previous, the students of V.I.T. were declared winners. And thus, this magical event came to an end.

-A report by Advika

Sargam

The event Sargam was everything a person with a knack for music could ask for. There was a plethora of talented musicians, who performed not only with their vocals or instruments but straight from their hearts.

The show marked its beginning with performances from the instrumental category. We got to see bone-chilling beatboxing, amazing flute-playing, and a fusion of musical antipodes as Tirth Phatak played an English song on the tabla. After that, the performances in the vocals category began which blessed everyone’s ears with melodious renditions of old as well as new Hindi songs. From singing “Phir le aaya dil” to “Tujhse naraaz Nahi Zindagi” and from “Buleya” to “Lag jaa gale”, everyone in the audience was taken aback by how heavenly it all sounded.

Finally, the moment came when the results were to be announced. “It’s always the underdog”, said the judges while announcing Tirth Phatak as the winner of the instrumental category. The winners of the vocal category were Siddhi Jadhav, who secured second place, and Rishabh Giri, who was amazing at crowd work during his “Buleya” performance bagging the first prize. 

-A report by Advika

Aelan-E-Jung

“Why walk when you can dance?” One of the great events of Oculus 22’ was Aelan-e-Jung, the intercollege dance competition which took place at the Quadrangle of SPIT college on the 25th and 26th of March.

On the first day of the event, several solo dance participants had arrived. The event was graced by the presence of the renowned judges Vrushika Dalal and Chaitali Gada. All the participants showcased amazing potential, talent and determination to win the competition. The audience hooted for each and every performance, supporting them. A bonus round was also organized in order to have a tough and fair competition. The first day officially came to an end with the felicitation of the judges followed by the announcement of the winners. The winners were Tanvi and Naresh as runners-up with a tie and Kundan as the winner.

The second day observed twice the fun and excitement of the previous day. The event kicked off with the host welcoming the participants, the audience and judges. The judges for the second day were Vrushali Chavan, Sagar Rana and Akash Gurav. Total 8 teams participated in the event. After a fierce competition among the dance troupes, the winners were finalized and were felicitated with exciting cash prizes and crazy gift hampers. We again had a tie at the runner-up position with Gyration and TPoly taking the stand and Footloose as the winner.

Smit Meghani, the Creative Head of the Aelan-E-Jung Committee quoted, “AEJ was not just a college event to me, a lot of emotion has been attached to it, and the team and people involved have become a family.”

-A report by Tisha Negandhi

Open-Mic

There couldn’t have been a better kick-off to the annual techno-cultural fest of SPIT. The Open Mic 2022, conducted on 24th March in the SPIT quadrangle was special in ways we’re still processing. The event was held at a place other than its conventional spot at the amphitheatre. The decor was magical with fairy lights hanging from the ceilings at the Sabhagraha during a beautiful night. It was an evening filled with music, dance, acting, standup comedy, and more. Students from colleges all over Mumbai got a platform to let their creativity flow and captivate the audience. The enthusiasm and energy of everyone in attendance lifted the performances to something far greater. 

We were joined by our honourable principal Dr Bhalchandra Chaudhary who was actively encouraging and supporting not only the participants but hyping up the audience as well. The brilliant musicians stepped up and delivered stellar performances making everyone groove to the tunes and melodies. Phone lights came out during the musical performances by Kaisar Katchi sir’s band which was met with screaming voices of all his students. Mihir Nikam and Sakshi Patil’s mashup of classic Bollywood songs was one of the most awaited performances, was a huge hit and hyped up the crowd, and many more. Harish Balasubramanian’s acoustic rendition of Sham by Amit Trivedi made the crowd want to get out their phones and wave them around with their flashlights on. 

Shantanu Kadam’s sentimental rap about women’s safety issues touched the hearts of everyone and made the audience stand up and applaud. The standup comedians Amey Agarwal, Krishna Pandey, and others had the crowd laughing at their relatable jokes and amazing stage presence. Atman Ainapure made jokes relatable to the whole SPIT crowd and his friends. Their scripts had tons of jokes which tickled the audience’s funny bone and hardly let them breathe. 

Our alumnus Siddhesh’s performance capped off a wonderful night. This was a performance made on the crowd’s demand after a lot of cheering. The event was wrapped up with a final vote of thanks by the editor-in-chief, Sharli Kude. SPark, MUDRA, and Oculus did a wonderful job and made sure that the event was conducted smoothly.

“The event was a great success as the students were itching to attend an offline event. All the audience members and the participants were really enthralled and ecstatic by the end of the event. There is no greater feeling for an organizer to see smiles at the end of an event.”, says Manan Savla, Managing Editor at SPark.

-A report by Karthik Iyer