On the evening of 5th September 2020, for the first time since its inception, S.P.I.T. had a Teacher’s Day celebration online. Instead of assembling in the institute’s conference room for an evening of fun and games, the faculty and students gathered in an online Google meet room. Muskan Sahu, the General Secretary of the Student Council, on behalf of the Council, IEEE and the student body, expressed her gratitude towards the teachers who have been through the highs and lows of the students’ engagement in the college, always offering encouragement and support.
The Principal, Dr. B. N. Chaudhari, addressed the gathering. He spoke about the beginning of his career in 1990 and his journey with students thereafter. He said, “I like interacting with the students and learning from them, because those vibes and that enthusiasm gives a lot of satisfaction.” He stressed on the necessity of bonding between teachers and students, and wished to do the same at S.P.I.T. too.
After the Principal’s address, Siddesh Sonawane, the head of Mudra, the Cultural Committee of S.P.I.T., introduced the committee to the faculty, naming himself, Unnati Dogra, and Vedant Mathur as the heads of dance, drama and music, along with Prof. Kaisar Katchi as the mentor. He then presented a pre-recorded synthesizer clip created by Aditya Harsora, a musician with over ten years of experience. Siddesh followed it with a live, beautiful medley of Bollywood songs both old and new with his guitar, which proved soothing after a hectic day of online classes. Siddesh said, “It was great to be a part of Teacher’s Day once again. I am truly amazed and inspired by everyone’s energy, enthusiasm and passion; student and teacher alike.”
Then the games began. Siddhesh, Muskan, and Praharsha Nuti, head of IEEE, gave a brief introduction about the series of games planned for the evening.
Teachers were divided into 4 groups according to their departments, with vivid names assigned to each team. Each group had a separate Whatsapp group to exchange ideas within, prearranged for by the council.
The first game was called ‘The virtual music lab’ in which teams had to guess the Hindi song from their literal English translation and sing at least the chorus of the same. The second round in the series was called Emoticon round, where one had to guess the song from displayed emoticons and sing the chorus. The third round, called ‘Kahipe nigaahein kahipe nishaana,’ had a short video clip of one Bollywood song mixed up with the audio of another; the objective being to guess the music for the video clip, and sing the same. The final round was called “Jhoom barabar jhoom,” where the jumbled names of movies were displayed and after the identification one of the movie songs was to be sung.
The rounds were filled with a myriad of melodies and a keen fastest-finger-first style struggle for scoring up the ladder. When the games ended, the team called “Bareily Ki Barfi,” comprising the Information Technology and Applied Sciences and Humanities department teachers had the highest score.
Finally Muskan proposed a vote of thanks to all the teachers for joining and to members of SPark for organising the event and covering it.
One of the organising committee members, Tanvi Aditya, looking back upon the event, said, “Organizing the teachers day event was a very fun experience for us. It was incredible to see the enthusiasm of the teachers. It was our way of trying to make this special day memorable for them and to see their excitement was very rewarding.”
Dr. Rita Das, Dean of Student Affairs and Head of the ASH department, thanked the students for a wonderful evening. The faculty echoed her sentiments, thanking the students for a relaxing experience after the bustle of the week. She later shared with the SPark team, “ It was a very well coordinated, enjoyable and memorable event. ”
– Sharli Kude (SE IT) , Hrusheekesh Sawarkar (SE Comps) and Prof. Kaisar Katchi