Festember

Festember has explored a myriad of themes since its inception in 1975. The organizers have gone to great lengths to express and showcase the theme through ambience and theme-specific events. Mascots each year have also been designed and adapted to communicate the theme.

'Carpe Diem' (Latin for Seize the Day), the guest lecture series of Festember, was introduced in 2014 with the aim of bringing some of the most inspiring, talented and accomplished individuals from around the world, to get to know them on a personal level and draw motivation and encouragement from their journey to success.

Carpe Diem has hosted various eminent personalities in the past, including Jonty Rhodes (former South African cricketer), Sid Sriram (Indian-American music producer, playback singer, and songwriter), Mahesh Dattani (Sahitya Akademi Award-winning Indian director, actor, playwright and writer), Kaneez Surka (stand-up comic), Baradwaj Rangan (renowned film critic, former deputy editor of The Hindu), Prashant Bhushan (Indian lawyer, activist and politician) and many more.

In 2018, Carpe Diem stepped up its game a notch further with a total of seven guest lectures for the first time since its inception. This year, Festember had the honour of hosting the likes of Ashwin Sanghi (renowned novelist, also known as 'The Dan Brown of India'), Aruna Sairam (acclaimed Indian classical vocalist and Padma Shree Awardee, also known as the music ambassador of India), P. Vasu (Indian director, writer and actor), Karthik (Indian playback singer who has sung popular songs in multiple languages), and Karan Arjun Singh (acclaimed foley artist who has worked for films like Baahubali, Rangoon and many more).

One of the biggest crowd attractions was the Guest Lecture by Nithya Menen (eminent Indian film actress and playback singer). The valediction ceremony of Festember 2018 witnessed a Guest Lecture by the chief guest, Shakthisree Gopalan (Indian vocalist and songwriter, who has collaborated with major stalwarts in the music industry, including A.R. Rahman, and Anirudh Ravichander).

In 2019, Festember witnessed an accomplished and assorted line up of speakers under Carpe Diem with a total of five guest lectures. Festember had the honour of hosting the likes of Naresh Iyer (acclaimed Indian vocalist and a National awardee ), Anu Hasan (a renowned entrepreneur, TV host, author and so much more), Sagarika Ghose (an Indian journalist, news anchor, author and columnist who has worked at The Times, Outlook and The Indian Express), Vijay Amirtraj (former tennis player and Padmashree Awardee).

One of the main highlights was the guest lecture by Nathan Schroeder (a renowned concept artist, and the mastermind behind the illustrations of Hollywood's greatest blockbusters, including Captain America: Civil War, Jurassic World, X-Men and The Avengers ).

Festember 2018 saw the blossoming of a new Guest Lecture series, Vox Populi (Latin for The Voice of the People), which aims to bring down the unknown heroes of our country and give them a platform to make sure their awe-inspiring stories don't go unheard. Their exceptional tales are sure to leave a mark and motivate one and all to strive to make an impression.

The first edition of this series was initiated by Mrs. Sneha Mohandoss, the founder of Food Bank-India, a charitable initiative to feed the hungry, and to reduce food wastage.

The second edition of Vox Populi was honored by Rathika Ramasamy, the first woman to strike an international reputation as a wildlife photographer and also the only woman to be chosen as one of the Top 20 best photographers of India by “The Birds of India.”

The Flagship event of Festember, ChoreoNite sets the stage for the best dancers of various colleges to showcase their talent.[10] Unlike its contemporaries, there is no separate competition for Eastern and Western. Any style of dance is allowed, any kind of music is allowed. With its graceful moves and wild leaps, ChoreoNite garners a huge audience, and is one of the most visited events of Festember.

In Festember '13, SASTRA won the ChoreoNite and took home the trophy.

In Festember '15, the Eastern event was judged by the dancer and actress Rukmini Vijayakumar, while the Western event was judged by Ravi Varma, founder and choreographer of the B-FAB dance crew. The winners of the Western category were Sastra University, while Christ College bagged the first place in the Eastern category.

Shruthilaya is the classical music competition for vocals and instrumentals. The stage has heard innumerable high-level musical masterpieces in the past. Participation is highly selective with limited entries allowed to take part. The uniqueness of Shruthilaya lies in its Carnatic Quiz, which represents a touch of the avant-garde.

Tarangini, the singing competition of Festember, regularly attracts droves of budding artists, who bring the audience to life with their peppy, feet-tapping playlists of Tamil and Hindi songs.

Gig-a-hertz is the semi-pro rock band event that draws enormous crowds. This event is for those who prefer their music to be loud, raw and ferocious. It is known for running late into the night and still maintaining its audience. It is also considered to be the most selective event, with only 10 out of 150 total entries being selected to perform.

The band Saturn Night Sky won Gigahertz in Festmeber '15. Gluee, a semi-pro band, took home the first place in Festember '13. The Down Troddence, or TDT, as they are known to fans, won it in 2012. Chennai based Metalcore act Godia, won Gigahertz in Festember '16.

The pioneering Fashion Event of Trichy City. Fashionitas was introduced in the 2012 edition of Festember as an Individual Event, offering the highest Cash Prize for an individual Event in Festember.

Take-One is the short-movie making competition of Festember. Movies with any theme or genre are permitted, with a duration of up to ten minutes. With eminent judges from the movie industry and themes ranging from fantasy to social messages, Take-One remains the viewer's delight.

Every year, the Thespians society of NIT-Trichy organize "Theatrix", a 45-minute dramatics competition. Original scripts, pre-written scripts and adaptations are permitted, however the play should not have been staged at any earlier Festember festival. With major participation from all the big colleges, audiences witness some chilling performances in front of the spotlight.

Teams arrange their dominoes within a one-metre square area marked on the floor. At the end of the competition, no domino is allowed to cross the perimeter and the best arrangement wins the prize.

A 100-word detailed description of a black-and-white photograph is given to each team. Based on this description, the participants need to sketch the photograph. Judging is based on how similar their sketch turns out to be, compared to the original photograph, and also on their artistic skill.

Graffiti painting competition, where the topic will be given on the spot and all necessary materials will be provided. Judging is based on degree of adherence to the theme, creativity, style, usage of the space provided and artistic quality.

Around 13 events are conducted each year, including quizzes, debates, JAM, DumbC, Crossword, and many others. Winners in the past have been from IITM, Sastra, VIT, SVCE, and SRM, amongst others.

14 literary events consisting of crowd-favorites like Kalakkal Galatta, Sakalakala Attam, Uyarthini Semmozhi, etc. bring out the importance and pride of the Tamil language. A new online event called Tamil Labyrinth was also recently introduced. DG Vaishnav, Kumaraguru, MEPCO, JJCET, Sastra, SRM and EBET have regularly topped these events in the past.

Rochak Mantrana, Vaad Vivaad, Antakshari, De Dana Dan, Halka Fulka and Taatkalik Bhashan are just a few of the 13-odd Hindi literary events conducted. IITM, VIT and SRM have been proven to be the best till date.

Rolling Reels Film Festival is an integral part of Festember. Started in the year 2015 as one of the outreaches of Festember, RRFF is a short film festival that looks to find young talent from the many film makes in India- a platform for young film industry aspirers to make their presence known. It is a two-day cinematic extravaganza with several workshops sure to enthrall young film makers and actors who will get to interact with experts in the industry which is sure to help them hone their skills and talents.

RRFF 2015, the first edition, was held in Hyderabad at Kollywood superstar Akkineni Nagarjuna's studio Annapoorna Film Studios, attended by directors Balaji Mohan, Madhumitha and many others. The presence of yester-year actress Amala Akkineni made the fest more memorable. This edition of RRFF also had the association with Thoongavanam, a film starring Kamal Haasan.

RRFF 2016, held in Chennai at BOFTA was an even bigger success. With over 250 entries from across the globe, the movies were judged by the late Biren Das Sharma, Professor, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata. This edition had an art direction workshop conducted by T.Ramalingam of Kabali fame and a guest lecture by Actor and Director Prathap Pothen.

RRFF 2018 took place in Chennai, and was judged by Ashwin Saravanan and the veteran directors N. Lingusamy and Mohan Raja.

Gigahertz is a semi-pro rock band that draws enormous crowds and provides a great opportunity for Festember to spread its wings beyond Trichy. Preliminary rounds of Gigahertz take place in Chennai and Bangalore every year.

Festember Football League is a new addition to the outreach events, having started only from 2017. It sets an arena for quick-paced five-a-side matches with rolling subs, set up in a knockout tournament style. It takes place in Bangalore and Chennai.

Respawn was a gaming outreach held in Bangalore in September 2016.

The FSR team at Synthika Trust

The Gold Dustbin event, usually held at the end of the academic year, is the first event in the FSR calendar. Student volunteers collect items from hostels on campus, and after thorough segregation, these items are sold. The money acquired by selling these items is used to organize the ‘Gift a Birthday’ event at the Synthika Trust in Lalgudi, Trichy. In 2015, the money generated from this event was used to set up a library in the REC Middle School in an event called 'Pages'.

Pages was social responsibility outreach conducted by Festember in Chettinad Vidyashram School on 2 September 2016 in association with the NGO Teach for India and popular children's magazine Tinkle. Pages is primarily a book collection drive where school students, teachers contribute books which would go as proceeds to Teach for India to educate children in rural India. The event was launched with sub-editor of Tinkle, Sean D'Mello, as the chief guest who later conducted a small workshop with the school students focusing on story writing.

A small step towards this was the Young Astronomers Talent Search organized by Festember Social Responsibility at St Johns Vestry Anglo Indian High School in association with Tata Steel and Space Kids. A diversity of events such as model exhibits, essay writing, word games, role play and debate were conducted. Students set up astronomy models, centered on the work done by ISRO for the exhibits. Each contest had two categories for students of standard 6 to 8 and standard 8 to 10. An initiative to promote awareness of astronomy among students and tribute A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's an indisputable contribution to the field.

Festember took up several initiatives to spread awareness about cancer and to raise funds for cancer victims. A breast cancer awareness session was conducted on the campus by specialists from Harshamitra Super Specialty Cancer Centre in Trichy. Festember also joined the No Shave November moment where volunteers were asked to give up shaving for a month and donate the amount typically spent for that purpose. The amount collected was a big sum of Rs 20,000 and it was collected from over 1000 participants. The money collected was donated to the Indian Prostate Cancer Foundation, an organisation dedicated to raising awareness of Prostate cancer in men. The money was then used to conduct a screening session for Armed Force veterans.

The paperback initiative of FSR which aims at reducing paper wastage. This event involved students actively volunteering to give their unused exam answer sheets which would otherwise go waste. The collected sheets were reused in various Festember events. Also, the team didn't restrict themselves to the fest and took a step forward to serve the society. Booklets were made from the remaining sheets and distributed to Illuminate, a government certified charitable trust that aims at developing the lives of the children of the marginalized communities. This Paperback initiative is unique and a true realization of FSR's goal to create ripples of change throughout the year and for the years to come.

"Walk For Peace" event conceived with the idea of taking the message "Individual peace contributes to world peace" was organized by Heartfulness Meditation Organization (USA). The event started with HFN relaxation to the participants and followed up with a rally through the artery of the city with high visibility. With support from the corporation of Tiruchirappalli, the event was a grand success with over 600 participants.

With the idea of reviving the lost art form of Street Play or "Therukoothu", Festember Social Responsibility visited two schools in Tiruchirapalli – Kamakoti Vidyalaya and Bishop Heber Higher secondary school during the week before Festember. In true therukoothu style, the team brought out the importance of physical activity for children of the current generation, complete with meaningful songs, relatable characters, and humorous wordplay.

The FSR team during the Metrole rally in Trichy

In 2013, in an attempt to increase awareness about social issues in the area of a large audience, the FSR team headed to Trichy and commenced Metrole. They marched on the streets of Trichy and conducted a rally to educate the masses about the depreciation of the Indian rupee, and what the common man could do to alleviate the problem. During the course of the rally, impromptu street plays were held, focusing on related issues like Brain drain, Gold Trade, buying foreign products against indigenous products, etc.

Aashi is a social drive conducted by the Festember Social Responsibility Team to promote awareness about the daily routines of people who are differently-abled. In its first edition in 2017, 50 volunteers brought smiles and laugh to the gifted students at Vidivelli Special School in Trichy during the Autistic awareness month of April. The second edition of Aashi invited volunteers to spend a morning with the strong-willed women at the rehabilitation centre for blind women, Mannapuram, Trichy. The drive succeeded in instilling the courage to face challenges in all the participants.

Channelled Clarity towards Charity is an inter-school event conducted each year at various schools in different cities by the Festember Social Responsibility Team. In 2017 the event was held at SBOA, Chennai and in 2018 it was hosted by the Akara World School. The competitions range from literary events to poster making and many more. A nominal registration fee is collected from each participant and the accumulated amount is directed to charities to help the blind, handicapped and people in all walks of life. This drive brings together a variety of students and gives them a platform to compete and challenge as well as nurture their social calling.

On 30 March 2019, the Festember Social Responsibility Team organised a drive to rekindle connections with the Earth. An enumerate number of people, ranging from students to professors joined the event. They were allowed to walk through moon-lit paths while all their gadgets were turned off. The ground was made bright by the glow of the wristbands that were provided to all the participants. A star-gazing session was also organised at the NSO ground of NIT Trichy towards the end.