MOOD HIGH

“We IITians have been known for excellence in whatever we’ve done .”, righteously said Prof. Ashok Mishra ,Director IIT Bombay at the inauguration of the biggest cult fest in the country -MOOD INDIGO which arrived with the spirit of water, a cool bubbly blue mascot “SPLASH”, and a budget of around Rs 45 lks to rock the folks royally with its “AQUA” theme.

With around 30 events per day, divided into categories like LA, FA, Music and dance, dramatics, informals, talks+workshops and proshows , the fest seemed to put the average participant in quite a dilemma and left the spectators totally puzzled- which way to go.

Mood I manifested a myriad of effective workshops conducted by industry pros, some creamy ones being the Tango wrkshp by Anand Majumdar and the Grooming wrkshp by Raymond. ”Festivals like these give us great amount of exposure and let us learn a great deal of new things”, said the bubbly Prerna Narang from Cummins College,Pune.

The informals were a blast for the ‘window-shoppers’ ,who took away much more than their expectations –thanks to the benevolent sponsors. The food stalls , which comprised of a good range of branded and desi khaana , were strategically placed near the informals venue to ensure business and it did work out. Halla bol –street play and Hurricane-street dance ,the most popular PA events witnessed some ground-breaking performances .
The OC lived up to their word as a few of the major events were seen during the day this year. Hysteria: The battle of DJs saw some cool mixes being played which dragged the crowd on the floor right under the SUN !! Livewire elims also ran during the day much to the surprise of many a wannabe headbangers. Mantra-the Hindi band contest ,also a day event, just seemed to show the rising momentum in the Hindi/desi rock scenario.

Proshows by Shuffle Deamons (Canada),Indian Ocean, Shaan, Sceptre, Vayu, HFC had the crowd up there till late10 pm, the deadline being followed strictly. However, it was surprising to see a more than decent crowd turn over for the classical nite. The IISc attack had led to a tightened security on the last day forcing many to spend hours in the queue cursing the organizers (‘orgies’ as they call themselves () who took hours just to frisk people into the half empty OAT. As a result, many missed the Livewire finals which saw great performances by bands like ‘Access Denied’ and ‘Bhayanak Maut’ (the winners).Access Denied’s Ashish (IIT B) won the best guitarist prize: A Kramer worth 18K from Furtados.

“Pride is more important to me as money can be made up any time in ur life”, answered Rahul Dash(IITB) to a judge, minutes before he was declared MR. MOOD I –at the most sadistic event in the fest!! ”Hey if pride were more important to u, then what the hell are u doin here ?” , rightly asked the anchor Garry. The event was more of a puppet show , the crowd being controlled by totally by ex Mr Mood I :Swami Thakkar ,who’ll remind u of King Kong. He typed on the screen and commanded, the audience obeyed and paid respect. The fate of the candidates (who couldn’t see the screen) was in his hands. Well, this was seriously the wrong place if you were a non-IITian or a gal as the desperate IITians showered their vulgar side on both. Constant shrieks of ”Are u free tonite?” haunted the audi and the screen too; what more even the ex Mr Mood Is (all IITans) asked the hostess or the female judges the same damn thing when called upon (is it lack of vocab or a proof of their heavy-hornier sides?) The sweet li’ll Ateeya Khan, crowned Ms mood I had an experience that generally most cute gals face when a Virar fast halts by at the platform. ”Who cares a damn about his virginity!”, exclaimed Shweta Krishnan from Rochester university, after listening to a clichéd answer from Arvind Iyyer (IITB) the runner up. Krishnan, like many other non-IITians seemed to be pissed off with this ‘cheap’ attitude evolving out of the “cream students” in the nation..

Catharsis- the play adopted from PAF (performing art festival) dealt with a sensitive story of drug addicts and their rehab process, but failed miserably even after some excellent performances by Victor and Manav the protagonists and Prabhav the comedian thanks to the monotonous direction.

Hats off to the OC, who did one helluva job in making the fest :right from getting the Mega sponsors to managing the junta from over 300 colleges inclusive of their lodging. Apart from a good chunk of the 600acres land at their disposal, the key factors driving these chaps into success is their spirit full of confidence as quoted by their director and the mutual cooperation cum exclusive independence by the staff for the students which lacks big time in other colleges making their festivals look like more of a sham with poking profs and a shrieking staff. They roped in the industry biggies to sponsor them and I bet none of them would think twice to sponsor the event again. The marketing ,publicity and scheduling of the event was spot on as usual and that’s probably why folks from as far as Delhi ,Bangalore and Chennai turned up. The overall trophy was taken away by IITB followed by Rajhans college Delhi and KMC Delhi.

Certainly coming out of this eventful fest one would not deny exclaiming: MOOD HIGH !!