Mélange - A mixture of words, rhythms and souls. Bharati College commenced its literary
festival: Mélange, on 9th April by releasing the posters and making the forms for the same officially going live. In the span of a few hours, enormous response was received for the lectures and a good starter number for the competitions as well.
The Redstockings literary Society of Bharati College offered to its participants a number of events to choose from; students from all over Delhi University and beyond were invited to exercise their creativity on a platform where they would be read and appreciated.
The event ‘SINGnificant stories’ gave the writers a chance to pen down their response to a song that they connect to. The writing could be submitted in any form, a poem, prose or even a letter!
‘Letter to Litterateur’ was one of the most breathtaking events of the fest. This letter gave our writers an opportunity to communicate with the literary figures of their choice about everything they had in their minds, hearts and souls.
Catering to the times when we feel how a certain small change in our ‘almost’ favourite novel would have transformed it into an absolute masterpiece, we introduced the competition ‘Rewrite the Story’. Here the participants got a chance to change the story of a novel and control the destiny of the characters by giving that one twist to the plot that would change the whole story and make it according to the participant’s wish.
The participants were provided with some challenging and fun prompts -
• What if Harry Potter never left the muggle world?
• What if Stephen Spendor wrote Romeo and Juliet?
• What if Ross and Rachel broke up?
We also presented our fellow podcast enthusiasts with the ‘Audio Stories’ competition and witnessed enormous amount of entries from students who had a flair for reciting their favourite dramatic monologue but lacked an audience. We connected them with a bunch of listeners and they didn’t hesitate to grab their mic and shine under the spotlight.
The competition provided different Shakespearean monologues to the participants for the same:
• "All world's a stage......." from As You Like It
• “Friends, Romans, Countrymen…”,' monologue from Julius Caesar
• "Thou knowest the mask of nights........" Juliet's monologue from Romeo and Juliet.
Amidst the never ending internal assessments, Melange came to our rescue by teleporting us into a stress free environment and it surely was the highlight of the week with our fellow writers stringing words and giving us hope while the pandemic still continued to chase us.
Taru Saxena
Editor, Redstockings Literary Society
10th April, 2021 : DAY 2
With an ongoing pandemic, there must be a few hours of joyful escape. As Melange proceeded to day 2, the spark only brightened with the audiences' enthusiasm and some brilliant panelists. The registration form for the talks had already gained good responses within a few hours of going live. Dr Rekha Sapra, the officiating principal of Bharati College, University of Delhi congratulated the Redstockings' team for the second successful fest in the times of the pandemic and wished for such great fests in future. After which, Dr Rakhi Jain, the Teacher-in-Charge of the English Department announced the opening of the fest and addressed the team with praises for their efforts and showed great interest for such future fests. Further with these words of acknowledgement Dr. Shivani Jha, the Faculty Coordinator of Redstockings Literary Society, spoke about the inception of the society in the College and its vision; wished well for the fest and hoped that the enthusiasm of both the organizers and the participants would never fade.
Thereafter, the panelists were all set to impart their knowledge on their respective topics. Thus, Dr. Harriet Raghunathan, retired English lecturer at the University of Delhi, also editor of various literary texts for university and school textbooks; enlightened students on gender role in Renaissance poetry through her topic: 'Re-working Gender Roles in Renaissance Poetry’
Which was followed by a talk on 'Revisioning History: Revisioning the Nation in Amitav Ghosh's 'The Shadow Lines' by Dr Meenakshi Bharat, who is an author and associate professor for Venkateshwar College, English Department at the University of Delhi.
The whole online extravaganza garnered beautiful & rave reviews from the audience, which was enough for the hardworking team members to feel that their tireless planning & execution behind the scenes bore fruits through the screens.
Day 2 of the fest also marked the day when the ambitious project of the Redstockings Literary Society's revamped edition of 'The Redstockings Chronicles' went live on the website. This was not just an e-magazine publication but was also an enthusiastic attempt by the team to start everything from scratch to serve quality, original literary work. And no doubt things done with good intentions are always rewarded. The same rewards were showered on the team in the form of acknowledgement and positive feedback of the magazine.
Tanishka Singhal, Janvi Joshi, Latika Thakur
Editors, Redstocking Literary Society
20th April, 2021 : DAY 3
As the fest commenced to Day 3, the final day marked an inseparable tint of excitement with the pronouncement of winners.
The drum roll never stopped with the beating hearts of audience as they awaited the results. Dr. Shivani Jha, the Faculty Coordinator, welcomed the participants and expressed her gratitude to all for the contribution towards making the fest such a success.
Dr. Rakhi Jain, Teacher in Charge, English Department, was all praise for the team for working hard on Melange 2021 and announced the winners for each competition.
For the event Winners Speak where all the winners were required to read out their submissions, the first in line was Letter to Literateur. The session chair for the event were Dr. Aateka Khan and Dr. Nandini Sen. The event was judged by Dr. Aateka Khan.
The winners of the event were as follows:
First Prize
Kirti Mondal
Semester II
Computer Science
Indraprastha College for Women
Riddhi Chatterji
Semester II
English
Delhi College of Arts and Commerce
Second Prize
Ishani Bhardwaj
Semester II
Applied Psychology
Gargi College
Third Prize
Ritika Gour
Semester II
History
Kamla Nehru College
Special Mentions
Ayush Kumar Gupta
Semester II
Mathematics
Hindu College
Anusha Popli
Semester II
Geography
Kamla Nehru College
The second event Sing-nificant stories, where the participants were to choose a song of their choice a write a prose for it, had as session chair Dr. Naila Anjum and Dr. Sonali Jain. The judge for the same was, Dr. Naila Anjum.The winners of the contest were as follows:
The winners of the contest were as follows:
First Prize
Shreya Borthakur
Semester IV
Integrated M.Sc in Life Sciences
Tezpur University
Second Prize
Ananya Dutta
Semester II
English
Bharati College
Third Prize
Aditi Mitra
Semester II
English
Vidyasagar College
Special Mentions
Mansi Prabhakaran
Semester II
Applied Psychology
Gargi College
Rayan Chakrabarti
Semester II
English
St. Stephen's College
The third category, titled Rewrite the story had as session chair, Dr. Rakhi Jain and Dr.Anavisha Banerjee. The event was judged by Dr. Anavisha Banerjee.
The winners for the event were as follows:
First Prize
Kshitiz Kumar Singh
Semester IV
B.A. Programme
Ram Lal Anand College
Second Prize
Shambhavi Prasad
Semester IV
English
Dayal Singh Evening College
Third Prize
Tannu Bhatt
Semester II
History
Bharati College
Ashita Jain
Semester IV
B.Com Programme
Bharati College
Last but not the least followed Audio Stories which had asked the participants to record their dramatic narration of the Shakespearean monologues and the winners enthralled the audience with their presentations. The session chair for this event were Dr. Nazish Khan, Dr. Shivani Jha and Dr. Rakhi Jain. The event was judged by Dr. Nazish and Dr. Shivani Jha.
The winners were as follows:
First Prize
Chitrang Kaushal
Semester IV
Political Science
PGDAV(M) College
Second Prize
Moeesha Girdhar
Semester II
B.A. Programme
Kamla Nehru College
Third Prize
Tushti Chakraborty
Semester II
B.Com (H)
Bharati College
Melange 2021 witnessed a day filled with a common love for writing and literature.
Tanishka Singhal
Editor, Redstockings Literary Society
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