MG University Youth/beastly Festival !!

A couple of weeks back i got an opportunity to go to Pathanamthita. The occasion for the visit- The MG university Youth Festival..

Its been quite some time since we had a university youth festival. Last time the university organised one was in 2003 at Sri Sankara University Campus, Kalady. Back then i was a 1st year degree student..innocent,inexperienced,ready to jump into anything and everything that came my way.. So when Ms.Jessy was desperately hunting for students for mime i quickly volunteered even though i barely had any clue as to what mime was all about. It was just for the sheer experience of being a part of the youth festival team that i had joined in.

For me it was an opportunity to meet and make friends with a lot of my collegemates/seniors,to get close with some of the teachers in charge,to experience hostel life for the 1st time,late night practise sessions,mastering the art of mime, ending up with sprained ankles, enjoying the massage offered by the sports dept students to ease the muscle pain,homesickness tantrums(not mine my friend's) ...Those two months of 'no class and only practise' was an experience in itself which i relished being a part of in spite of all the bitterness associated with it.

This time around it was a different story altogether. I was a part of the quiz team. So no hostel stays and late night practise sessions since we were brushing up our Gk on our own.Before you form an impression of an intelligent quizzer about me let me clarify...Am not what you call a 'quiz fanatic'.In fact my Gk is just a bare 'average'...limited to watching the news channels and skipping through the newspapers.This time too i was a part of the team for the sheer experience of quizzing. I wonder if am being uncompetitive but it didn't matter much whether we won or lost. "Do your best if success comes your way time to party, if it doesn't better luck next time" that was my motto...

But this time my experience was rather unpleasant. I was definitely disturbed by some of the things i saw at the youth festival venues.No its not the usual complaint about unorganised event management,delayed schdules and foul play. What disturbed me the most was the attitude of the participants and the audience- The attitude of the "youths" of youth festival.

On one side there were the bunch of students carrying around placards urging everyone to "Celebrate a Plastic free youth festival" and on the other there is the savage audience who rebelliously made an effort to litter the venue. I genuinely felt pathetic about the plight of St.Stephens auditorium were the crowd went berserk and expressed both their appreciation and disapproval by tearing up piles and piles of evening news bulletins and throwing it up in absolute mockery of the cleanliness squads efforts to ensure a minimum litter zone.What i witnessed at some of the venues was a generation of young hot blooded hooligans with no respect for private property.

In the venue for dramatics competition the situation was absolutely chaotic.I can understand if the audience claps or hoots after a performance. But hooting and clapping throughout the entire length of a performance non stop seems incomprehensible. The poor performers were shouting their heart out to make themselves audible to the judges and the so called audience made it double sure that the dialogues were muffled in their constant senseless clapping,shouting and hooting.Either it was deliberately done to mislead the judges or it is the best proof of pure untamed aimless insanity!

Then there is the ugly turn that a youth festival takes on when a rival college bags the prize.A big hullabaloo erupts the moment a college is declared the winner for an event.Every one thinks they deserve the first prize and everyone thinks that their performance was better than the others. Sighs of contempt, angry abuses, protest march and even open warfare is a common sight in these venues. I tried consoling one such lost soul, who was sulking as if a birth right has been denied, with my philosophy of 'enjoying the experience' and pat came the reply "Screw sportsman spirit and damn the biased judges!". At times it seemed as if it was all about crushing the other college rather than winning the trophy. "Even if we don't get the prize XYZ shouldn't get the prize!"
Hmm...If only some one had bothered to instill some basic lessons on losing with grace and respecting the winners...It would have at least seemed civilized.

I wonder if the youth festivals are relevant any more.I suppose these festivals were initially organised to provide a platform for healthy competition among the youngsters to develop a sense of unity and an opportunity to meet and mingle with students from other colleges.But in the present scenario it appears as if these are occasions for rival colleges to express their disgusting disapproval for each other. The menacing ferocity of this years youth festival was at its zenith when the winners hired drum sets and took out a procession not just to exhibit their trophies but to thoughtfully gift a coffin to the runners up!