IIM Ahmedabad’s flagship cultural fest, Chaos, concluded on January 27 with a soulful performance by Armaan Malik. The four-day fest saw participation from over 50,000 individuals.
Workshops
Chaos 2019 hosted a slew of interesting workshops that attracted an appreciable crowd. Day 2 began with ‘Midas Touch’, a soap-making workshop by Humble Bee that took participants through the process of making soap from scratch. Terribly Tiny Tales (TTT) hosted its flagship writing workshop where co-founder Anuj Gosalia shared his approach to various formats, genres and writing styles. The other notable workshops were ‘Mirror Mosaic’, ‘Balloon Crafting’, ‘Tattoo workshop’ and ‘Personal Finance’ by CV Ganesh (COO, CFO, HDFC).
Model and entrepreneur Simran Kaushik started Day 3 with her ‘Personality Development Workshop’, which covered topics on creating powerful first impressions, being corporately successful and growing one’s personality. Social media influencer and dancer Melvin Louis hosted ‘Bollyswag’, where participants grooved to popular Bollywood beats. DJ Nihar brought in the ‘Silent Disco Workshop’, an innovative combination of silence and music that gave the participants an unusual experience. Radio Mirchi’s RJ Dhvanit explained in his workshop the art of interacting with the audience.
The last day had a spray painting workshop by artist Sunil Gogia that covered the fundamental techniques and approaches to spray paint art. Mumbai-based photographer Ritam Banerjee hosted a photography workshop to offer tips to amateurs and professionals alike. The ‘Corporate Communication Workshop’ by Anushka Khurana featured interesting activities to explain the importance of communication in corporate and leadership roles. Indian Film Project’s ‘Basics of Filmmaking’ workshop covered each creative aspect of a film with examples and focussed on ideal processes, industry knowledge and current trends. Sonam Nair, screenwriter, director and filmmaker who made the award-winning short film Khujli for TTT, touched upon the tools and elements of screenplay writing.
Speaker sessions
Ranjan Singh, the ex-marketing head of India’s iconic production banner, Phantom Films, gave an interactive talk on the nuances and tricks of film marketing on Day 2. The third day of the fest hosted a panel discussion on social media that brought in popular personalities from social media, television and entrepreneurship such as MostlySane’s Prajakta Koli, sports presenter Sanjana Ganesan, YouTuber Sejal Kumar and co-founder of Under 25 Club’ Anto Philip. It was moderated by popular talk show host Divyanshu Damani. They spoke about their beginnings in the world of social media, their inspirations and gave tips to budding YouTubers. The last day had one of India’s finest filmmakers, writer-director of the critically and commercially successful Shubh Mangal Saavdhan , RS Prasanna speaking about movie-making and how he tacked an interesting subject with a humorous take in his debut film.
Events and competitions
A number of events kept the campus busy throughout the fest. The most notable ones on Day 2 were ‘Crescendo’ (the solo singing competition), ‘Turncoat’ (debate) and ‘I, Me and Myself’ (mono act). The zumba session was a major crowd-puller, with the entire college shaking a leg to groovy music and cool steps. A speed dating event hosted in the evening saw some interesting people bonding over dinner and music. The day ended with a midnight treasure hunt that hooked participants into exploring the campus to find clues for the ultimate ‘treasure’.
Fun activities such as paintballing, zorbing and archery were held across all days of the fest. Day 3 had ‘The Showman’ (solo dance), ‘Mock Rock’ and karaoke, among other interesting events. ‘Aghaz’, the street play competition, attracted a huge audience. ‘Natya Katha’ (stage play) on Day 4 saw some brilliant acts from participants. ‘Fash-P’, a fashion parade, enthralled the audience with beautifully designed attire, and the day ended with the much-awaited prom night. The last two days also had an amazing line-up of quizzes, parliamentary debate, ‘Blizzards of Rock’ (rock band competition), ‘Hipnotize’ (group dance event judged by Melvin Louis), and impromptu poetry.
Pro-nites
The biggest crowd-pullers were the pronites. This year had a spectacular line-up starting with DJ Chetas on Day 1. For Day 2, Hindi rock band The Local Train performed. Jonita Gandhi left the crowd grooving to her foot-tapping numbers in both Hindi and Tamil on Day 3. The event closed with an evening of sensational music by Armaan Malik.