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I am attaching two videos that I had recently made. "Festival of Lights" seems to perfectly capture their essence. The venue is IIT Kharagpur, a university in India. Every year almost unerringly a competition is held which is fought with much gusto and flair between the students of different "halls of residences". The competitions are called Illumination and Rangoli, more generally referred to as "illu" among us students here. Any Indian will quite clearly understand Rangoli, though for others, it is a bit of a work on my tiny little brain to come up with words to explain it.....why don't you google, or as the latest trend that is catching up, "bing" it? Illumination refers to the competition of lights, putting it as lighting earthen lamps (diyas) might sound a tad too easy. As you have already read untill this point why don't you have a look at these videos, I promise you they are fun!
I am a boarder in one of these hostels/"halls of residence" and these videos are just of my hall for only this year, as a matter of fact, there are 18 halls and this competition is being held since "I don't know when!", now do the math yourself.......
The first of these videos captures a 20-minute time frame, from the frenetic activity that went on just before the judges came along with their "Ahaan! I got you there"-set of maddening rules, till the moment they left. A small glimpse for you getting a little more clarity about these rules, any hall can get disqualified if any one is found visible by the judges who does not belong to the presentation team. I know that I am not one of them and God bless me for not getting caught when I was snapping these pictures. Another of these rules include one of these judges coming on the morning of the competition and getting the structure (structure, what? you'll know when you watch the video!) measured in order to confirm that it maintains with the Limits-in-dimensions rule.........Now this isn't a rule-book, what are you waiting for? Have a look at the video and don't forget to watch it in Full screen mode!
The second video, "The Vishwakarmas" has a much bigger time frame, it shows the weeks leading to the competition and the work that had been put in by the boarders of my hall. Some wise guy once said "Rome was not built in one day", but probably I can dare and say that our work had been done in one day! (and many many nights!!). It has some really, really great shots! unfortunately, I have no hand in any of these shots, though I just made the video, the credit for some of the wonderful snaps you are going to witness cannot be mine.....Go on, have a look here to see how great a job, my fellow boarders have done!
The Vishwakarmas from Muralidhar Duvvuri on Vimeo.
Now don't be a snob, and comment! I know you want too......
