4th NUJS Night

NUJS Night- the mesmerising event that brings the entire NUJS family together- became 4 years old. Pragya Gupta tells us about the birthday celebrations:

The year’s most awaited event, by faculty and students alike, was organised by the mess committee and the cultural committee on the crisp night of the 30th of January. Twinkling lights around the campus and the cheesy bollywood music blaring through the speakers promised a very entertaining evening ahead.

After the arrival of the VC and the ceremonial lighting of the lamp, the tiny stage set up near the cess pool was taken over by the hosts for the night, Abhisar Bairagi and Kumar Ashutosh. No person who dared to come up on the stage was spared their witty assault! The audience had a fun time at the expense of the hapless interviewees (a celebrated frenemy duo, and Lord convenor himself!) who were busy dodging extremely uncomfortable questions and while the rest of us read between their very diplomatic lines. Meanwhile, there were people at work backstage who were punctuating the proceedings with some very well chosen songs (recall; ‘yeh doosti...’ and ‘main jooru ka ghulaam.....’ to be read w.r.t. the last bracket).

Next to come up on the stage were band ‘Jo so ho so’ (nomenclated right behind the stage) whose rendition of “Afterglow“held the audience enthralled. This was followed by Vineet Bhalla’s performance, who had prepared a mime on ‘Don’t look back in anger’. The next performance much to the audience’s delight was by The Indian Music Act, with Siddharth Tiwari as the lead singer. Their very popular ‘Hostel ke ye faasle’ elicited a very enthusiastic response from the audience! On popular demand, the lyricist, a very hesitant Mr Akshat Vajpayee, was called up on the stage and applauded.

Here the proceedings came to a halt for a very much needed dinner break. More than the delicious spread, I think the rarity of eating and not having to wash the plate afterwards was exciting for the hostelers. The members of the messcom and the purple-liveried waiters had their hands full with the mile long queue for the food. Needless to say, the faculty enjoyed the dinner as much as the students did.

The audience’s attention was snagged back onstage by Gayathri R. and Alphonsa whose very lively dance on ‘Randaka Randaka’ quickly made people run to fill the seats up again. This was followed by Rituraj Sharma’s much awaited performance, who took the audience through the golden ages of Bollywood with the help of Saniya, Antara Priya, Avichal and Pranav; the last three being his ‘hand-picked' first year talents.
Next came the biggest highlight of the evening, the performance which the faculty had also been eagerly looking forward to.... the very original skit by some very talented actors. The scene opened to a faculty meet between the Vice Chancellor (Kislay, the best of all by unanimous opinion), and the rest of the faculty members. The people almost fell off their chairs laughing and trying to eat and clap and hoot at the same time!


Not to be let off easily, the teachers were called up on the stage next. Prof. M.P. Singh had the entire cast of the play interviewing him; then, with great expectations of some interesting revelations, the wardens of the hostels were interviewed, though with the peril of exams hanging over their heads, the interviewers couldn’t quite press upon some of the more salacious topics. The next talk was quite a novelty with Prof. Daniel Matthews interviewing professor Shameek Sen.

The last performance of the evening was a very innovatively composed instrumental by ‘Peter and Pals’,and it set just the right tone for wrapping up the night’s activities. Thus ended the highly energised and entertaining NUJS night for the year 2011, with hopes of a similar gathering year after year.