The Grand Old HALL Has its DAY

IIT Kharagpur never falls short of celebrations. Just the seasons vary but with every new season comes a new form of celebration. But by any standards, March is the most hustling month in the Kgp calendar. The GCs are in their deciding phase and apart from this there is one big contention among the halls that takes centrestage during this month - the Gymkhana Elections. And along with the elections this is also the month when most of the halls have their pleasant and colorful evening, loosely termed as the "Hall Days". (Every hall has its own special version though).tut

Mentioning the Gymkhana Elections and the Hall Days together is not a mere coincidence. Actually apart from the celebrations, a larger-scale motive of organizing the Hall Day is to entice the first years, who till now hardly know anything about the senior halls, albeit their votes count handy in the election. So much so that the full attention in the invitations is paid only towards the first years. Pity those kids. Those very seniors alluring them during the Hall Day Season would present their real guise only in the next semester when they go to their halls!

Following the Kgp tradition, Patel Hall also decided to have its Hall Day this year. (Of course we too had the above-mentioned motives). We didn't have a Hall Day, which has been traditionally called Patel Utsav in my 2nd year. So this year we were all the more determined to present an exquisite celebration. The date was decided to be on 12 March and it was me and my wingies who primarily took over this responsibility.

The budget being limited, we had to bank on sponsorships. Despite our efforts, we didn't have much luck in this regard. However, going to the 15 km far Tamrolipto Park Restaurant did bear some results as they agreed to put up their stalls. They had their weird clauses nevertheless. The publicity was another major task. We organised two different "funda-sessions" for the first years. We also had posters in different parts of the MMM hall and other halls. Apart from this also came up with the invitations cards (these were mainly meant for the profs, who never cared to turn up anyway) and pamphlets (in Hindi and Telugu as well apart from English!).

As for the arena, we came up an idea of replicating a Taj Mahal like scnario. This was achieved by erecting a huge painting of the Taj and a water pool in front of it. To care of the dance we hired a DJ who came all the way from Kolkata. Although he made a mess of our Dandiya theme by playing not so conforming songs, the crowd was still on its feet. There also were some computer games to chill off. The attendance was good. This can be judged from the fact that there was a long queue in front of the TP stall all the time. All in all a nice evening and thoroughly enjoyed.