JOIN USEvery year, the students of Baldwin Women’s Methodist College never fail to mark off one crucial event in their calenders — Chrysalis. The annual festival presents the students with a chance to forget about hectic classes and instead, immerse themselves in a host of fun-filled events.
The entire college campus sports a carnival-like atmosphere and hidden talents are suddenly brought to the fore. This year’s edition of the festival was no different. Spread out over three days, students were presented with several different fronts on which to show off their skills. These events were restricted in any sort of fashion — for instance, on the first day, the fest kicked off with a caption-writing competition, in which the students were shown a picture on the spot and had to come up with an innovative, five-word caption for it in a mere fifteen minutes.
Students with a penchant for number games could take up the Sudoku challenge, in which they had to fill up a complicated little grid of numbers — something which looked deceptively simple but actually required a lot of brainpower. There were also creatively-inclined events like bindi designing, clay modelling, flower arrangements, hair-styling, cartooning and a particularly interesting competition in which students had to paint eggshells.
The flow of creativity continued on the second day with a glass-ware painting competition — students could be seen bending over pieces of clear glass and carefully inscribing it with patterns in myriad colours — as well as a soap art competition which was innovatively titled ‘Spinderella Soap’.
What really stole the show and brought the entire college together, however, was the contemporary dance competition on the third day. The event really gave the students a lot of scope to pile on the glamour — whether it was in terms of funky music, sequinned outfits or elaborate and dramatic movements. Each class battled each other, putting up dances that had the entire college tapping their feet as well.
The second-year BCom students of section B went all out as they danced to the Bollywood number Rang De. Dressed in black outfits with touches of silver sequins, they presented a pretty picture as they whirled around the stage. The third-year BCom students managed to pull off quite a crowd-pleasing event as well, dressed in light blue outfits with their hair pinned up and festooned with flowers.
They danced to soft numbers like Jashn from Jodhaa Akbar and Dilli 6. After the show, these students rushed to their teacher — who was sitting in the audience — and began to excitedly chatter about their experience on stage.
Next up were the third-year BBM students who wore white gowns accessorised with cropped silver jackets. They had painted their palms with silver glitter and lost no opportunity to wave them at the audience during the show. They danced to numbers like Bhare More Naina from the movie Ra.One and Sapne Boond Boond from ‘Wake Up Sid’.
Ultimately, the third-year BCom students emerged as the winners.
Nikita, the college president, admits that organising the fest was quite a task. “I’ve done it before but it was completely different this time because we put in some new events — like the fashion show on the second day and some fine-art events like soap art and mask making,” she explains. She adds, “I think it was a big hit this time though. The response we got — especially during the dance competition — has never been so big before.”