A celebration of cultural heritage

The students of Sri Bhagawan Magaveer Jain College, VV Puram, recently came together to put up their annual Kannada Habba. This fest, which is held on an annual basis at the college, is both a literary as well as a cultural fest — the students put in a lot of effort to carry it off seamlessly every year, because they want to change the perception that their institute gives more importance to languages like Hindi and Sanskrit.

It included a host of cultural events as well as a speech by the chief guest for the occasion, poet and playwright Chandrashekara Kambara.Subhash, who was part of the team that organised the fest, says, “Each year, the Kannada department of our college organises the Kannada Habba.

It’s similar to the Rajyotsava celebrations which are held on November 1.”Organising the entire occasion, he adds, was no mean task. “We started preparing for it a week in advance. We were wondering who to call as a chief guest — then, we found out that Chandrashekara Kambara was the family member of one of the students in the college, so we decided to call him,” he recollects, adding that the entire team worked continuously for two days to decorate the college quadrangle, where the occasion was conducted.

The team worked to ensure that all the Kannada students of the college — as well as those from other departments — attended the habba and ultimately, a whopping 500 students gathered to watch the programme. There was a great line-up of cultural events which had been scheduled for the day, which gave the audience lots to cheer about.

One group of girls, in fact, put together a kamsale performance — a dance form — with all the necessary props. “Normally, this dance is performed to bhajans by groups of boys. But in our college, the girls presented it,” says Subhash.In addition to this, a variety of songs were rendered as well. The students put together a medley of hit numbers from the Kannada film industry, ranging from past to the present.

A band from the college — quirkily titled Lungi Boxers — sang a few songs that were performed by actors like Dr Rajkumar and Shankar Nag.All in all, the students enjoyed the experience — especially since they got a peek at some traditional dances. Subhash says, “We also called a yakshagana artiste named Sadananda Hegde, to perform specially for the students. The entire programme was one-and-a-half hours long.”