Karavaan

Karavaan
Status Active
Genre Scientific, social and cultural fest
Frequency Annual
Venue IISER Pune campus
Location(s) Pune
Country India
Website www.karavaan.org

Karavaan (Hindi: कारवाँ; English meaning: Caravan) is a national-level[1] student-run annual scientific,cultural and social festival of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune.[2]

The name stems from the notion of all IISERs moving forward as one. It attracts students from colleges all across Pune, as well as national institutes all over India. It is a 3-day fest, held during the months of October or November in the Fall semester every year.

About the Fest

First held in the year 2008, Karavaan began as a small intra-college fest, a platform mainly for the then small population of IISERites to showcase their talents. Over the years, it has gradually grown to become a major inter-collegiate cultural festival in Pune. It is organised through the synergy of several departmental teams looking after sponsorship, publicity, design, events, merchandise, and other aspects of the fest. Funded partly by IISER Pune and a number of associated sponsors, Karavaan is growing in magnitude to attract local, upcoming performers as well as artists of national fame. The various competitions held over the Karavaan weekend have seen an ever-increasing participation of students from colleges all over the city, as well as the major institutes across the country.

Events

Karavaan hosts several events and competitions over the period of three days, normally over an entire weekend in the Fall semester. The cultural clubs of IISER Pune, viz. the Music, Dance, Drama, Art, Literary, and the Quiz clubs conduct a variety of competitions in their respective fields. These typically span the entire Karavaan weekend, during daytime.The festival is a very vibrant affair, with colourful decorations and artworks prepared by students, and showcasing that year’s Karavaan theme embellishing the whole campus. There are plenty of games and activities like laser-tag, bull-rider, darts and Karaoke stalls to keep the visitors entertained.

Pre-Karavaan Events

The events leading up to Karavaan build the excitement of the upcoming fest. By organizing events like animal rescue sessions, blood donation camps and various clean-up drives in Pashan, an attempt has been made to address various social issues. Numerous crowd pulling activities like quizzes and drama competitions start a week or two before the fest.

Daytime events

Throughout the Karavaan weekend, one can see the campus vivid with several scientific and cultural activities to keep everyone entertained.

Some of the main daytime events organized every year include:

Science Stand-up comedy: Students infuse humour into science to create ripples of laughter.

Blah fest: This involves participants coming up with preposterous explanations for the hypotheses given to them.

Minimalistic pedagogy: Participants have to explain a complex scientific concept to an audience consisting of laypeople.

Dance and music competitions: There are innovative dance and music competitions organized every year.

Art events: Art enthusiasts flock to events like Junkyard Wars and Pitch Your Sketch.

Literary events: Events like Just a Minute (JAM) and Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) attract enthusiasts every year.

Quiz: A quiz is held by the quiz club every year and attracts quiz lovers from all over Pune.

Leadership conclave: This is a talk series consisting of a star studded line up of speakers whose expertise span a diverse set of fields. These eminent speakers talk about their work, experiences and lives which are both entertaining and full of valuable life lessons.

Main-Stage Events

At sundown, the spotlight shift from the competitions towards the main stage, where Karavaan’s most sought-after events: the IISER Showcase, Pronite and Band-Wars take place.

IISER Showcase

The IISER showcase offers a platform for the talented students from the institute to perform on the main-stage. The showcase has seen concerts from various IISER Pune music bands, Memes and Mad-Ads from the Drama troupes, Solo and group-dances, and other in-house performances.

Band Wars

The Band Wars have been a highlight of Karavaan since its inception. This event involves the participation of music bands playing various genres, invited from all over the country. In a fierce competition, all bands play a mini-gig, and the magnitude of the audience’s zealous response is an important factor in determining the winners. Till date, this event has been judged by members of the band performing in the Pronite.

Studmuffin, winner of the Band Wars, playing live at Karavaan 2013.

Previous winners of the Band Wars :

YearWinner
Karavaan 2015 Ryan Victor Project[3] and Celestial Teapot
Karavaan 2014The Gravy Philosophy
Karavaan 2013Studmuffin from Pune[4]
Karavaan 2012Last Ride Home from Mumbai [5]
Karavaan 2011Point Blanc from Pune

Pronite

The Pronite is the main attraction of Karavaan. A major crowd-puller, it involves a complete evening performance by popular artists from diverse fields. Till date, Karavaan has hosted live music performances by popular bands from across the country. Karavaan '11 was headlined by Black from Mumbai while Karavaan '12 hosted a concert by Divine Raaga, a Hindi folk-fusion-rock band based out of Bangalore.[6] Chaoskampf, a metal band from Pune, performed in Karavaan '13. K'14 was a witness to the talents of vocalist Siddharth Basrur and band, featuring guitarist Adil Manuel. He was succeeded by the duo of Sonu Kakkar and DJ Anshul in K'15. The famed rock band, 'Indian Ocean' performed in the K'16 Pronite.

Karavaan '14

The seventh edition of Karavaan commenced on 31 October 2014, leading to Halloween becoming the main theme of the fest this year. The Band Wars saw competing bands from all across the country, the leading accolade going to 'The Gravy Philosophy'.[7] The Pronite hosted a concert by popular vocalist Siddharth Basrur and band, featuring guitarist Adil Manuel.[7] Various competitions across disciplines like music, dance, drama, science, math and literature were organised by the respective cultural clubs of IISER Pune over the weekend (1 and 2 November). The fest was capped off with a masquerade party, a final-day highlight fitting to the halloween theme, featuring DJ Ansh.[7]

The Largest Warli Painting: A Limca Record

Karavaan '14 saw over 300 IISER students take part in a colossal effort to create one of the largest Warli paintings on 2 November 2014. Warli painting is a traditional art form of the Warli tribe. An initiative by the Art Club, IISER Pune, the completed artwork spanned over 2,500 square metres (27,000 sq ft), on the football field. This feat was achieved in less than 12 hours. This successful attempt entered into the Limca Book of Records.[8][9][10]

Karavaan '15

Karavaan’15 was organized on 16, 17 and 18 October 2015. With its eighth edition, Karavaan expanded its ambit to include social and scientific events along with cultural events. This year, the Pre-Karavaan events included sessions by ResQ(an NGO dedicated to the rehabilitation of stray animals), a blood donation camp, and a clean-up drive near Pashan Lake. True to the motto of K’15, ‘Enjoy OK Please’, there were also events like Happy Saturday (a Saturday morning of fun and games) and Art from Scrap to create a festive spirit before Karavaan.

The fest this year was themed ‘India’ with the tagline ‘Revive your roots’ and thus there were many competitions based on traditional Indian art forms. The quiz on India and the street play competition attracted hoards of participants from colleges in Pune. There were also light-hearted science competitions aimed at highlighting the fun side of science. This year, a Leadership Conclave was held where eminent leaders of society such as former director of NCL Dr. Sourav Pal and army veteran Colonel Gaurav Chibber inspired the students with their experiences and advice.

This year the Band Wars was in association with MTVi Xtreme and saw participation of bands across genres, with Ryan Victor Project and Celestial Teapot emerging as the winners. Pronite attracted a huge crowd with popular Bollywood singer Sonu Kakkar and DJ Anshul entertaining a lively audience. The three days of festivity ended on a bright note with flying lanterns lighting up the winter sky.

Karavaan '16

The ninth edition of Karavaan was held on 4, 5 and 6 November 2016. This year, the fest had a unique theme of ‘Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘Down the rabbit hole’ was its tagline. There were games involving characters from Alice in Wonderland which tried to recreate the mystery and aura of Wonderland. Enjoyable events like Science Stand-up Comedy, Just a Minute and Junkyard Wars were organized by the science, literary and art clubs of IISER.

Distinguished speakers from all walks of life such as Anand Gandhi, Mitali Panganti, Prajakta Divekar, Kamal Swaroop, Abhijeet Barse, Sathish Narayanan and Anil Zankar brought their knowledge and experience to the stage and motivated the audience in the leadership conclave, thematically named ‘The Mad Tea Party’. In the event ‘A snake’s tale’, Mr. Adithya Paranjape spread awareness regarding the different kinds of snakes and tried to dispel common superstitions about them by handling them in front of a large audience.

The Pronite, held on Sunday, had a record footfall of more than 2200 people. The night was inaugurated by the performance of a Pune based local band ‘After Acoustics’. This year’s Pronite featured the iconic band ‘Indian Ocean’ who had the crowd dancing and cheering to their hit songs. The closing act ‘Born of Normal Parents’ was presented by professional Irish sword-swallower and comedian, Mr. Murray Malloy, who entertained the crowd with his jokes and antics.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Karavaan'12 a national level cultural festival by IISER Pune, 2nd and 3rd November - CampfestivaCampfestiva". Campfestiva. 1 November 2012.
  2. ↑ "Karavaan '14". Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune. 31 October 2014.
  3. ↑ "Ryan Victor Project". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2017-08-06.
  4. ↑ "Studmuffin". Facebook.
  5. ↑ eMinor. "Last Ride Home - ReverbNation". ReverbNation.
  6. ↑ "Banjaraa - Divine Raaga @ IISER, Pune". YouTube.
  7. 1 2 3 "Ansh official page". 3 November 2014.
  8. ↑ "Limca Book of Records". www.limcabookofrecords.in. Retrieved 2017-08-06.
  9. ↑ "Art attack". Pune Mirror. 2 November 2014.
  10. ↑ "Clipping of Pune".
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