The second edition of Banjaara, Ashoka University’s annual cultural festival was held on February 24 and 25, 2018. This year the theme of the festival was ‘childhood’ and ‘a journey down the memory lane.’
There were two kinds of events at Banjaara, formal and informal.
Day 1 of the fest saw competitions such as Unplugged, Slam Poetry and Nukkad Natak, along with informal events like Carnival Games, Beyblade Fights and Treasure Hunt. The day ended with a thrilling performance by Parekh and Singh, an Indian dream pop duo from Kolkata.
The second and final day of Banjaara hosted formal events like Battle of the Bands, Photography and Stage Play and informal events such as Pithoo and Time Capsule. Besides these, there were also ‘Blind Encounters’ and ‘Human Library’, where people were randomly assigned to each other and encouraged to have one on one conversations and get to know each other better. The festival concluded with brilliant shows put up by singer-songwriter Raghav Meattle and reggae artist Delhi Sultanate.
However, the main highlight of Banjaara this year were the social impact initiatives. While social impact has always been a part of the fest, this time the organisers undertook various steps to ensure that Banjaara would be an environmentally and socially conscious event.
From organising sustainability workshops to a 4-bin segregation system and using recycled material for fest decor and cutlery, the objective was to ensure that waste generation was as minimal as possible.
As far as social responsibility goes, there was a ‘haat‘ organised that was displaying the work of exceptional artisans and craftspeople from Delhi and surrounding areas. There were also stalls selling handmade notebooks, jewellery, postcards and second-hand books. Lastly, the clubs and societies of Ashoka University showcased their work through ‘People Stops’ put up all around campus.
Overall, Banjaara turned out to be a great success. From deciding to have the fest on a theme that focused on environmental conservation, it aims to do something unique every year. And with the success of the social impact initiatives, Banjaara has shown that the successful execution of a large-scale event doesn’t imply huge amount of waste generation. Thus, one can easily expect Banjaara 3.0 to be bigger and better.