Monday, January 08, 2007

The Name Fest

Cultural festivals in India are as abundant as, say poverty. Every Indian college worth its badge has a talent show with an inventive brand name. I've plucked a few good, bad and ugly names from memory. See if I've left out any juicy one.

BITS Pilani - Oasis (the best ever organised fest and what an apt name)
IIT Madras - Mardi Gras (the herbivores used to call it Mardi Grass)
IIT Bombay - Mood I (aka Mood Indigo – quite evocative, I must say)
IIT Delhi - Rendezvous (a South Delhish name for a very Dilli festival)
IIT Kanpur - Antaragni (a rather deep name for a fun fest)
IIT Kharagpur - Spring Fest (unimaginative but does the job)
ITBHU - Kashi Yatra (wonder why they ever chose the silly Spandan as replacement in between.)
REC Trichy - Festember (a smart port manteau for Festival in September)
St. Xavier's - Malhar (the name can mislead you into thinking it's a music show)
MCC - Deep Woods (an allusion to the campus, I guess)
Loyola College - Down Sterling (at one point in time, I found it interesting)
IIM Ahmedabad - Chaos (an oddball name for a show by an ivy league biz school)
IIM Calcutta - NBSM (before you rush to point out that Carpe Diem is the new name, let me record it for posterity that the Jokers from Joka till recently used to host a culfest with the bland name NBSM - an abbrievation for National Business School Meet)
IIM Bangalore - Unmaad (not unmad, my friend. that's unmaad, okay. and guess what, it means madness.)
IIM Kozhikode - Backwaters (a very oasis kinda name)
IIT Guwahati - Alcheringa (wikipedia tells me alcheringa is an aboriginal term for 'Dream Times')
Anna University - Kurukshetra (a pompous sounding name but at least catchy)
BIT Mesra - Bitotsav (in the nineties, they had a better name - Pebbles)
AIIMS Delhi - Pulse (not bad. doctors can name babies too!)
IISc Bangalore - Vibrations (same logic as the AIIMS name)
Mount Carmel - Cul-ah (very decent considering that it came from the Bangalore bimbettes)
St. Stephen - Winter Festival (is that all you guys could manage?)
Sydenham College - Brouhaha (that's a charming name. trivia - fest was called Rainbow Lane before Brouhaha)
IIT Madras - Saarang (man, somehow this name is so wrong!)
National Law School - Le'Gala (clever and nice, actually very nice.)

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