College Festival Rants

I will now proceed to quote Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley, in Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire:

The Context: At the Yule Ball (something similar to a prom), Hermione goes with Viktor Krum, a Bulgarian student from the infamous school 'Durmstrang'. Incidentally, Viktor is pitched against Harry in the triwizard cup, and is hence his rival.

Hermione (Defending herself to Ron): "The Triwizard Cup was setup to promote international magic friendliness and cooperation."

To which Ron replies: "That's not what you're doing! You're fraternising with the enemy!"

In many ways, this is similar to what happens in college festivals in Mumbai. Well, at least those with a lot of competing colleges. There's always a strong hatred for the rivals, and 'fraternising with the enemy' is instant ostracization for ze person involved. This doesn't work out as healthy competition at all. In fact, it doesn't even help unity building within college contingents. It's just this vicious rivalry, which has no point or reason.

An Example: At our college festival, one of the college contingents raised an issue when a competing college's student had come as as judge for a Junkapella (one of our events), citing bias as an overruling influence in judgement. Fair enough. Anyway, i heard the event head tell this to one of the committee members, to which the committee member responded: "Which contingent raised this issue?" in a weary oh-i-hate-them-whiny-fucking-contingents voice. The event head replied "Which contingent do you think?", with an obvious look on his face. I was baffled, but the committee member immediately said: "Jaihind?".

People forget the whole point of college festivals. I've seen organisers so fucking anal about pointless minor issues, i've seen organisers so stressed because of continual complaints all around, and i've seen participants shamelessly poke fun at the organisers. Like, you know, mean stuff. People forget that the aim is to make friends and interact.

I could write this so much better. Better said, this could be written so much better. I've seen college festivals, and for some reason, i can't transfer the bitterness that i feel into writing. But it is sad. With bigger prizes in events, the competition becomes more and more unhealthy. The reason for the event's existence is diluted, and the point/aim of the event is lost in the frenzy to win. And most of the contingents don't even enjoy themselves. Ask everyone (not just anyone) who goes to Malhar.