Written by Animation by Sekhar Mukherjee
The countdown to Chitrakatha’21 has begun. The nerves change into excitement, increasing every second, as the festival is just around the corner now. Students of NID AP have started arriving, and working at the college campus, breathing life into it after almost a year and a half.
Chaos breeds, along with adrenaline, as people run around to get things done. With buses running again, the bus group has again started spamming everyone’s phones. The canteen is open again, with people waiting around it for what seems like an eternity, for a plate of Maggi, as the canteen Aunty gets overwhelmed with orders. Behind the college walls people take a break from this chaos, trying to relax, finding a few moments of peace in a haze of smoke, before the work starts again.
The air is heated up, and as if on command, the skies pour out to cool it down. From dodgy internet connections, crashing websites to laptops dying, the online medium comes with its own set of challenges. Despite this, our team is geared up, making final finishes in this crucial time, with the festival less than 24 hours away.
SLA Room Gets a New Identity
Laptop screens were gleaming everywhere and keyboards were clacking, plug points were being divided and chargers were being shared. Pencils were moving like lightning and topics of discussion ebbed and flowed into one another. Pop music was playing in the background but it was hard to make out over the hum of conversations.
In a corner, the website team was scrambling with their responsibilities at full speed. In the same space, online interviews were being conducted. Every once in a while, more people would walk into the room and some would leave to catch the bus back to our flats at IJM. Documentation was on, pictures were taken and notes being scribbled and were being sent to people working from home. At the lunch hour, everyone trickled out to go eat at the canteen. The smell of the standards was in the air- Maggi and Dosa. Everywhere, there were conversations and laughter. People rarely found spots to sit, but no one seemed to mind.
Just when the Sun started to set, a few of the boys played volleyball as few of us came outside for a Tea break. When everyone returned to the SLA room, life poured into it again. The work started up again full speed and sure enough, within moments everyone returned to their responsibilities. At the end of the day, the last bus was filled up with tired souls, to be taken back to IJM, talking and bantering about everything along the way.
We have also launched Chitrakatha’21 Discord! With everything being online this year, the Discord will serve as a hangout place for all the attendees and delegates.
You can also inquire anything regarding Chitrakatha’21, whether it be about speakers or be it the events schedule. Chill with everyone and listen to music while you’re here. Check out Discord!
Chitrakatha is nothing if not for the people in this community, working for and along with each other to come together, and share stories. It has a legacy of travelling through time, through numerous batches of NID, through spaces, from Ahmedabad to Vijayawada to now being online. We honour the people who are in this ride from the very beginning by getting their experiences, and their opinions on this festival in a special edition of Chitkhabri, which will be released soon!
Weather Forecast:
The Sun shines again after a short-lived Cyclone at NID
Cyclone of confusion made a landfall in NID AP campus today, alert has been issued ahead of heavy rains of questions. Who’s making portraits of the guests? Where is the final list of speakers? The situation got worse when authorities did not inform starving students that the Canteen remains closed on the weekends, so no Bread-Omlette and Chai-Coffee, but luckily an exception was made later in the morning.
A bright sunny day is to be expected on the Andhra coast on 23rd of November when the Chitrakatha festivities start. All the necessary preparations to celebrate this pleasant day are being done, the production team putting up their systems, power banks getting charged, Wi-Fi backups ready and a playlist of stretching exercises for your back saved because we cannot let anything interrupt such a great celebration.
The countdown has begun! The TAD 3rd year room can be seen bustling with activity as the promo team makes it their headquarters. The energy is up with tablets and screens, papers and pens, scratching, drawing frames after frames to make images move, as the promo gets defined slowly and steadily.
The room is lit in warm light, encompassing everything in it, coming from the softboxes set up in it, along with cameras and a stop motion set. Scissors, paper cuttings, and puppets made from those lie around the room, as the students try to animate them.
With computer fans whirring, filling up the room with a constant hum, along with Tejas moving around rambling on about random things, not being able to sit still, and Disha cracking and laughing at her own jokes, the promo team is working in full swing for the promo to be released soon. With time running out, the atmosphere in the animation gets even more tense.
Word is out! Chitrakatha‘21 Opening Ceremony will happen on the 22nd of November and will feature a screening of the festival promo made by NID students at 10:00 PM!
New Episode of Radiowada is Up!
Episode 5 of Radiowada, under Chitrakatha specials, titled ‘Splish Splash‘ was a beautiful blend of stories, poetry and the highlight- music, all from varied genres.
The show started and ended with music pieces; ‘Coffee Breath’ by Ashrita and ‘Monta re’ by Vyom and Harinandan, with ‘5AM’, an original by Dwit which was originally a part of his assignment, and a musical piece by Avijit playing in between.
Satirical newsreels were presented by Kritika on various topics, for example the episode where she spoke about the ironic situation of people complaining about the poor visibility of crackers during Diwali because of the existing pollution.
A story was written and presented by Adeeb, ideated by Tanmay, which was a short intro to a vast concept that’s under making.
There was a segment of poetry titled ‘Guldasta’ written by Sreelakshmi that was based on child marriage.
Venturing Into Our New Campus
This chitrakatha, Studio El Palmeral is again working in collaboration with NID AP, to create a structure, this time in the new campus at Amaravathi. There are 12 students from NID AP involved in this project. We took a trip to the new campus on the 19th of november, to get a sense of the space.
Two cars were arranged to go from ijm to the new campus and back. We left at 8:30 in the morning and the journey was approximately 40 minutes. The skies were grey, with a little bit of rain, the air cool and humid with anticipation hanging around it.
All of us were baffled as we entered the new campus and didn’t even realise it. The land around it was barren, with vast nothingness till where the sight could see. Ram showed us around, and we were left alone to explore the place on our own.
The place looked very geometric, angular at first glance, parallels and perpendiculars everywhere around the structure, with little to no sign of life.
We first went to the cafeteria and were astounded to see the plan that was about to take place there. The cafeteria seems to be in an ambient setting with glass doors, a perfect place to hang around. Just beside the cafeteria lie the admin offices. We climbed two floors to explore the architecture only to see small cabins arranged around a rectangular shaped corridor with sides extending on to two of its parallel sides.
As we went through all the cabins, we got to the balcony of the admin quarters. The floor was rinsed with rainwater preventing us from setting foot there, but still enough to be able to see the amazing view the balcony offered.
We come out through the cafeteria and look to our left, we see an open space, full of mud and swamps which no one planned on entering, until we saw the hostels and the admin quarters right across it, just some yards away. Everyone looked at each other, contemplating the same, and deciding to go for it, all feet started off through the swamps towards our hostels.
We enter the first hostel building and open the doors to take a look at the rooms. They look fairly big for accommodation, so do the cupboards. Looking at that, all of us have mixed feelings, the excitement and melancholy of leaving IJM, both at the same time.
After walking through the landscape, we started looking at different spaces for potential structure creation opportunities. There were some really interesting spaces which on enquiry, we found out that they had no plans of having anything built on them. Apart from the obvious answers like the lawn or the courtyard, we found some versatile spaces which had potential to be transformed into something else.
That’s when we got a call from Ram, asking us to return to the admin quarters. We again crossed the muddy patches only to find Ram chuckling at our efforts of trying to walk through them.
Then we went along with Ram, to look at the working blocks. All of us were dumbfounded after looking at the workshops. Just the thought of the future batches, students working there, in that monster of a workshop felt amazing. The glass doors and the ample amount of space allotted for every floor assured us that the workshops were the highlight of our small visit.
With many new learnings and firmly documented memories, we set off towards IJM. On the way we were treated into a restaurant which offered an authentic, delicious and lavish spread of authentic Andhra food. After enjoying the meal, we returned back to IJM, ready to tell the tales to those who missed the trip.
We are accepting your submissions to be featured on our next Chitkhabri
Contributors
Kritika, Namrata, Rati, Sreelakshmi, Suhani, Vyom
