Ever since LA Fest ‘96 was held, marking the first ever schools’ cultural fest in TVM, other schools have like always followed the Loyola way. The very next year St. Joseph’s came out with their Jo Fiesta which they even advertised in the papers as the 1st ever schools’ cultural fest in TVM… but they know and we know the truth and I guess that’s enough.

The Jo Fiesta didn’t carry on for a long time though, and soon Sarvodaya Vidyalaya introduced their fest… This too didnt last much longer. In between I believe Saint Thomas Residential School started a fest, but I am not sure. Anyway the bottom line is that that too didn’t stand the test of time. Very soon LA Fest was left without any competitor.

That changed when I reached the 10th. We had just gone for the ISC Schools’ cultural meet and were returning when we got the news that Sainik School were hosting a cultural fest. Our seniors jumped at the idea of going for it as could be expected - after all it was the only one where we could participate! But then we got the surprise news that Christ Nagar HSE was hosting a cultural fest and that too on the same day as the Kazhak’s fest. Our seniors in the 12th had already committed to going to Sainik and the guys in 11th were away on their excursion and thus it was that we got the chance to go to our first ever cultural fest. And that is how we ended up going to……

CHRIS GALA 2004

I still remember that inaugural year of the chris gala quite well. As i have already said it was the 1st fest that we were going to. Added to that, some stupid politician and later 2 or 3 “Fathers” of christ nagar gave rather lengthy and (as is obvious) boring speeches. That surely got the fest of to a rocking start - literally… everyone’s heads were nodding to and fro!…

Oh yeah…nearly forgot… the singing ’sensation’ Jassie Gift was present… This was about the time when ‘4 the people’ was released and his buffalo’s voice could be heard all over Kerala screaming ‘Lajaavathiye…’ Anyway Jassie didn’t ‘disappoint’ and bellowed on into his most famous number… When it ended the large indoor auditorium that was I guess hardly 1/4th full was still echoing with the lyrics of that song (the sound system was bad- 2 loud1!)…

Anyway the first event for the day was the group song and any pretense that the ‘Christ Nagarians’ were putting up about this event not being a rip-off of LA Fest soon disappeared as the compere came on and announced - ‘We are about to start with the 1st event of the day - HARMONY the group song event’… For those who are wondering what is funny about this then let me tell you that Harmony is the name of the group song event at LA Fest and has been the same since the beginning!… The real name that the organizers had put for the event was something else, but I guess when you are ripping off stuff…….old habits die hard!!!…

Anyway the event went quite smoothly after that. I guess the fact that teachers were doing everything from keeping score and time to literally writing down the stuff that the announcers were supposed to say, had an impact on this. But still we enjoyed ourselves to the fullest.

Out of the 4 events that were conducted we got a third in mime and in Contendre- a sort of pot pourri event for which AD, Pyangu and I had gone. I still remember the agony as we failed to get Michael Shumacher in the 20 questions round, and the ecstasy as we got ‘The Scorpion King’ in some 5 seconds in a round of Dumbsie… The next day in school Akhil found out that the certificates that we got were written on with some easily erasable ink as . He took our Contendre certies and changed the third to first!… I still have that 1 as I found out when I checked out all my old certies 4 an interview!…

But the real highlight event which I always remember first when I think abt that event is the dance. ‘Uyirin Uyire’, ‘Koi Kahe’ and ‘Hamma Hamma’ were the 3 songs 2 which my classmates were dancing. The day b4 the event at 3 in the evening they r busy in the lab editing their song. After this the whole team comes 2 my house 4 ‘practice’. We end up with eating quite a lot of food from my place and also playing a bit of cricket. If there was ne practice done thn it sure skipped my sight! The next day the team go on and dance and we scream our throats dry. Then Madhav gets his leg stuck between the 2 carpets on stage and falls. And then things jst get funny! It sure is memorable!… But still it was a start and 1 from which we sure learned.

Hmmm….. that was Chris Gala 2004… But that’s not all… Coz even though the next year the Sainik Fest didn’t take place and we couldn’t go 4 Chris Gala as our seniors went 4 it, there still was a new one to go for. In 2005-06, Nirmala Bhavan came out with the…

‘Nymph’s Fiesta’ 2005

The first ever by a girls only school. It was quite well organized I must admit. The dare they threw when they asked some1 from each school 2 go on2 stage and do wat they say is somethin tat i’m sure i’l never 4get. I went up and was asked 2 dance - ME… DANCE!… I say tat i’m not the rt person 4 the job and that we shuld call some1 else and guess who turns up - Leander!… Well the rest as they say is history and yet it was quite fun. The second dare they threw was eating green chillies… this time AD goes up… takes 1 bite… drinks almost a whole bottle of coke tat they had kept and came down! Some poor guy actually ate abt 12 chillies in a minute 4 which he gt a packet of munch of which i dont think he even got 1 as his frnds fell upon the box as soon as he came off stage!

The event itself went quite well. First up was the song and I blv our team sang ‘One Love’ and got 2nd for it. Then there was a drama event pretty much a copy of ‘Comedia Dela Arte’(not sure abt the spellin) and ‘Roister Doister’ which were the 2 drama events of La Fest 2004 and 2005 respectively. Anyway our team, led by Chalu, Henry and with the star female role being played by Manu (she put up a very original show), did a spoof of Manichithrathazhu. The scene when Chalu(who was playin Mohanlal) ran across the stage 2 knock a glass of poisoned tea from Henry’s hand, is particularly memorable as the whole stage seemed 2 b trembling! Other events included Persona Grate or somethin like tat, which AD won quite easily and a dance for which we very nearly missed out on a third. Honestly I can’t remember the overall result. Did we win? (Somebody pls fill tat up 4 me).

But I do remember going 2 Minus 24 after tat… And I also do remember Chalu plannin 2 hit on some1 there as well…(or was tat after Chris Gala 2006???…I’m not sure…) Neway…

Chris Gala 2006:

Was the last cultural event tat we wnt 4 as a class. It was quite good and much better organized than the 1st 1 4 which we had gone. We went in2 this event with 0 preparation as it was immediately after our La Fest. The events were pretty much the same. Song - we sung the indian idol song (got 2nd i think)… Drama - we did the skit of Manichithrathazhu again (got nothing unfortunately)… Contendre - got 2nd only! (Ad, Thushar and me were the team and we did expect 2 win!…) Dance (the La Fest Dance though performed at only abt 70 % of the original still got us 2nd - the 1st time our dance team won nethin, i think) and finally Quiz… and the biggest surprise - we got nothin… Both our teams of usually brilliant quizzers didn’t even make the final. That was a major blow and one that finally cost us the trophy as we ended up 2nd to (I never thought i’d say this b4 that day…but…) St. Mary’s Poojapura!… No comments on tat pls!… But still the important thing is tat we had fun and loads of it. Made a lot of frnds and shouted a lot as well!!!… Worth everything I guess.

Resonance 2006:

St. Thomas residential school hosted resonance in late 2006 and our immediate juniors went 4 it. The event was on the day that we returned from our excursion 2 Bangalore, Hogenakkal and Ekm. We got back at abt 4 in the morning and still Chalu and I went 2 watch the event. it was quite smaller than I expected but being the first time that is ok i guess. The events were well planned out and hosted and tat was the most important thing. The personality contest when Devajyothi Ghosh tried 2 ‘fry’ the contestants was quite boring though. He really didn’t knw wat he was doing - dude if ur reading this then sorry, but that’s the truth. I dont really remember much of the event otherwise except 4 a couple of things.

First was singing Boulevard of Broken Dreams during the afternoon. Considering that I was singing it went quite better than can b expected! The Second Major Incident happened after the dance that the Santhomites put on. Chalu was tyring 2 talk 2 (oh god i dont blv this but i actually 4got her name, so I’ll call her…) ‘X’. Earlier in the day he had sent Avinash our ‘trusty little frnd’ 2 tell her tat he wants 2 talk 2 her. Avi being Avi spiced things up a bit, shall I say! So as Chalu tried 2 make conversation by saying tat 1of her dance partners had jst fainted(and tat actually did happen - I saw it myself), she went off the ‘long’ handle. She started off with ‘Heh if u wanna talk 2 me jst tel tat’ and ‘Wat do u think of me’ and so on and went on in that vein 4 a while. Even though her words weren’t directed at me, standing nxt 2 Chalu I also started feeling a bit flustered!… Poor Chalu… he never got out a word in the whole 2 minutes of the ‘conversation’!

Well these are some of the stories abt the cultural fests tat we went 2 in TVM. There r other stories tat I do not wish 2 speak abt… atleast not now… For now tat’s all then… Until next time!…

- Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

- BiBinhio.