Points Tally
Let us take a look at the LitSoc points table to see how each hostel fares.
Towards the end of this semester, Sharavathi is leading with 125 points followed by Tapti and Alaknanda with 98 and 87 points respectively.
LitSoc Official Calendar
Stay in the Loop
Install the LitSoc App to stay in the loop. The LitSoc App is devised to help you keep track of all the upcoming LitSoc events according to the official calendar and ensure that you are always informed about LitSoc.
A Look Back at the Events
5 Nov – Elocution
Elocution was the last LitSoc event of the semester. It witnessed 20 speakers battle it out in what was a one-round, three-minute test of diction, creativity and the essentials of an impactful oration. The event, held at PhLT, was judged by Professor Chella Rajan and Ms Shobha Vishwanath, Co-founder and Publishing Director of the popular Chennai-based international children’s literature publication – Karadi Tales. Given the freedom to choose their own topic, speakers were permitted to structure their speeches and deliver them at their own will. Although many failed to model their speeches along these lines, some others wowed the judges and the audience.
Aryendra, who placed first, was appreciated for his rendering of a soulful speech by a son to his father. Raju, who placed second, proved that he was a man of spontaneity once again and attempted a satire of those participants who had spoken before him. Krupa, who placed third, rehashed the humorous farewell speech with heavy undertones of sentiment and received the judges’ appreciation. They were followed by Debayan, who addressed the issue of suicides in Insti and Venky, who spoke of the angst of being a Humanities student in an institute filled with Techies – a concern that never gets old.
27 & 28 Oct – WM Solo And Solo Instrumental Event
27 Oct – Travel and Living Quiz
The Travel and Living Quiz has made its way back into LitSoc after a hiatus of a few years. Although the quiz was held in HSB 352 – a room too small to hold a quiz – it got the participation of roughly 40 teams, leaving little room to breathe. The prelims had 30 questions and was topped by Rushabh Menon, Siddharth Srikanthan and Anand Aiyer with a score of 24.5. A total of eight teams made it to the finals.
After a delay that was cut short by rain, the finals began – speaking of rain-advancements. The finals consisted of 3 special rounds, ranging from the Rise of Nations powers to city artwork and 30 bounce & pounce questions. Many aspects of travel and living were touched on, such as food, drink, traditions from around the world, wildlife, history and even the Lonely Planet guides.
The toppers of the prelims – Siddharth, Rushabh and Anand – emerged victorious with second place being grabbed by Ananth, Nithin and Gokul. The quiz was slightly lopsided but was enjoyed by everyone.
26 Oct – Fine Arts II (Mukimono)
‘Mukimono’ – the art of fruit
Tools like peelers, knives,
The event was a lot of fun and
The results of the event are as follows:
23 Oct – Couch Potatos
Couch Potatos was introduced to break away from ‘serious theatre’ and let people just enjoy and have fun. This newly incarnated event exceeded expectations with not only participants but also the audience thoroughly enjoying the evening. Despite being a four day weekend with half the ‘insti’ at home and the constant rain, the event got pretty decent participation with 12 teams registering.
The event had two rounds – first of which was Mad Ads. Participants were asked to come at 5pm sharp so that they could pick their product and start preparing advertisements. In contrast, the Pundit (judge), Rahul Sridhar was late and so the event started at 6 pm instead of 5:30 pm according to the schedule. Each team put up wacky ads and in the end the following 6 teams were chosen for the finals: X-ray Googles (Tapti), “Your Mom” Tombstone (Ganga), Age Gauge (Mahanadhi), Instant Darkness Powder (Saras), Dragon Ball Radar (Mandak) and Lead Loaded Maggi (Jamuna).
The second round was the ‘Improv’ round. The judge, along with the audience, came up with situations on the spot and asked the teams to perform as they saw fit – with absolutely no preparation, script or lines. The situations were hilarious, and the performances more so. Out of nowhere, the judge ordered that one person from each team come up on stage. Then, he took the memento we were supposed to gift him later and handed it over to each team, with all its gift wrap, and asked them to come up with entertaining lines about it. We had no choice, he demanded it. Participants were egged on to snatch the box and come up with lines till he ended the round. Some of the lines that sprang out of this round were pure comedic gold.
The final winners were Ganga due to their splendid performance in the second round while Mandak was second with Tapti closing the podium.
20 Oct – India Quiz
The event started 45 minutes late due to an unforeseen delay but this didn’t deter participation. PhLT was packed with around 120 people – with a representation from almost all hostels. The prelims consisted of 33 questions and took around 50 minutes to finish. With a score of 24.5, the team of Rushabh Menon, Anand R Aiyer and Venkat topped the prelims. Ashish, Sreedhar and Piyush came second in the prelims with a score of 21.5. The other teams to qualify were: Gerleo, Hathim and Shubhajit; Sourav, Vimal and Bitthal; Kavin, Shashwat and Vishal; Krishna, Abhishek and Paul; Binu George, Joseph and Vinayak; Nithin, Ferril and Ananth.
After a 20-minute break for organizing the papers, waiting for the finalists to arrive and for the coordinators to grab a quick snack – the finals were underway. The finals consisted of 3 special written rounds of approximately 6 questions each on myriad topics like NRI’s and People of Indian Origin, Indian Arts and Crafts and an AV round with questions on movies complemented by 2 bounce and pounce rounds of 12 questions each. At the end, the winners of the prelims – Rushabh, Anand and Venkat emerged victorious once again. Coming in second was the team of Kavin, Shashwat and Vishal. In third place was the team of Ashish, Sreedhar and Piyush who had placed in a LitSoc quiz for the first time.
7 Oct – Fine Arts I (Paint It Big)
Our artists have shown that “bigger is better” at the first Fine Arts event of this year. Despite heavy downpour, the event witnessed twice as much participation as last year. This year, the theme was “Paint It Big”. For a few hours, around 25 teams dabbled with poster colours, markers and A2 sheets to produce a conglomeration of sketches of minions, superheros and cartoons.
Mandak placed first followed by Mahanadi and Ganga.
6 & 8 Oct – What’s The Good Word
The finals of the much awaited LitSoc What’s The Good Word was held on the night of 8th October, two long days after the prelims. Both the participants and the audience were bustling with excitement. Even after a late start, the event took off well, with 8 teams competing to win the much coveted LitSoc points.
After a frenzy of rounds and questions, ranging from anagrams and spooners to a new round of ‘Archaic Rap’, the team from Alak, comprising of the veteran ‘Shady’ Shashwat and Vishal Katariya placed first, with Zainab and Shiraz coming in a close second after performing exceptionally in the last round. Sukruth and Hathim from Godav won the third place.
4 Oct – Design Fest
Design Contest was carried out on the Gandhi Jayanti long weekend, with hostels being given the following three problem statements:
1. Design a logo for Fine Arts Club, IIT Madras
2. Design a minimalist poster integrating Insti Feel with Sea Exploration
3. Design a T-shirt for Quiz Club, IIT Madras
7 hostels put in entries for the 3 problem statements and some of them were truly mindblowing and got great appreciation from both our judges and on Facebook. Saras won first place with the maximum number of cumulative points with Ganga and Narmada close behind. Find below a collage of the contest entries:
30 Sept – Fandom Quiz (Non-Competitive Event)
The first non-competitive LitSoc event of the year – where a hostel gains a bonus for sending the maximum number of teams but there are no points for winning – the Fandom Quiz tried to bring all LOTR, Harry Potter and GoT fans out from their rooms and in CRC 101. With an attendance of around 200 people, it was a great start, and everyone present seemed to have lots of fun cracking posers from deep inside the mythical worlds of Middle Earth, Hogwarts and Westeros. No one kept track of who won the quiz, but Tapti scored 5 points by sending in 10 teams to take part in the event.
28 Sept – JAM
JAM was the first Speaking event of this academic year’s LitSoc. With each of the hostels sending three of their best jammers to battle it out in this war of wit, word and whim – scope for strategic partnerships and alliances were plentiful. The JAM moderator, Murali Satagopan of The Pundits fame, gave each one of them a run for their points and kept the audience in splits with his extremely amusing JAM prompts and pun-laden interjections.
The prelims event saw 4 rounds of 6 jammers each. Breaking from tradition, the jammers were not scored in the prelims round and the selection of finalists was solely based on the moderator’s discretion as to their ability to perform well in the finals. While some rounds had the classic “Mr Bates” prompt, the others had prompts that proved to be a tough test of the jammers’ creativity. The six picks for the final round were Asmita and Krupa from Tunga, Silicon aka Raju from Saraswathi, Richi from Godavari, Shreyas from Ganga and Aditya from Mandakini. Udith, Ranjani and Suhridh received special mention.
The finals saw 4 rounds with cumulative scores determining the winners and the runners-up. Making this event a memorable one were two interesting additions – first, the jammers had to deliver a pick-up line addressed to one of the audience members and would received bonuses if that audience member gave the thumbs-up; second, a jammer would get negative points for the wrongdoings of his/her neighbour. These additions not only upped the entertainment quotient of the event, but was also a real gamechanger for the jammers.
The results of the event are as follows:
20 Sept to 26 Sept – Creative Writing Solo
LitSoc CW Solo was scheduled to be conducted from 20th September to 26th September. However, the deadline was extended by a day. Each hostel was allowed 5 entries, a maximum of 3 prose pieces and 2 poetry pieces. The rules of the event were the same as the preceding years’. Five writing prompts were given including one picture prompt. The prompts were –
1) “ If I had a box just for wishes and dreams that had never come true, the box would be empty except for …
2) “Magic was outlawed years ago. But did I care? No. The kids loved it; they came down the alley just to see it.”
3) You wake up as a human lie-detector and find out that everything your best-friend told you was a lie including his/her name.
4) This is how you do it: You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.’
5) The picture displayed below:
39 entries (24 prose pieces and 15 poetry pieces) were sent to the judges. The LitSoc CW Solo this year was judged by Fiona Bolger, Anne Tannam and Siobhan Flynn – widely published and acclaimed Irish writers and poets. It was encouraging to note that the number of entries had gone up from the previous year. The judges said that they had a good time reading the entries but a tough time time judging them.
26 Sept – SpellB
With a turnout of almost a hundred people, the first word games club event kicked off the LitSoc season with a bang. The event’s reintroduction created quite a buzz as it is one of the most fun and easy events to participate and score for your hostel. The event in with its revamped format made it more fun. The crowd was very enthusiastic, with a sizable number of them staying back to watch the finals. The results of the event are as follows:
22 Sept – Buzzer Quiz
LitSoc Buzzer Quiz took place at CRC 101, and it was heartening to see the hostels putting forward their best quizzers to snatch elusive the LitSoc points. There were more than 50 teams present and it was reassuring to see a bunch of new faces and enthu freshies at the venue! Some new teams qualified to our new round-robin and knockout format, and it was a thrilling affair to be a part of – for the people taking part and the people watching alike. The finals had intense, fast-paced quizzing that left the participants and audience wanting for more as teams tried making connections in their heads in fractions of a second.
The veteran quizzers Rushabh, Siddarth and Anand won the quiz despite a slight hiccup in their path to the finals. The team comprising Shashwat, Venkat and Kavin came a close second and Ferril, Ananth and Nithin came third. The final round of the quiz was a rematch between the teams which had faced each other early on which was won by Shashwat, Venkat and Kavin and Rushabh, Siddarth and Anand were able to exact revenge in the finals. The finals was an exhilarating affair with the teams delivering blow after blow to keep their chances alive to win this prestigious LitSoc quiz and get points for their hostels.
12 Sept – Queen of Sheeba
The first event of LitSoc this year – Queen of Sheba took place on 12th September 2016 and had 11 hostels competing for points. A true test of intra-hostel bonding and utilizing the management concept of ‘jugaad’ to the fullest, QoS was divided into the following 3 stages:
a) Prelude:
This involved a mini Treasure Hunt with hostels trying to crack clues to win themselves a shot at the QoS list before the scheduled time of 5 PM. It was heartening to see people cycling furiously across institute cracking clues and thinking on their feet.
b) Mezzo:
This was the main part of QoS. A list of items and tasks were shared with the hostel secretaries who had the mammoth task of coordinating their hostel residents efficiently so that maximum number of items could be procured. Some of the quirkiest things on the list included a Maggi packet and a Feraligatr named Pikachu at Level 100.
c) Apogee:
This was the final stage. It involved hostels needing to send the maximum number of people wearing lungis to SAC to earn some bonus points. Along with this, an archery contest was also carried out for extra points.
Tapti aced the Mezzo section and procured victory but Ganga deserves credit for doing well in the Prelude and archery sections.
11 Sept – Freshie Night
Towards the end of the first quiz, there was a rise in the excitement levels of the first year students of the institute. The flagship event of their college life was fast approaching – The Freshie Night. In the week preceding the event, SAC was a hub of activity not only for freshies who were practicing their stage acts, but also for the organizing coordinators who were spending their every free moment painstakingly going over every mundane detail to ensure success of the event.
By the time night fell on that fateful day, SAC had been converted into a scene from the nightmares to suit the horror theme of Freshie Night. Rotted banyan roots hung from the entrance beams, creepy specters peeked menacingly from the windows and the interior design was something not meant for those with a weak heart. The ambience team had outdone itself with severed heads, selfie coffin and a haunted house adding to the blood curdling atmosphere at SAC.
“Not even death can do us apart”
Now, let’s get that disturbing image out of our heads. A lot more organization in the crowd and a less barbaric approach to the Freshie Night by the hostels meant that the show could actually being on time. The trademark opening act for any Freshie Night is the classical music show. This year’s edition had a mix of Bharatnatyam and Odishi followed by a Carnatic music display.
Seems like they’re the only ones who enjoyed the show
This was a success for the performers but the same could not be said for the audience due to a trip screen problem. After being done with Classical formalities, the emcees came onto to stage to kick-start the event. With a much peaceful crowd as compared to the previous editions of the Freshie Night, their act was well appreciated.
The next vertical of the night was put forward by the music club, with three songs each for light music and western music.
Tears of despair being shed by the face in the back of the performance of “Diary of Jane”
Coming back to the event; though there were no Carlos Santanas or Joe Satrianis on stage, it was a commendable performance put up by the freshies, who gave it their best to ensure the audience captivated by the ongoing trip screen battle atleast figured out which songs they were performing.
For fillers, there were skits prepared by the emcees and the Mad Ads. Gone are the days of a drama at Freshie Night, which is in every sense a relief for the viewers – but jokes apart – the Mad Ads were a fun segment between acts, even though the inculcation of ’69’ in every element was a tad bit too repetitive.
There were a couple of standout filler acts – the first one being the ‘Hand Mime’ act. The UV concept was used really well on white coloured gloves to narrate a motivational story using hand formations to generate the necessary imagery.
There is no limit to the magic a ‘hand’ can produce.
The act received a warm response from the crowd up in the middle earth. They applauded the performance and a few were touched enough to be left with moist eyes.
For the first time in years, the Fine Arts Club was alloted an event slot in the Freshie Night. Fine Arts in a Freshie Night is unheard of but the club was undaunted. They came up with a speed painting segment in which painters had to furnish a painting in under eight minutes – a seemingly impossible task for the majority of us, but not for some talented freshies.
He isn’t a pyschopath, but a high functioning sociopath.
Many beautiful portraits, including Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and a Micheal Jackson silhouette were up for display. They received a solid applause from the audience. However, the crowd was soon back to concentrating on the trip screen battle.
No Freshie Night is complete without the choreo performance. First up was the performance by the boys, who put in a lot of enthusiasm to entertain the crowd, but more often than not, end up shifting the limelight onto the trip screen. This time, however, it wasn’t the case. The female performance, needless to say, was the most sought after performance of the night and they did not disappoint the audience. They had the crowd enthralled by their moves and drew the biggest cheers of the night.
Retribution for the audience, after the boys’ dance performance
The final event of the evening was the Couples Choreo, which was performed to iconic songs from the ‘Indian’ movie industry. The choreo seems to have set a few constants over the years; the excitement from the crowd for the event, the saucy moves from the girls’ choreo and most importantly, the costume … at least this needs to change.
That sums up all the events from the Freshie Night. It was a wonderful experience for the coordinators to put up an event of such a scale for the freshies, who genuinely enjoyed the night. The emcees did a remarkable job given that they came up with the entire script themselves and ensured the smooth running of events. They also did an amazing job in entertaining the crowd, having included a Mahanadhi vs Pampa rap battle.
All the emcees in action; introducing the horror theme of the Freshie Night
All in all it was a success and the event was wrapped up with the DJ peformance, which was enjoyed for all those in the SAC bowl, regardless of the power cut in the middle. The 10:30 pm deadline was a buzzkill for the freshies but they were too content with the night’s experience to complain about it.
We hope to make next year’s event bigger and better.
