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It's the season for Saarang

Chennai's the place to be from January 24 to 29 as another edition of Saarang unfolds

MOODS AND MOMENTS At Saarang

It's that time of year again, a time for unlimited entertainment, a time to pack your bags and head to Chennai. Because that's where Saarang, possibly India's biggest inter-collegiate festival, is happening. Filled with colour, passion, excitement, and an undiluted, uncontained celebration of just being alive, the event is a veritabletreat for the senses.

This college culturals plays host every year to over 20,000 participants for the various events and, including the professional shows, the total footfall is more than 50,000 over five days and nights. Much of this participation is from outside Chennai with a whopping 700 colleges being invited from all over the country. Just to get a glimpse of what drives these youth to that neck of the woods, we spoke to the participants in Saarang 2005 and this is what they had to say, "Yeah, it was awesome. We don't have many cultural programmes of this size, where one can compete with so many different colleges." Events at Saarang

So what's the hype and hoopla all about? What's to see, what's to do? Apparently there's hajaar and more, as the IIT lingo goes, to keep one enthralled. With more than 50 events, Saarang offers varied fare. From the ubiquitous western music in so many different forms to the soulful Carnatic, from the hot and steamy salsa workshops to Bharatanatyam contests, from the artful dramatics to the impromptu street plays, from the engaging debates to the hilarious JAMs, Saarang packs a loaded punch. What sets these events apart is the quality of participation and for many of these events colleges form contingents and start practising months in advance. Many of these action-packed events happen at overflowing auditoria. And at the end of the mind-body workout(!), when one is getting slightly jaded, one chills out in an open air make-to-do disc, dancing to hit number after hit.

Ah! But there's more: every evening ends with a concert to render even the die-hard music buff speechless. The show, the dazzling stage antics, the pyrotechnics, the sizzling atmosphere, all keep the audience on their feet till the wee hours, and then, finally, Saarang calls it a day. But then the night is still young and the beaches of Chennai await... Every year, Saarang has a different flavour, and each passing year offers something more — new events, bigger performances, larger audiences, a more varied crowd and a slightly different look and feel to the event.

This year, Saarang will have an eclectic array of performances with two international bands playing at the professional shows. The rock show is by a Californian tribute band playing a mix of vintage rock and blues. The show will be a heady release for all music lovers as they play evergreen Led Zeppelin classics like "Stairway to Heaven" and "Kashmir."

The other international artistes are a French Jazz band, Duo Bertrand. They are a band of six musicians who have been wowing audiences the world over with their mix of traditional jazz and rock styles. Their renditions of Miles Davis, Coltrane and Jeff Beck with an odd play of bagpipes and oboes thrown in, promises to be an esoteric delight. This concert itself would be a finale to the semi-pro rock/metal competition, Decibels, representing the cream of Indian bands. Decibels is as good a platform as it gets for the cause of Indian Rock, with a number of previous winners from here going on to have commercial releases. On the classical front, violinists Ganesh-Kumaresh blend in an ethnic tone to the mélange of Pro Nites that is Saarang. The Indian flavour is made complete with the famed trio of Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy. A show at Saarang is more than just a show. It's about the people. It's about moods, emotions and that blissful smile as you recognise your favourite tune. It's about lingering memories decades later. It's about the 10,000 people letting go like there's no tomorrow.

So pack your bags. Be there. Life's a calling.

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