BITS Pilani, Hyderabad inaugurated its first national annual cultural festival ‘Pearl, 2011’ on a very enthusiastic note. The chief guest, Roseann O’Reilly Runte, president and vice chancellor of the Carlton University inaugurated the function by lighting the ceremonial lamp. Hooting, cheering and encouragement for the fellow mates was the order of the day. The theme of this three day festival is Dreamscape.
“We have put in three month of toil into this event. I would like to thank the entire student body of the institute that made this festival what it is, none of it would have been possible without the coordination and support of the Union Council. I hereby declare Pearl, 2011 officially open”, said V Abhinay Teja, president of the Union Council during the inaugural ceremony.
“The estimate budget for the whole festival is around `40 lakhs with an expected footfall of sixteen thousand people. This year Pearl is much bigger than it was last year. There is something for everyone” says Sankalp Singayapally, a student coordinator.
Various competitions and workshops on writing, orating, drama, dance, hairdressing, guitar and stock broking will be held in this eighty-hour festival. The show stopper for the whole event is a live performance by a Swedish band Dark Tranquility, a melodic death metal band which will set fire on the stage on February 12. Indian bands Kryptos and Degraded will also perform.
Adding a classical touch to the festival will be performances by three musical maestros Navin Iyer, Sikkil Gurucharan and Anil Srinivasan. A performance by Strings, a sub-continental duo of Bilal Maqsood and Faisal Kapadia is also expected to expose young minds to great classical music.
Till Deaf Do We Part is a battle of bands, a competition to find the best band across various cities in the country. Preliminary rounds have already being held in the various cities across India and the final round will be held in the BITS campus and the winner would get the privilege to share the stage with Dark Tranquility, Kryptos and Degraded. The winning band walks away with `1 lakh.
Another major attraction of the festival is Aspire, an event where dominant personalities like Jayaprakash Narayan, MP, Vikram Akula, founder-chairman of SKS Microfinance, Giri Prakash Reddy, VP, Future Generali Insurance and Mohan Krishna Indraganti, a popular telugu film director will interact with students and talk about how they achieved their aspirations.
The BITS Business Quiz, Alea Jacta Est, an open quiz and Glitterati, a fashion show are other events that many are looking forward to.