The Bhav Gunjan - Youth festival 2025

The 'Bhav Gunjan' Diaries: 

This Blog is assigned by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad sir as an assignment regarding the 33rd Inter College Youth Festival titled "BHAV GUNJAN" held at The Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University hosted by Physical Education and Cultural Department from 8th October'2025 to 11th October'2025.

Here is the brochure and time-table:

        Youth Festival, affectionately named "BHAV GUNJAN"—which translates beautifully to The Resonance of Emotion—was more than just a calendar event. Held at The Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU) from October 8th to 11th, 2025, it was a colossal socio-cultural event, a brilliant collision of creativity and intellect. For four days, the sprawling university campus transformed into the living, breathing epitome of the 'Yuvaani ka Mahotsav'—the Festival of Youthfulness.

           The energy was palpable. The air vibrated with the rhythms of tribal drums, the sharp wit of social satire, and the passionate roar of students demanding change. This festival proved that the young minds of today view art not as a frivolous pursuit, but as a powerful, necessary tool for social commentary, cultural preservation, and intellectual debate. Every stroke of the brush, every silent mime, and every line of dialogue contributed to an overarching narrative: that the youth are awake, aware, and ready to shape their world.

The Grand Opening: The Kala-yatra  :

      The Youth Festival began with a statement, not a whimper. The Kala-yatra (Art Procession) on October 8th was a spectacular, moving exhibition of group performances, traveling from Shamaldas Arts College to J.K. Sarvaiya College. It wasn't just a parade; it was a mobile manifesto, with each college presenting social themes designed to shock, educate, and inspire immediate public action.

        The themes chosen by the colleges were a direct reflection of the issues currently preoccupying the national consciousness:

The Shame of Violence: The most urgent theme was the protest against The Surge in Rape Cases. Students used stark, emotionally charged tableaus—often silent and disturbing—to demand better safety, accountability from institutions, and a fundamental shift in society's attitude towards gender equality and respect.

Education's Failures: Students launched a critique against the system that houses them, targeting the Challenges in the Education System, including its commercialization, the crippling pressure of rote memorization, and the need for more relevant curricula that foster critical thinking.

The Digital Drug: Tableaux explored the modern paradox of connection and isolation, focusing on the Negative Impact of Social Media—the rise of virtual addiction, the decay of real-world relationships, and the pervasive spread of superficiality and misinformation.

Roots and Identity: Counterbalancing the critiques, vibrant groups celebrated Gujarat’s Cultural Identity, showcasing the region's rich history, traditional attire, and linguistic pride, asserting a strong sense of self in a rapidly globalizing world.

       The ultimate winner, "Operation Sindhoor" from Swami Sahajanand College, highlighted the judges' desire to reward a performance that perfectly blended deep social relevance with exceptional artistic execution. The Kala-yatra was, in effect, the festival's thesis: Art must speak truth to power.

The Intellectual Heart: Dramatic Events and Literary Theory

     The dramatic events—One Act Play (Ekaanki), Skit (Laghunatak), Mime (Mook Abhinay), and Mono-acting (Ek Paatriya Abhinay)—were where the festival's true intellectual rigor shone. Held on October 10th, these performances took the broad social themes of the procession and refined them into nuanced, powerful psychological and satirical works.

The Ekaanki: From Rasa to Aristotle

      The One Act Play (Ekaanki) category was a showcase of deep, emotional theatre.

     The Aesthetic of Heroism (Raudra Bhava and Veer Rasa): One particularly commanding performance focused on Indian classical aesthetics. It used the body language and expression of Raudra Bhava (the terrifying emotion of righteous anger) to evoke Veer Rasa (the aesthetic of heroism and courage). This resonated powerfully with the core of Aristotle’s Theory of Tragedy. Though not a Greek tragedy, the play achieved the same goal: the presentation of a noble character in a moment of extreme moral conflict, offering the audience an emotional purging—a shared release of powerful feelings that leads to insight.

Shakespeare in the Indian Context: 

      Another play demonstrated brilliant cultural adaptation by taking universal themes from Western classics, particularly those of Shakespeare (love, power, betrayal), and interpreting them using local language, music (harmonium, tabla), and Indian theatrical traditions. This practice perfectly validated Dryden’s Concept of a "Play" as a "just and lively image of human nature." The performance argued that while human nature remains constant (just), the portrayal must be dynamically updated (lively) to reflect the current Indian context, ensuring the timeless stories remain relevant.

The Skits: Applying Modern Dramatic Theory

      The Skit (Laghunatak) events were where satire and contemporary theory collided, offering sharp, humorous critiques of modern life.

Skit 1: "Genz Panchayat" - The New Humour: This high-energy skit, featuring a patriotic, tech-savvy youth group clashing with traditional governance (Panchayat), was a textbook example of social satire. It utilized Ben Jonson's Comedy of Humours, which suggests comedy arises from the portrayal of characters dominated by an exaggerated, singular obsession. Here, the "humour" being satirized was the overwhelming, slightly comical combination of youthful optimism, unified national pride, and technological hyper-awareness of the Gen Z generation, showing how this new "humour" confronts older social structures.

Skit 2: The Grandfather, Ambani, and Gill - Menace and the Absurd: This profoundly clever piece featured a deceased grandfather returning to Earth, utterly bewildered by the modern world's obsessions with celebrity and wealth—symbolized by figures like Anant Ambani (immense wealth) and Shubman Gill (modern sports icon). The large, ever-present clock prop underscored the themes of time and mortality.

Irving Wardle's Comedy of Menace: The  play perfectly balanced the Comedy (the grandfather's funny bewilderment) with a deep, existential Menace. The menace was not physical, but cultural—the fear that modern society is chasing empty, fleeting status, symbolized by the overwhelming pressure of wealth and fame. The grandfather's return from the afterlife made this serious theme terrifyingly funny.

Martin Esslin's Absurd Theatre: The grandfather’s inability to find meaning in a world obsessed with arbitrary celebrity was a clear absurdist metaphor. His attempt to engage with a world whose values he could not comprehend highlighted the potential meaninglessness of human activity when divorced from enduring moral or traditional structures.

Categorization: Defining the Dramatic Landscape

Based on these theoretical analyses, the dramatic events can be precisely categorized:

       The "Genz Panchayat" Skit was undeniably a Bollywoodish Theatre Performance. Its use of spectacular visuals (the map with wings), high-energy choreography, and its overtly didactic message of national aspiration and youth power align perfectly with the grand, unifying, and morally charged style of Indian popular theatre.

        The Grandfather/Celebrity Skit was a sophisticated blend. It functioned as Sentimental Comedy because, despite the satire, it likely sought to restore traditional, pure values (the grandfather's perspective) after a period of moral confusion. Simultaneously, it was a classic Comedy of Manners because its primary source of humor and critique was the satire of the contemporary elite's obsession with fleeting fame and wealth.

        The One Act Plays (Ekaanki), with their combination of intense emotional conflicts (Veer Rasa) and sophisticated social/cultural critiques (Shakespearean adaptation), moved beyond simple tragedy or comedy to become Modern Tragicomedy, reflecting the complex, hopeful-yet-challenging nature of contemporary life.

The Silent Statements: Themes in the Fine Arts Exhibition

    The Fine Arts section, featuring Cartooning, Painting, Collage, Poster Making, Clay-Modelling, and Installation, was the contemplative side of the festival. When these works were opened for public display on the last day, they demanded study for their use of satire, didacticism, and aestheticism.

       Cartooning and Poster Making were tools of direct communication, driven by satire (attacking political apathy and corruption) and didacticism (teaching clear, moral lessons on environmental conservation and social hygiene). Their aesthetic value rested in their clarity and immediate impact.

       Painting and Collage allowed for pure aestheticism, celebrating the visual beauty of the region, its historical figures, and its cultural heritage, utilizing colour and form for sensory delight and cultural pride.

       Installation and Clay-Modelling used physical forms for conceptual satire. For instance, a clay sculpture might depict a figure literally cracking under pressure, symbolizing the flaws in the education system. An installation might use broken technology and arbitrary objects to comment on the confusion of the modern world, making these highly didactic in their symbolic content. The Fine Arts thus provided a space for prolonged, personal engagement with the youth's deepest anxieties and aspirations.

The Participant’s Heartbeat: My Festival Diary

      The pride in my department was immense. I celebrated with Radhika Mehta and Shruti Sonani after their exceptional performance in the Folk Group Singing (SURGUNJAN), feeling the collective joy of our cultural contribution. Equally thrilling was the intellectual victory of Rajdeep Bavaliya, Rutvi Pal, and Sanket Vavadiya—who secured the 2nd prize in the Quiz competition. This victory was a potent reminder that the festival celebrates the quick, rigorous mind as much as the creative soul.

            However, the most valuable part was the observer's experience. My responsibility to analyze the dramatic performances—to connect a contemporary Gujarati skit about a returning grandfather to highbrow theories like Comedy of Menace—was an unprecedented intellectual exercise. It transformed academic theory from static knowledge into a dynamic lens for understanding the world. Being an insider, seeing the chaotic energy of the green rooms, the collective nervousness, and the final burst of applause, made the whole festival a living, breathing laboratory of human nature.

Thank you for reading...