Clubs and Culture

The two years of 11th and 12th are dry and sad. Many of us have to curb any sort of extra-curricular activity in order to prepare for some wretched entrance exam or another. Once you get done with those two years and come to college, you really want to get out there and try out new things.

Luckily, IISER Kolkata has a lot of clubs that are really active. There are events all year round, organised by both the sports and cultural clubs. You should definitely try your hand in some sports and participate in some of the events.

A description of some of the clubs are given below:
( I’ve added a short description about those clubs that I have been an active part of or whose events I’ve participated in. All clubs organise good activities, my knowledge related to all of it however, is bleak.)

1. Gym Club
2. Athletics Club
3. Basketball Club
4. Movie Club : Screen movies regularly in the LHC on the big screen. It’s done on a bi-weekly basis, post dinner on a Friday night. The selection of movies include a mix of both regional and foreign language films, and are good. Don’t miss out on watching a few. Popcorn is not served though 😛
5. Campus Radio: Campus Radio is one of the newer cultural clubs. The campus radio team puts up a lot of talk shows on their website, which you can listen to on your mobile phone/laptop. The content of these shows varies from podcasts about history to interviews of famous Nobel Laureates and professors. Do join the team and give it a shot.
6. Aarshi: The Dramatics Club: Aarshi is one of the active cultural clubs on campus. They perform plays for Independence Day, Teacher’s Day and also put up an Annual Drama production, where they stage a full 3 hour play. I’ve been a member of Aarshi for the last year, and I enjoyed it. What makes the club great is in fact the people. They are a great bunch!

   

   The Teacher’s Day play after party 😀

7. Nature Club :  Organise treks and nature walks.
8. Science Club
9. Football Club:  Football is a rage in West Bengal. It’s a matter a life of death . No surprise here, it’s football. The football club has a bunch of tournaments year round, the main ones are the inter batch tournament and the Auction Based Football tournaments. You can always just run onto the football pitch and play with the seniors in the evening. There are some talented players here.
10. Self Defense and Yoga Club
11. Cricket Club: The cricket club also has loads of tournaments through the year,  the main one obviously being the inter batch tournament. The IISER-K cricket team is one of the best amongst the IISER’s as well, they’ve won the IISM (Inter IISER Sports Meet) a couple of times.
12. Badminton Club: There are way too many badminton players on campus. The badminton club does it’s best with the courts we have and organises a couple of tournaments throughout the year. The main ones are obviously the interbatch and the Auction Based tournament. We should have a proper court soon though. (Vaishnav Garg, plis)
13. Music Club: The music club has events like Music and Lyrics, Acoustica and of course Karaoke Night. The music room in the CSA has a bunch of instruments you can try out and learn if you want to.
14. Literary Club: There is no doubt that the Literary Club is the most active club on campus. From debates, to poetry writing, to story writing, to book discussions, the literary club had it and did it all. The literary club also organises the quizzes and has weekend quizzing sessions. Quizzing is an extreme, borderline violent activity at IISER-K. 😛 The active members are really passionate about it, myself being one of them. The Lit Club is one you should definitely not miss 🙂
15. Tennis Club
16. PIXEL, The Photography Club :  PIXEL is also an extremely active club. They organise loads of photography competitions and exhibitions. They also, last year had a photography walk with a professional photographer.
17. SPICMACAY Chapter: If you haven’t heard of SPICMACAY before, just know that they are mainly related towards the promotion of Indian Classical Music and culture. They generally organise one or two large shows in a year, where they bring a professional/ustads. Do not miss out on these shows. They are free of cost. But that isn’t the point, when else will you get the chance to appreciate and witness the magic of some of these musical stalwarts!
18. Chess Club
19. Dance Club
20. Volleyball Club: I had never played volleyball in my life before, but decided to try it out at IISER. I’m hopeless at it. 😛 But the volleyball club is one of the big sports clubs here. There are some brilliant players here. Do try it out. The cheering and heckling at the volleyball matches is real fun. The crowd really gets behind the players!
21. Arts Club
22. TT Club
23. Ek Pehal: Ek Pehal is just one of IISER-Ks many social initiatives. The students of the institute get together to help out and teach young students science. But they do it in a manner where it is made fun and interesting. These volunteers are the closest to superheroes in my eyes, they are making a huge change, one small step at a time. (And no. I am not an Ek Pehal volunteer, but I sure can appreciate their efforts.)
24. The Entrepreneurship Club:  The entrepreneurship club is the newly established club, set up in tandem with IISER Kolkata’s new incubation centre. Inside sources tell me they have a lot of interesting and fun events. 😉

Inquivesta:

IISER Kolkata’s annual fest, Inquivesta, is “India’s largest science fest”. That’s how it was started of course. Now the fest has a good melange of both science and cultural events. It’s a 3 day event in Febuary or March. There are some star studded headlining events, like the performance by Indian Ocean this year or the performance by Sapan Varma the year before.

You’ll have a proper orientation regarding the fest and the events in it. Following which you can organise events and even participate in a few. Do not miss out. You’ll enjoy it, trust me.

Culture at IISER – K

Being a national institute, there is a lot of cultural diversity here. You’ll find people from all across India. Different communities celebrate their cultural festivals with great enthusiasm and they often see participation from all students and professors. The Malyali’s celebrate Onam, the Odia community has a grand celebration for Utkal Divas, the Bengali community organises Agomoni celebrations, the Maharashtrians take the responsibility for Ganesh Chaturti . Other than this there are of course there are festivals like Diwali, Pongal/Sankaranti, Saraswati Puja etc that are celebrated by everyone.

You’ll find yourself immersed in a plethora of cultural and regional diversity. It’ll be a great experience. And of course, the lunches during the celebrations of each one of these festivals is delicious!

The Onam lunch or the Onam Sadhya. I took a long nap after this one.

The Hostel During Diwali

The Utkal Diwas Lunch- Delicious Odia Cuisine

Soon after you join the college, your seniors from your community will introduce themselves to you (hopefully) and will organise some sort of session/activity so you can get comfortable. It’s all friendly, don’t worry. For instance, my seniors from the Karnataka region took me and all the other first years from Karnataka out for a dinner. As a result of this, I landed up meeting some really cool people. I often go to them for advice, and have participated in several club activities on their suggestion, which I’d have otherwise been apprehensive to try out.

It’s also common to see a large amount of cultural diversity amongst your friends group as well.

I’ve made a bunch of close friends from Surat, Bidar, Ranchi, Delhi, Lucknow, Orissa, Jaipur, Guwahati, Pune, Chennai, Chandigarh, Kerala etc.

I’ve learnt a lot about regional cultures, argued about different ideologies and improved my ability to speak (or atleast shell out insults) in at least 6 new languages. 😀

You’ll enjoy the regional diversity at IISER – K for sure! 🙂