Umang

Umang is an inter- collegiate cultural festival of Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai, India started in the year 2000. It has been labelled as Asia’s fastest growing youth festival . It provides a platform for a spectrum of arts like Literary Arts, Fine Arts, Performing Arts, Workshops, Managerial Skills, Gaming and local professional bands. It entertained a footfall of 50,000 students along with 8000 participants from 300 colleges all over India in 2012.

Organisation

Umang is organised and managed solely by the students of Narsee Monjee College. The 20 organising departments are classified into – Events and Administration. There are 10 departments of Umang in charge of organising the events that happen on days of Umang. While the remaining 10 ensure the smooth flow of the fest through various administrative functions.

Past themes

Every year, the festival Umang is based on a theme. The entire décor of Umang as well as the events are woven around the theme. The themes for Umang over the years have been:

• 2000: Bricks Laid
• 2001: All over the city
• 2002: Unleash the magic
• 2003: The Cowboy Stampede
• 2004: Viva la Carnival!
• 2005: The Indian Tadka
• 2006: Touchdown on Planet U
• 2007: Ride the Colour Coaster
• 2008: Arthouse Hysteria
• 2009: Anthems of Liberty
• 2010: The Ancient Resonance
• 2011: The Samhain’s Hallowed Dream
• 2012: The Mariner’s Saga
• 2013: One Life To Live

Highlights of the festival

Events

Workshops

A creative combination of fun and learning, workshops at Umang provide the audience with amazing opportunities. The workshops are conducted by the most prestigious professionals in that field.

Retrospectrum, the signature workshop of Umang is a unique chance to hear professionals speak about their stream and impart knowledge as well as their experience. Personalities from every possible field share their life stories with the audience followed by a cherished interaction.

Retrospectrum has seen farsighted examples in personalities like:

• Anurag Basu
• Shyam Benegal
• Amish Tripathi
• Prahlad Kakkar
• Luke Kenny

Performing Arts

The Performing Arts is that section of Umang which brings rhythm and energy to the festival. These events have well known personalities associated to them in the past and attract participation from all around India every year.

Musical events range from Indian to Western genres including events such as Indian Band Event, Western Band Event, Guitar Wars, Solo singing and Classical singing among others.

Other contemporary events like War of the DJs, Beat boxing, Junk instruments and Model Hunt are for the ones who fancy portraying their peculiar talents.

Dance and Dramatics is the other side of Performing Arts which aims at discovering and promoting budding talents in the respective fields. It organises a series of blockbuster events which receive a large inflow of celebrities. It provides a platform to talented dancers and actors to show-off their talent in front of industry leaders. Events from the past consist of Street Dance, Bollywood Dance, UV Dance, Folk Dance, Actor Hunt and Street Play.

iNFORMALS!

This is the department that organises completely crazy and occasionally bizarre events meant for the truly confident and slightly insane. Through its numerous centralised and decentralised activities, it reaches out directly to the audience and keeps them involved and entertained all the time.

Actors and VJs like Sameera Reddy, Arjun Rampal, Tushar Kapoor, Kunal Khemu, Vinay Pathak, Cyrus Sahukar, VJ Rhea, VJ Bani, VJ Aaliya, etc. play host to events like Mr and Miss Umang, War of the CLs and War of the VJs.

Gaming

Gaming is the department that organises indoor, outdoor, console and cyber gaming events. Football, Freestyle football and other outdoor sports ever year attract huge participation.

Freestyle football has seen big personalities from Sports like Dhanraj Pillai. Also, Umang had tied-up with Manchester United Soccer school in 2012.

Management ∞ Fest

This department is the USP of Umang. It has events based on logical reasoning and thinking. It tests the management and analytical skills of participants. Students of business and management backgrounds are active participants here. This is the area where intellect is given a platform.

PEHEL is the eyeballs grabbing event here, which is a unique platform for idea generation and problem solving. Concepts from the past range from Agricultural sector to Entrepreneurship.

Umang has tied-up with Intel, Welingkar Education, Future Group and Mumbai Angels in the past for PEHEL.

Literary Arts

Ingenious speaking events, events testing eloquence and creativity and nerve racking quizzes are what sum up the Literary Arts department.

This department has seen eminent personalities like Javed Akhtar, Girija Oak, Suresh Nair and Monica Matani judge its events in the past. JAM, Creative writing, Investigative Courtroom Trial are the events which is on the top list of priority for all the contingents participating in the festival.

PROshows

Umang has seen a flurry of artists perform and enthrall the audience with various genres of music like Rock, Electronic Dance Music, Bollywood nites, etc.

All the best (play by Feroz Khan) was how it all began in 2000. Later on, over the years, PROnites have also hosted performances like Infrared, DJ Akhtar, Euphoria, Album by Niladri Kumar, Shaair' n Func, Indian Ocean, Aqua Flow, Vayu, Parikrama, Avial,

Bollywood artists like Kailash Kher, Lucky Ali, Dominique and Clinton Cerejo, Benny Dayal, Suraj Jagan, Javed Ali have also performed here.

Electronic Dance Music performances have resulted by the tie-up with Submerge for Midival Punditz and Sunburn for Nikhil Chinappa, Pearl and Lost Stories.

Fine Arts

The Fine Arts department every year puts up the Fine Arts Exhibit which depicts a theme

In 2012, the theme of the Fine Arts Exhibit was 'Memoirs in Footstones' and was inaugurated by Ragini Khanna.

Sans Frontières

Sans Frontières, which means 'without borders', is the Umang magazine. This magazine contain articles, poems, features and interviews with eminent personalities. Umang aims to provide a long reaching platform to those who possess keen wit, a poetic bent, artistic flair or passionate opinions.

Past sponsors

With over a footfall of 40,000, Umang has been a happy place for Sponsors. Sponsors from the past include Philips, Force India, Samsung, Parle, Chevrolet, Videocon, Vodafone, Pepsi, Vatika, Kingfisher, Apple, Intel, Coca-Cola, Sony, 9XM, Espirit, LIC, BlackBerry, Yash Raj Films, Bru, Airtel, Blue Dart, Mahindra, Nike, Yamaha, and Loop. Public Relations Partners from the past are Bombay Times, Cinemax, Red FM, Radio Mirchi, Bright, DSN, Yuva, Femina Miss India, MTV, and Mumbai Mirror.

Cafeteria

Umang has a food court offering a wide variety; the Cafeteria department also feeds the 500 students strong organising team and ensures everybody gets a wholesome meal.

In 2010, Gelato, one of the leading ice-cream outlet, had Umang flavour of the month in all their outlets in Mumbai. Past sponsors in the cafeteria are Mad Over Donuts, Monginis, Amul, Costa Coffee, Gelato, Domino’s, Café Coffee Day, New Yorkers, Subway,Del Monte, Mc’Donalds, etc.

References

• Official website