Campus Reality Show

A first-year BA Programme student,Sharma is one of the many who want to be part of the college’s dramatics society after being inspired by its most famous alumni — actor Shah Rukh Khan. The audience is impressed after he enacts the character of Rizwan from My Name is Khan — his eyes stare at the ground nervously while his head moves in a peculiar manner.

So what are the criteria for getting selected for the society? Its president,Pranav Sachdev,says,“One should have good acting skills but that is not the sole requirement. We also look for people who are sincere and possess confidence,have a loud voice,a certain level of awareness,spontaneity and intelligence.” Finally,Sharma emerges as one of the 20 students to have been selected out of 150. But not everyone has a happy ending.

The auditions for the college dramatics societies are as dramatic as ever. The general drill is to ask the aspirants to talk about the happiest and saddest moments in their lives. While replies such as “I want to be like Kareena Kapoor one day” and “I want to act in films” are common,some students tend to get too emotional while enumerating their saddest moments. Ujjwala Sharma’s confessions were accompanied with tears when she said that her saddest moment was when she scored 94.5 per cent instead of 95 per cent,and therefore,couldn’t get admission into the course of her choice — Economics honours.

On the other hand,the selection process for Kirorimal College’s dramatics society doesn’t entail so much melodrama. Started in 1957,The Players is considered among the best theatre societies in Delhi University,of which actor Amitabh Bachchan and filmmaker Satish Kaushik were once part of. “Anyone can join The Players. All you need to do is attend the daily meetings and help us in production,sound,lights,script reading and analysing,” says Sana Taneja,one of its members. She adds that the auditions will be held next month and are open to anyone who wants to act in plays.

Different colleges have devised different ways to test the students’ acting skills. The auditions for Jesus and Mary’s Hindi dramatics society Kahkasha,which means a galaxy of stars,have three rounds. Situations such as “you are about to die of cancer” and “how will you tell your parents that you are gay” are given in the first round. The drama that unfolds after this has all the ingredients of a Bollywood blockbuster. In fact,the awkward situations,funny moments and brilliant performances that can be witnessed during these auditions are quite similar to those shown on television during reality show auditions.

After dramatics societies,the second most sought-after are the dance societies. When Hansraj’s western dance society,Oorja,was conducting auditions,vice-president Dhruv Bahl says he was surprised when juniors came running to him to check on the minutest details such as if they could perform a western dance to Dholi taaro dhol baaje from Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam or Daler Mehndi’s Tunak Tunak Tun. Meanwhile,during the two-week auditions for Lady Shri Ram College’s dance society that saw more than 600 applications,a girl fell off the stage while dancing to Beyonce’s Run the World. But this didn’t deter her spirit. She got up the very next moment and continued to dance,eliciting a huge round of applause.