History of Manipal: Revels 1982

The First Glimpse Ever

There was a foreign buzz to the air, a strange sense of excitement with underlying traces of apprehension, that could be easily mistaken for enthusiasm upon first glance. This hadn’t happened before.

And I’m not talking about MIT celebrating its Silver Jubilee, because it would be slightly weird to have two silver jubilees in one life span. This was a more mystical, dreamy veil which the engineering college had never seen before. It was a fest. But not just the usual technical one which happened once every year, this was what was hoped to be the pioneer of its kind, the forerunner to a more elaborate thing of this sort in the years to come. Hopefully. If the batch of 1982, my batch, managed to pull this off, that is. It was a non-cultural fest. Yes, you read that right. Events dedicated purely to entertainment unplugged.

Theatre, music and dance. It all seemed like this carefree fantasy of pristine fun, something so welcome in the life of an aspiring engineer. I know that’s something that will undoubtedly exist in the years to come as well. Seems like expansion of the college wasn’t just taking place in the form of a new four-floor library and hostel blocks, but a wholly cultural fest as well.

Word on the street was, that it was built around attracting colleges of all kinds to participate in this liberal gala. We felt powerful, but at the same time daunted by the sheer magnitude of it all.

If this was the roaring success we were articulating it out to be, our batch would be revolutionary, immortalized in the timeline of MIT. But there was the small possibility that we could fall flat on our faces.

The whole discrepancy with the printing had already happened. We weren’t sure how to deal with that. After careful deliberation and thoughtful consideration, we finally resided on the common element to this premiere festival, Revel.

But somehow, to our misfortune, the printer had managed to make it Revels. It was too late to do anything about it now, and all we can do is cross our fingers that this doesn’t set us back by a considerable amount.

The dawn of the day brought along with it a sparkle to our eyes, a brightness to our faces, an anticipation like no other, a quickening of breath as I thought about showcasing not my mundane expertise in the field of physics at the collegiate level, but my ability to hold a tune and tap to a beat.

We were actors, dancers and singers now, not just engineers. We sat up a little straighter in our seats, the flags above the quadrangle fluttering frantically in the breeze, just like our hearts, fluttering frantically in anticipation.

– Mahia DeSylva for MTTN