Status active Venue IISER Pune campus Country India | Frequency Annual Location(s) Pune | |
 | ||
Karavaan (Hindi: कारवाँ; English meaning: Caravan) is a national-level student-run annual cultural festival of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune. It attracts students from colleges all across Pune, as well as national institutes all over India. It is a 3-day fest, held during the months of October or November in the Fall semester every year.
Contents
About the Fest
First held in the year 2008, Karavaan began as a small intra-college fest, a platform for the then small population of students in IISER to showcase their artistic skills. Over the years, it has gradually grown to become a major inter-collegiate cultural festival in Pune. It is an entirely student-run fest. It has several departments looking after sponsorship, publicity, design, events, merchandise, and other aspects of the fest. Funded partly by IISER Pune and a number of associated sponsors, Karavaan is steadily growing in magnitude to attract local, upcoming performers as well as artists of national fame. The various competitions held over the entire duration of the Karavaan weekend have seen an ever-increasing involvement of students from colleges all over the city, as well as the major institutes across the country.
Events
Karavaan hosts several events and competitions over the period of 3 days, normally over an entire weekend in the Fall semester. The cultural clubs of IISER Pune, viz. the Music, Dance, Drama, Art, Literary, and the Quiz clubs conduct a variety of competitions in their respective fields. These typically span the entire Karavaan weekend, during daytime. The festival is a very vibrant affair, with colourful decorations and artworks prepared by students, and showcasing that year’s Karavaan theme embellishing the whole campus. There are plenty of games and activities like laser-tag, bull-rider, Darts, Karaoke stalls to keep the visitors entertained.
Main-Stage Events
At sundown, the spotlight shift from the competitions towards the main stage, where Karavaan’s most sought-after events: the IISER Showcase, Pronite and Band-Wars take place.
IISER Showcase
The IISER showcase offers a platform for the talented students from the institute to perform on the main-stage. The showcase has seen concerts from various IISER Pune music bands, Memes and Mad-Ads from the Drama troupes, Solo and group-dances, and other in-house performances.
Band Wars
The Band Wars have been a highlight of Karavaan since its inception. This event involves the participation of music bands playing various genres, invited from all over the country. In a fierce competition, all bands play a mini-gig, and the magnitude of the audience’s zealous response is an important factor in determining the winners. Till date, this event has been judged over by members of the band performing in the Pronite
Previous winners of the Band Wars :
Pronite
The Pronite is the main attraction of Karavaan. A major crowd-puller, it involves a complete evening performance by popular artists from diverse field. Till date, Karavaan has hosted live music performances by emerging popular bands from across the country. Karavaan '11 was headlined by Blakc from Mumbai while Karavaan '12 hosted a concert by Divine Raaga, a Hindi folk-fusion-rock band based out of Bangalore. Chaoskampf, a metal band from Pune, performed in Karavaan '13.
Karavaan '14
The seventh edition of Karavaan commenced on 31 October 2014, leading to Halloween becoming the main theme of the fest this year. The Band Wars saw competing bands from all across the country, the leading accolade going to 'The Gravy Philosophy'. The Pronite hosted a concert by popular vocalist Siddharth Basrur and band, featuring guitarist Adil Manuel. Various competitions across disciplines like music, dance, drama, science, math and literature were organised by the respective cultural clubs of IISER Pune over the weekend (1 and 2 November). The fest was capped off with a masquerade party, a final-day highlight fitting to the halloween theme, featuring DJ Ansh.
The Largest Warli Painting: A Limca Record attempt
Karavaan '14 saw over 300 IISER students take part in a colossal effort to create one of the largest Warli paintings on the 2nd of November, 2014. Warli painting is a traditional art form of the Warli tribe. An initiative by the Art Club, IISER Pune, the completed artwork spanned over 2,500 square metres (27,000 sq ft), on the football field. This feat was achieved in less than 12 hours. The attempt was submitted for an entry into the Limca Book of Records.