Bhav Gunjan Youth Festival 2025

 Celebrating the Spirit of Youth: A Reflection on MKBU’s Annual Youth Festival

This blog is written as part of our Sunday Reading activity, reflecting on our experiences and observations from the Youth Festival 2025, organised by Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU). The task was assigned by Prof. Dilip Barad, encouraging students to document their impressions, learning, and reflections on the vibrant celebration of creativity and youthfulness. (Details are here for further information.)

 Introduction:  – युवानी का महोत्सव

Every academic year, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU) organises its much-awaited Youth Festival, a grand celebration of art, culture, intellect, and creativity. For three days, the campus turns into a vibrant space where colours, sounds, movements, and ideas converge. This festival is not merely an event — it is a living embodiment of the youthful spirit, a platform where students express their individuality, imagination, and intellect through performance and art.

As a student of the M.A. English Department, I had the privilege to witness and experience this festival closely. The event was an enlightening encounter with multiple forms of artistic expression — drama, music, dance, literature, painting, and performance — all merging into a symphony of youthful energy and cultural pride. What makes this festival remarkable is that it blends traditional Indian art forms with modern creative sensibilities, thus connecting the heritage of the past with the aspirations of the present.

The Youth Festival of MKBU truly deserves its name — Yuvani ka Mahotsav — a festival that celebrates not only youthfulness but also human creativity, emotional depth, and intellectual curiosity.

Dramatic Events: The Heart of the Festival

Among all activities, the dramatic events — One Act Play (एकांकी), Skit (लघु नाटक), Mime (मूक अभिनय), and Mono-Acting (एक पात्रीय अभिनय) — formed the intellectual and emotional core of the festival. These performances offered a window into the social consciousness of the youth, exploring human psychology, ethical dilemmas, and the struggle for meaning in the modern world.

🔹 Key Observed Themes in Dramatic Events:

Social Injustice and Inequality:

Many one-act plays addressed caste discrimination, class struggle, and poverty. A memorable performance titled “Antim Awaaz” depicted a poor man’s moral conflict against a corrupt system — echoing the tragic sensibility of Aristotle’s Poetics, where a hero’s downfall is caused by his hamartia, or fatal flaw.

Gender and Identity

Several skits raised questions about gender identity and societal expectations. Through humour and satire, students highlighted issues such as toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and LGBTQ+ acceptance.

Mental Health and Alienation:

Mono-acting performances like “Astitva” and “Khamoshi” portrayed inner loneliness, existential crises, and the silent pain of urban youth — revealing deep psychological insight.

Corruption and Modern Hypocrisy

Mimes and skits satirised the modern obsession with power, fame, and wealth. Without words, the mime artists communicated hypocrisy, greed, and moral decay more powerfully than spoken dialogue could. These performances were educational and emotional journeys that allowed literature students like me to witness how theoretical drama concepts come alive on stage.

 Applying Dramatic Literary Theories: From Aristotle to Esslin

As an English literature student, I observed the plays not merely as entertainment but through the lens of dramatic theory. The Youth Festival became a living laboratory where we could apply and test literary criticism in performance form.

🔸 Aristotle’s Concept of Tragedy

According to Aristotle, tragedy arouses pity and fear and leads to catharsis. Plays like “Antim Awaaz” embodied this principle. The protagonist’s moral weakness and eventual downfall reflected the classical tragic pattern. The audience, too, felt purified through empathy and realisation.

🔸 Ben Jonson’s Comedy of Humours

Several skits mirrored Ben Jonson’s theory where each character is dominated by one “humour” — excessive emotion or personality trait. Characters driven by greed, vanity, or jealousy were exaggerated to produce laughter and moral insight, transforming comedy into a tool for social correction.

🔸 John Dryden’s Definition of Drama

Dryden believed that plays should “delight and instruct”. The performances maintained this balance — entertaining audiences while conveying deep social and ethical lessons.

🔸 Martin Esslin’s Theatre of the Absurd

Certain mono-acts and mimes drew directly from the absurdist tradition of writers like Beckett and Ionesco. Through fragmented dialogue, repetition, and meaningless gestures, they revealed the existential anxiety of modern life — the search for meaning in a chaotic world.

🔸 Irving Wardle’s Comedy of Menace

Wardle described “comedy of menace” as laughter mixed with unease. Some performances began humorously but turned into serious reflections on societal decay, reminding us that the line between comedy and tragedy is often thin.

Through these theoretical perspectives, the Youth Festival turned into a literary classroom without walls, where performance became a medium of critical understanding.

Fine Arts Display: The Aesthetics of Expression:

On the final day, the Fine Arts Exhibition became the visual highlight of the festival. Students displayed their creativity through painting, collage, cartooning, clay modelling, poster making, and installation art.

Each artwork reflected a fusion of imagination, technique, and message.

🔹 Key Artistic Observations:

• Satirical Paintings – Cartoons mocking social media addiction, pollution, and political corruption showed how humour can be a powerful critical tool.
• Didactic Posters – Works on peace, climate awareness, and gender equality carried moral instruction in simple yet striking forms.

• Aestheticism – Abstract art explored emotions through colour and texture, focusing on art for art’s sake.
• Installation Art – A sculpture made from recycled materials symbolised rebirth and environmental harmony, connecting art to sustainability.
• Each visual creation carried layers of philosophical and aesthetic meaning. Observing these works, I recalled Oscar Wilde’s belief that “All art is at once surface and symbol.”

Music, Dance, and Literary Events: The Rhythm of Youth

Beyond theatre and fine arts, the festival also included music and dance competitions that celebrated India’s rhythmic and melodic diversity.

• Classical Dance: Performances of Bharatanatyam and Kathak conveyed stories through graceful movement and expression (abhinaya).

• Folk Dance: The beats of Garba and Dandiya resonated with collective energy — an emblem of Gujarat’s cultural soul.

• Western and Fusion Music: Bands performed self-composed songs on friendship, dreams, and identity, proving that art crosses linguistic boundaries.

• Literary Competitions: Elocution, poetry recitation, and creative writing events reflected linguistic creativity and analytical ability, where literature met performance.

Together, these events symbolised the harmonious co-existence of tradition and modernity — the defining feature of MKBU’s creative ethos.

 My Personal Experience as Participant and Observer

As a student of literature, I attended the festival with both academic curiosity and personal excitement. Though I was not a direct participant on stage, my role as an observer and blogger allowed me to appreciate the festival from multiple perspectives — artistic, intellectual, and emotional.

I was struck by the coordination of volunteers and participants, who managed time, rehearsals, stage design, and technical support with impressive dedication. Their teamwork exemplified the unity and discipline that underlie creative success.

The ambience of the festival was electrifying — halls filled with applause, laughter, and thoughtful silence. Every corner of the campus echoed with music, colour, and youthful energy. Watching these performances, I felt the truth of what Wordsworth called “emotion recollected in tranquillity.” Each act — whether tragic or comic — was a poetic expression of life itself.

Reflections: Art as Education

The Youth Festival was not just entertainment; it was education through art. Every act, painting, and performance was an interpretation of human experience, allowing us to explore literature and life together.

It reminded me of Matthew Arnold’s idea of “Culture as perfection”—the belief that art refines the soul. I also found echoes of John Dewey’s Art as Experience, which argues that art transforms ordinary experience into meaningful expression.

As an English student, it deepened my understanding of drama as living literature — how characters, emotions, and ideas move beyond text to become living art. I realised that theories by Aristotle, Jonson, and Esslin are not just historical concepts but vital tools for interpreting the creativity of today’s youth.