There is no better feeling than that of going places. And Aaghaaz, the dramatics club of DAV College, Sector 10 Chandigarh, is quite literally doing exactly that. As the team called 2008 a wrap they were also busy accepting awards, accolades, and even scholarships. Back from Mood Indigo, IIT Mumbai, the club flaunts a first place in ‘Situational Acting’ and second in ‘Dance ‘n’ Drama’. While in December they won the mime, mimicry and stage play events at the North Zone Inter University Youth Festival held in PU. “This is the first time that PU sent a team for a one-act play, and we will now compete for the nationals at Midnapur, West Bengal later this month,” tells Gurpreet Saini, president of the club.

Talking about the experience at Mumbai fest, they share that the club has been winning the dramatics trophy for three consecutive years. This year Siddharth Kaushal has come back with the best actor award and a scholarship of Rs 1.5 lakh to Kishore Namit Kapoor Acting School in Mumbai. “I wanted to join the army, but I guess acting won’t be a bad option after all,” smiles Kaushal.

The team’s dance drama was based on the life of Bhagat Singh. “We focussed on the special events of the revolutionary’s life like meeting Sukhdev, joining HRA, Kakori incident etc. While for situational acting we prepared a spoof on Midas,” Saini shares adding that judge Aakarsh Khurana, theatre artist, was extremely happy with their performance.

Marking a first for the club, the team also ventured out to form Aaghaaz Productions. “We made ‘Socha na tha’ for the ‘Silent Short Film’ category at the fest. The team already had the story idea for a film and we couldn’t have asked for better opportunity and the push to work on it.” Seeing films as a natural progression from theatre, the team is already going through several scripts to work on their next production. “We don’t want to limit ourselves to a specific theme or style, so expect a lot of experimentation.” Watch out for this young talent brigade!