Fagun – the BESC festival of flowers

Some students pronounce it with a “Ph”, drawing its origin back to the Punjabi month of Phagun in the Nanakshahi calendar, while others allude to the eleventh month of the Bengali calendar named after the star Uttorfalguni, which marks the arrival of spring – the sixth and the final season in these parts of the world.

Some even claim that the term originated from Fag – or abir, the colourful gulal that is sprinkled to celebrate Holi.

However, everybody agrees to the fact that there can be no parallels, anywhere on the face of Earth, to the way Fagun is celebrated in the Bhawanipur Education Society College (BESC).

For one, while the rest of India celebrates the harbinger of spring and regeneration Holi with colours, at BESC it is
flower petals that are spread as a means of strengthening the bonds of fraternity.

Fagun in the BESC is also unique in that it is an occasion that is used by the Students, the management and the Teachers of the institution to felicitate the members of the non-teaching staff – to put on record the fact that without their dedicated and selfless service on a 24X7 basis, an institution of the size and activities of the BESC can never function properly  The teaching staff have the Teacher’s Day.

The students have their Convocation.

And Fagun is therefore dedicated to the non-teaching staff, completing the Holy Trinity of an educational institution as it were.

This year was no different either. On February 27 th , 2018, a hundred and forty-five members of the non-teaching staff were honoured with Pradip Seth, an ex-officio member and the Hon.

Secretary of the Governing Body of the college handing over gifts individually to the members of NTS.

Other  members of the Management; the Rector, Dr Sandip Dan; the Dean of Student Affairs Prof Dilip Shah; senior members of the faculty and about a hundred students took part in the programme and the festivities that followed.

The programme was marked by a high voltage cultural programme that was a virtual potpourri of entertainment.

Crescendo, the musical collective of the college presented a non-stop string of foot- stompers, while Flames – the dance collective – regaled the audience with three performances that were choreographed by the Bollywood and Classical groups.

Two stand-up comedians stood up to have the audience in splits (or is it ROFL?) – Mansi Chaturvedi stealing the show with her tongue in cheek subtleties.

Sourav Goswami, the music teacher of the college and an accomplished singer had to take the stage by popular demand to belt out one hit song after the other in a way that only he can.

The evening ended with the customary Thandai and snacks.

The programme was anchored by BESC student Harleen Kaur.