Hyderabad: Loyola Academy celebrated its department fest Touchstone

Hyderabad: The Department of Psychology, English, and Journalism along with the department of General English from Loyola Academy Degree and PG College, Alwal, flagged off its annual fest titled with 'Touchstone' here on Saturday.

The language-literature fest celebrated the language, literature, and creativity, where students were seen participating enthusiastically in several cultural events organized by the departments. The chief guest of the event was Dr Lina Mukhopadhyay, Associate Professor in the School of English Education, EFLU, Hyderabad. Lina spoke about the importance of language studied in the modern days.

The event was further followed by a satirical Shakespearean play with a modern twist, in which the students of the department portrayed characters including Shylock Iyer, Mark Anthony Pratap Singh, and many others. The first session ended with a drama titled 'Moira' which portrayed the internal struggle of a writer. The drama was written, directed and enacted by the students.

The post-lunch session began with a Cosplay, a competition in which the students dressed up as famous characters from literature like Heath cliff from Wuthering Heights, Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and many others. The post-lunch sessions also had several other competitions including Slam poetry, designing a book cover and a quiz on basic English knowledge, How Well Do You Know your English?

The Guest of Honour, Padmini Rangarajan, an educational puppeteer, speaker, presenter and research scholar from Sphoorti Theatre talked about the art of storytelling through a session with her Puppets followed by a storytelling session by the student storytellers. They narrated folk tales from across the globe.

The venue was filled with displays of various poems, art pieces and literature memes contributed by the students and faculty of the department. The photo booth was the star of the show where everyone was seen clicking photos with the props made by the creative team.

The event ended with a valedictory ceremony where the winners of various events were given prizes.

Winners of the competition:

Cosplay: Subha Pai

Quiz: Vijay and Muskan

Slam Poetry: Shrestha

Book Cover: Priyanka Sharma