The oldest clubs on campus are like the Ship of Theseus: their entire populations are replaced over the years, as their identities slowly evolve, being rebuilt plank by plank, batch by batch. From the grainy black-and-white photographs of the 1960s to the high-definition feeds of today, a handful of BITSian bodies have bridged the gap between the analogue and the digital. In this article, the EPC delves into the origins of these enduring clubs to understand not just how they started but also the secret to their surviving the test of time, and the challenges they faced along the way.
The oldest clubs on campus are (in alphabetical order):
Astro Club, Creative Activities Club (CrAC), Dance Club (DC), English Language Activities Society (ELAS), Hindi Drama Club (HDC), Music Club (MuC) and the Photography Club (Photog).
Astro Club
It all began in the late 1950s, when a legacy 5’’ telescope (around 200 years old!), found its way into the hands of Dr Sen, a professor in the Physics Department, and, in his free time, an amateur astronomy enthusiast. The Physics Department and Dr. Sen established the Pilani Astronomical Society, and eventually, to pique the interest of students enrolled in the institute, the Astro Club.
The Astro Club is mainly based out of the FD-III terrace, where they meet weekly and conduct many (literally) stellar events during Oasis and APOGEE, including their flagship event: “Night’s Watch”, where outsiders to the club can observe the night sky using their telescopes.
The club mostly consists of active astronomy enthusiasts, and currently, they use an 11’’ Schmidt-Cassegrain and an automated-mount 5’’ telescope, donated by a club alum, Dilip D’Souza. They also recently started an amateur rocketry venture, and in a span of 2 years, became India’s first amateur rocketry team to break the sound barrier with complete in-house development.
Creative Activities Club
In the early 1960s, when the art scene in India was shifting towards modernism and expressivism and painters like M.F. Hussain and Tyeb Mehta were gaining traction, BITS Pilani started its very own Arts Club. This club was mainly focused on drawing and painting, recreating stills from around the campus, or drawing scenes from the telly.
This Arts Club was later divided into two sections around the time of the first Oasis (originally christened Mayur, in 1971): the Department of Art & Decoration (Art & D) and the Creative Activities Club (CrAC). Art & D, now the Department of Art, Design & Publicity (ADP), was created as a result of disagreements among the club members, some of whom preferred the anonymity of a department over the independence of a club.
Painting the letters of the names of the three distinct festivals is a decades-old custom at CrAC. Painting murals on the campus’s numerous walls, including the ANC and SAC walls, is also one of the club’s duties.
CrAC has recently begun experimenting with three-dimensional creative structures in addition to painting and banners. A life-size model of the BOSM mascot, “Baxter: the Desert Eagle”, was created for BOSM 2025. Now, the club is aiming to explore many different art genres beyond painting.
Dance Club
The Dance Club (DC) is one of the oldest clubs on campus, which is unsurprising given that the ABCDs of dancing are Anybody Can Dance. Established in the 1960s, the Dance Club began with two teams, Western and Classical Folk. The BITS Pilani dancing Club began to grow over time as the world adapted to changing dancing norms. Two new teams, one Contemporary and the other Semi-Western, were added to the club.
The manner in which DC performs is another noticeable shift. With the use of modern tech and well-placed edits, they can now perform on mashups of different songs, making their performances more interesting and captivating than before, when each dance was on a single song.
An entertaining tradition of the Dance Club is giving each recruit their own DC Name for the duration of their time at DC. This helps close the gap between juniors and seniors, making the club enjoyable for all.
With the rapid rise of social media over the last decade, DC has established its own production team, complete with in-house directors and editors. Shooting and publishing their dance material across several media platforms is the primary responsibility of this team. Videos from the DC YouTube channel date back to the 1990s; their most popular video is a 2012 performance from “Mithali” (which used to be the flagship music and performing arts event of APOGEE).
Presently, DC performs during the inauguration ceremony of every fest, with a different performance by each team. The group has been posting frequently on social media and hopes to participate in an increasing number of activities in the future.
English Language Activities Society
The English Language Activities Society (ELAS) is one of the oldest clubs on campus. Initially dedicated to most English activities, mainly quizzing, it eventually also contained a debating vertical (which was extremely active in the 1980s), and a press vertical, which eventually branched off to form the Debating Society and the English Press Club (yours truly).
In a podcast in 2020, the EPC interviewed Rama Sundaram, ELAS Joint-Secretary ’83, and chief editor of the first-ever Cactus Flower. He mentioned how ELAS used to publish the cyclostyled campus newsletter, the Camel Post (after the BITS Beat newsletter had gone defunct). This was later renamed to the Clock Tower Times, and then succeeded by Sandpaper (the predecessors to today’s Cactus Flower and The Fine Print!). He added that ELAS’s quizzes used to be a major draw for Oasis in the ’80s.
The EPC interviewed the APOGEE ’26 Coordinator of ELAS, Sankha Saha, who shared some moments in the club’s history. He noted the shrinkage in club activities from its inception, attributing it to a decline in quizzing culture on campus and the separation of the various verticals present. He also recollected his talk with Harish Bhat, ELAS Joint-Secretary ’83 and the SU President ’84, who recently visited the campus during a literary fest, and mentioned that they had an active debating vertical and a total strength of roughly 20-25 active members per batch, compared to six to eight in recent batches.
One of the older traditions of the club is the “Brain of BITS”, a quiz, with a corresponding trophy on which the name of the winner is inscribed each year, a longstanding tradition since the ’80s, which enables ELAS to track a lot of its history. Another tradition is that ELAS quizzes usually start at 12:00 AM, in contrast to usual college quizzes, which are conducted in the morning.
Hindi Drama Club
The Hindi Drama Club (HDC), a thespian cousin to the performing arts clubs such as MuC and DC, is one of the oldest on campus. It was originally used to conduct stage plays, but later, it also branched off into nukkad naataks (street plays). HDC currently presents a full-length play in the Main Auditorium each semester, and an anthology of short plays, “Amalgam”, in the NAB Auditorium, which the club recently started so that it could work on more productions every semester.
In a short interview, the APOGEE ’26 Coordinator of HDC, Siri Sindhura Rajyam, reminisced about the legacy of the club and shared some aspects of its history. She remarked that, before its dissolution, the English Drama Club (EDC) was ‘a pretty big deal, and their productions were THE productions’, while the HDC was not as popular, but the turnaround came after the HDC performed a play that won the stage play competition at Oasis, which also significantly increased footfall to their plays.
One of the traditions the club has been following since the 1990s is “Shama”, where the entire cast stands in a circle and chants ‘Gar ho sake to ab koi shama jalayiye’. She said that the alumni traced the origins of this tradition back to the lyrics of a song performed by an artist. She commented that the tradition matches the lyrics of the song “Gar Ho Sake” by the band Indian Ocean, who performed in BITS around the same time, but found it odd that this song had only been released in 2014. Another tradition they follow is “Myree”, where the cast bids farewell to the play, because HDC very rarely repeats plays.
She also mentioned that HDC, like most other clubs, suffered from a lack of knowledge transfer during the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented them from conducting any street plays until 2023, when they leveraged alumni support and feedback to conduct their first nukkad in over 3 years, and also their last to date.
Music Club
The Music Club (MuC) is among the oldest performing arts clubs on campus. From humble beginnings, with a small group of people in the 1960s, the club has since grown and become well-known. Besides their on-campus performances, MuC represents BITS Pilani at various events. The club has several verticals, including metal, funk, rock, and Bollywood, among others..
Each semester, they put up performances at their Music Nite and Psenti Nite, as well as during the inauguration ceremonies of the fests. MuC was also the victor of “Tarang” (the musical extravaganza that takes place during Oasis) in 2024, standing in second place in 2025. The Music Club also performs and uploads renditions of popular songs to their social media accounts. Some notable Music Club alumni include Derek & The Cats, Iyer’s Filter Coffee, and Agam (a Carnatic progressive rock band with over 300,000 monthly Spotify listeners).
The Music Club wishes to work on original compositions and take part in more competitions in the future. They hope to boost their presence on social media and try out different forms of music.
Photography Club
The Photography Club (Photog) started back in the 1960s when Indian youngsters discovered Kodaks and Canons and became obsessed with clicking photos. The Department of Photography (DoPy) and Photog broke apart in the early 2000s, and Photog has been a separate club ever since.
The club has the annual practice of showcasing all of the photographs it captures during the year in a gallery during Oasis. The club is also well-known for its “Photowalks”, where members click snapshots of daily Pilani life and of the campus. These walks are an excellent method to educate the juniors on how to use the camera and other equipment, and help strengthen the bond between members. The club is also in charge of the photo booths at the many fests and is responsible for capturing the various events that take place throughout the year.
The club attracts people looking to hone their photography skills, and is said to provide the environment to transform a hobby into a lifelong activity.