With Oasis around the corner, Oasis English Press sat down with Aditya Pratap Rana, the Coordinator of the Hindi Activities Society (HAS), to learn more about their work for the fest.

Aditya explained that the club conducted quizzes during its early days and later went on to establish their stand-up comedy event N2O. He clarified that the comics for N2O had not been finalised by the time of the interview. He mentioned that all the artists for Indie Nite, Hip-Hop Nite, and Bollywood Nite were pitched and brought by HAS this year. The artists include The Yellow Diary for Indie Nite, Seedhe Maut for Hip-Hop Nite, and Vishal Mishra for Bollywood Nite. He added that they would be hosting two DJ acts along with the headliners for Indie Nite and Hip-Hop Nite.

Aditya said that the club would be merging its two quiz events, Antaak and Filmy Muqabla — focused on Bollywood songs and movies, respectively —  into one this year. He further added that they would be renaming it to Bollywood Baazi and increasing the prize pool for the event. He shared that this was due to a scheduling conflict as Embryo’s in-house DJ was set to be at the same time as Antaak. He mentioned that they would be conducting another event named Stand-up Soapbox, whose preliminary rounds had been conducted across the country. He explained that the winner of the event would be the opening act for N2O. Apart from these, he said that the club organised a new event, Tambola Night, the week before the fest. 

Aditya said that the club had been busy pitching since June and would start preparations for Bollywood Baazi soon. When asked if he faced any setbacks, he mentioned how competitive pitching is, calling it a ‘huge headache’ to deal with due to budget constraints. Aditya noted that his past involvement in APOGEE helped him prepare for any challenges this time. He recalled an incident where he was in conflict with another club Coordinator for six hours across two days during the pitching process.

Despite everything, he described the experience as fun and educational, especially in terms of working with people. On a parting note, he expressed his hope that after Oasis, HAS would ‘emerge as a club that ventured into something new and achieved excellence’.