With Oasis ’26 inching closer, the Oasis English Press sat down with Apoorva Prabhala and Atharva Gupta, the Coordinators of the Department of Lights, to discuss their department’s work during the fest.
Apoorva mentioned that their department operates the auditorium lighting. This was done for all events that happen in the auditorium that require sequencing or adjustment of lighting. There are various club events of this nature, such as those of Hindi Drama Club, Karaoke Club, Mime Club and other events like Founder’s Day, Oasis Dance Battle, N2O, the Inauguration
Ceremony, and runthroughs for the same. Performances by the Dance Club, for example, require lighting changes with each song, and for Gurukul’s events, the lights must match the vibe of the song.
They explained that in general, the department mainly handles student events, however this time they had also helped conduct an event, Junoon, which was performed by children from the school NSS works with.
When asked about the importance of the department, Atharva replied ‘When you think about it, the work is very trivial, but if you don’t have it, then…then, like, you are missing a key component of any student performance’. Like all departments, Lights is also a crucial department for the fest, even though it may not appear to be, as Apoorva highlighted ‘Like, most people don’t want to sit and do the lights. So, like, there’s gotta be someone. That’s us’. Atharva also mentioned that the department has a huge workload in Oasis as most events like Tarang and Rocktaves happen late into the night.
Apoorva mentioned the severe lack of people in the department, stating that there were only seven members, and three of them were leaving next semester. With just four members in the department, the Coordinators kept reiterating their need for more members in the interview. They provided various benefits of joining the department such as playing board and card games during free time, talking for hours at a time, and getting the Department of Stage Controls (Backstage) to ‘entertain them in their solitude’ in hope of getting more recruits.
Regarding the challenges of being in this department, Apoorva mentioned that the work is very easy, however, the hours are long and, as mentioned earlier, events go on late into the night. When asked about the various problems faced by them, they elaborated that handling club requests was usually not a problem. However, some clubs do not clearly understand what the department does. This confusion leads to requests unrelated to the department work. A major problem within the department is the members’ collective inability to speak Hindi, which is a problem when conversing with the technicians when the lights need fixing or adjusting.
Having just 4–7 members in the department, there is no strict hierarchy of responsibility among the members of the department. Apoorva highlighted that one thing that changed this year, is that this time they are scheduling the runthroughs for the different practice performances of the participating clubs, giving the department a degree of authority and autonomy to choose their own timings.
The coordinators reiterated that ‘this is a very fun department’, possibly in an attempt to get more recruits. They concluded by encouraging freshers to simply enjoy the fest and repeating their pressing need to get students into the department.