The BOSM English Press (BEP) caught up with Tarun Girish, the Coordinator of the Department of Lights. Despite getting a bit cranky while waiting for his food, he graciously shared all the details of the department’s ongoing preparations for the fest without much of a fuss. 

When asked about himself, Tarun described himself as the embodiment of ‘all [the] Taruns’ on campus. He was glad that such interest was taken in him and requested to move on, because he had nothing interesting to share about himself. 

Tarun mentioned that for BOSM, Lights would be working on three events—the Inauguration Ceremony, Gurukul Nite, and N2O. Their primary work was taking care of the stage lighting, and he described how hard they worked to ‘keep that one spotlight on’ for N2O. When asked if they had ever considered turning that light off previously during a performance, he confirmed that they had let their intrusive thoughts win, but that was for the ‘better good’ of the audience.

Tarun noted that the only lighting system available for the events was a set of basic LEDs that had remained unchanged for over two decades. The setup consisted of three standard colours, RGB, that could be mixed in any proportion, with an option to turn the flicker on or off. He complained that despite the limitations, no significant effort had been made to upgrade or modify the system. He also mentioned that his ADHD levels had jumped to a 7.5—on a scale from 1 to 10—by playing with the lights board over the years, but was confident that it would drop as it was now his juniors’ responsibility. 

Tarun remarked that nothing was going to be different for the department this year except for the upgraded seats, thanks to the auditorium’s renovation. He mentioned that the old Lights set-up near the stage was dismantled in the process, and now they had the freedom of mobility within the auditorium.

Tarun described his primary job as a coordinator was calling his juniors and berating them for not taking enough interactions. Apart from that, they would coordinate with the Department of Controls, BOSM (BoCo) during rehearsals, and review the accuracy of the script. Meanwhile, the interview was interrupted by a certain BoCo member, with ties to the BEP, who remarked that the only thing BoCo was good at was distributing bananas. Excusing the rudeness, Tarun continued by citing that they were deeply anticipating this year’s events, which hadn’t been able to take place due to the President’s ‘rumoured’ visit. 

When asked about the challenges faced by the department, Tarun simply replied, ‘none.’ He expressed his gratitude for their newest recruit and encouraged the ‘24 batch to show up for more interactions. He urged them not to ‘ghot’ the entire time. For the sake of transparency, the BEP would like to clarify that Tarun himself is a massive ghot.

Moving on, he outlined his ambitious plans to disrupt the long-standing teetotaller legacy within the department during his tenure. He described his counterpart Maitreyi to be very supportive so far, but his plans for the next semester were to kick back and let her take the reins as the coordinator on her own. ‘I want to take lite and chill, for the lack of a better word’, said the ex-EPC member (I guess we all know why now), when asked about his plans for the future. In this regard, he mentioned that he was simply following in the footsteps of his previous coordinator, who is also currently ‘chilling and taking lite’ in his fourth year.

Tarun believed that the clubs and departments that didn’t agree to a more light-hearted article by the EPC seemed to take themselves ‘too seriously’, and proceeded to give his blessings to ‘shitpost’ this article. The ex-EPC member suggested that the press club need not publish facts as they were too boring to read. In parting, Tarun urged all the ‘DASA kids who are legal’ to vote for Kamala Harris, and upped and left to watch Jon Stewart’s recap of the Harris-Trump debate.