The APOGEE English Press sat down with Sankha Suvra Saha, the Coordinator for the Department of Lights to discuss the department’s activities during the fest. When asked to shed some light on what the Department of Lights does, Sankha said that they flick switches, and the lights turn on—usually. There are certain occasions where they don’t, he said, citing that earlier during the day the lights controller decided to commit ‘hara-kiri’ (ritual suicide) and stop working. 

Sankha stated that the biggest change since last year was ‘We have two more autistic juniors’, much to the indignation of one of the aforementioned juniors, who was sitting opposite to us. He also mentioned that for the first time in four years the department had eight members, something he felt was quite nice. However he did admonish some of his juniors for prioritising a certain commitment over the department. 

Sankha mentioned that during the even semester, fest work usually takes up less time than non fest work, and that, during the fest, other than Inaug and recording scenes for the dance club the department usually just sits at the lights booth and plays board games. As for pre-fest work, he implored certain performing clubs to not call him in the middle of the night for work, saying “Man, we need time, we’re humans, we need to sleep”. He also commended his batchie for learning Hindi, something that helped a lot in communicating with AV (Audio-Visual) lab technicians.

Regarding the theme, Sankha called it a ‘copium’ theme, stating that ideally the fest should’ve taken place on the seventh of April, coinciding with the Artemis II reaching its apogee—the farthest point from Earth. However he did say ‘but at least for once it’s not a ChatGPT theme’.

When asked about his experience as lights coordinator, he once again bemoaned that his juniors didn’t listen to him or acknowledge his messages on the group, to the annoyance of the department junior sitting opposite to us, and that they chose to prioritise other commitments over the department. 

As a parting note Sankha then gave a shoutout to ELAS, stating that he was also ELAS Coordinator for the festival.