One must have heard of the various college clubs like music, fashion and drama. Without doubt these form the long list of non academic "fun to be a part" of clubs. But just as these thrive among the college corridors, there are those clubs which happen border along the academic, non-academic; for instance, the literary club!

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

"Reading as a habit is fast disappearing hobby," says Professor Swati Wagh of Sathaye College. "You would seldom find students reading a book which is not a part of their academics," she says. Wagh who inspite of being a professor of the science stream is in-charge of Marathi Natya Vibhag at the college strives to inculcate reading among her students. 

One would dismiss the literary club to be a gathering of like minded scholarly bookish people who like to discuss mind-numbing Shakespearen sonnets, Tolstoy's classics and Burns' poetry. But infact the club is much more than just that. "The reason why I took English literature as my major was that I wanted to read as many books as possible. Sure one can read otherwise, but the three years taught me nuances of writing and most importantly forming responsible opinions about authors and their works," said Dipa Vaidyanathan an ex student of Mithibai College. 

Mithibai College has its own English Literary Association (ELA) which looks into activities beyond the regular curricula. "Through the ELA we conduct a number of activities. "Being a smaller group, the whole class is busy attending seminars, workshops and discussions at other colleges," says a faculty member at the college. Students of Mithibai's ELA have been regularly conducting screenings of various literary classics throughout the academic year. "I remember the screening of Macbeth and As You Like It. We had made paper cut outs of leaves and put them out on notice boards calling students for the screening; even today I can recall the verses Orlando writes to Rosalind," reminisces Vaidyanathan.

Another such club is the Sophia College English Dramatics Association (SCEDA). The club organises two key annual events-an intra college competition which encourages students to take up theatre and the second, an annual play by SCEDA members at Bhabha auditorium. Tara Bhatnagar, who was the club secretary last year explains, "The SCEDA Annual Play is a major feature of the association. Apart from this we conduct a host of workshops on poetry, contemporary writing and also study the critiques of different writers."

In the midst of these English language literary associations what also finds a special mention is the Xavier's Urdu Literary Society. The college introduced Urdu as a subject way back in 1922. The Urdu Literary Society was established in 1944. The Society conducts three inter-collegiate contests for Urdu elocution, dramatics and essay writing. It also for over seven decades has been publishing a literary journal called Karvan-e-Adab. The Society has been regularly arranging mushairas—literary-cum-cultural programmes in the memory of noted poets and literattuers of the language. Apart from this particular language club, the college boasts of active participation of students in many other clubs like Marathi Vangmay Mandal, The Gujarati Literary Association, the Hindi Sathiya Mandal.