The festival of lights is an outcome of an epic tale that spreads the teachings of unity and harmony. Light over darkness, hope over despair, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil as even the UN lights up with this regard, this year. Diwali, where in parts of the world light up with candles, earthen lamps and lanterns to commemorate the festivities and Indians celebrate with breathtakingly beautiful fireworks on display, with friends and family, was celebrated in DoMS as well, to brighten the evening. Starting with the lighting of “diyas” and decorating the floral design to the “aarti” and sweets offered to God, every student’s heart delved into devotional moments for the festivity. Soon after, students took charge of bursting of crackers in full swing. With subtle background music, dinner was served and it was a sumptuous one! No sooner the dinner was done, desi beats were played and the whole night turned into a DJ party. The whole event was more or less a festival celebrated at a home away from home! As the festival marks the return of Lord Rama to Ayodhya from his 14-year-long exile, the whole concept of Diwali to spread the culture and enrich the current state of affairs of a nation, was seen clearly in DoMS!
Onam is one of the most ancient Hindu festivals which is still celebrated with a great devotion. Onam marks the homecoming of King Mahabali, a legendary king, who ruled Kerala in ancient times. DoMS, patronizing the culture of every Indian, took great pleasure in organizing the best possible identical celebration of Kerala.
The delighted event started by welcoming ‘Penkuttis’ walking in with the custom white & colour striped Kerala sarees accompanying the “Aankuttis’ who were tying the strands of their Dhotis over their dazzling Kurtas. The greatness of the king was explained alongside with a prototype – Mr.Bishal, who was dressed up just like the king Mahabali. Adding up spice to the celebration, the custom boat ride was replaced with a ‘Slow- Cycle’ race, ‘Oonjal’ and of course, the girls dancing for ‘Thiruvathira’ was adding up pleasance all over the ambience. Selfies flashing in hundreds per second with DJ by side took us to the end of jubilation. Despite the festival being popular in Kerala, all the pupils who belonged to 18 different states of Hindustan gathered together to make the event a grand success and a crowd overwhelmed with happiness in their face and heart.
"Love and compassion are necessities not luxuries, without them humanity cannot survive"-Dalai Lama. HumaNITTy is an umbrella organisation of NIT Trichy which embeds the social responsibility within and brings in togetherness to reach out for a cause. The 4th Edition saw the students of DoMS taking up lead volunteering roles in hosting events such as 'Gala for kids', Rangoli, Face Painting, etc. 'Daan Utsav' was celebrated spiritedly among the underprivileged kids and the aged.
On the 4th of September, the entire family of DoMS-NITT celebrated Teacher’s Day, 2015. The event took place at A13 Hall of NITT Administrative Block. It was organized by the first year students of DoMS. The pressure on the students was quite high as this was the first event they were organizing, as a class. The program started at 4 p.m. Vidya Lakshmi and Shashi Priya, the anchors of the event invited Dr. V.J. Sivakumar (HOD of DoMS), Dr. A.K. Bakthavatsalam (Head of Training & Placement), Mr. R. Gururaj (Placement Officer, T&P Cell), Dr. G. Kannabiran, Dr. R. Murali, Dr. B. SenthilArasu, Dr. N. Thamaraiselvan, Dr. P. Sreedevi and Dr. V. Lavanya, on stage. The program started with a prayer song “Om Jai Jagadish” which was presented by Kavya Krishnan. This was followed by the lightening of the traditional “Kuthu Vilaku” by the dignitaries present. Shadhin Sudhershan, the Class Representative from first year, presented the welcome speech and invited the dignitaries to enlighten the audience with their speeches. In his speech, Dr. V. J. Sivakumar spoke about the importance of teachers, which is aptly portrayed by our religious manuscripts like Mahabharata and Ramayana. Dr. Bakthavatsalam mentioned about Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and his trip to Russia to meet Stalin, once the most brutal dictator (who apparently poured molten lead in the ears of the prisoners). When Dr. Radhakrishnan met him, he gave Stalin a warm hug, which is credited with bringing a change in Stalin’s stance and helped in fostering a fruitful relationship between Russia and India. Mr. Gururaj pointed out that DoMS is the only department in NITT which celebrates Teacher’s Day year after year. Dr. Kannabiran appealed to the students to work hard and to live up to the expectations of DoMS. After this, small mementos were given to the teachers as a display of affection and appreciation. 
The first cultural event was a soulful recitation of the poem “The Journey” from Gitanjali by RabindraNath Tagore. Next on stage was the classical dance performance depicting the love between Radha and Krishna in a pure Bharatanatyam dance form which was also a sign of celebrating “Krishna Janmashtami” on the following day. The next event was a game show hosted by 1st years for teachers.
The second part of the event had a host of cultural events. On seeing the enthusiasm of the first year students, the second year students also wanted to contribute on their part and did so in some sheer style by performing an on-stage choreographed dance for a couple of groovy Tamil tracks. They felt that this would be a good way to acknowledge their juniors for the exemplary efforts which they put in to make the event a successful one.
The event was a huge success, owing to the fact that all the first year students were organizing an event together as a team for the first time and displayed some tremendous character and teamwork. And although, it was a gala event, we couldn’t help but think about how many lives teachers change every day. The world we live in is because of such powerful and phenomenal changes, and probably teachers occupy the undisputable top position of bringing about this change.
