Mumbai: The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay will organise its second queer festival ‘Rangavali’ on Saturday. The students at IIT-B will celebrate diversity and spread awareness about the queer community at the second edition of the annual festival.
Saathi- the LGBTQ support group of the IIT-B has been working since the last 15 years to promote inclusivity in the college campus. Since 2023, Saathi has been organising queer festival ‘Rangavali’ to celebrate the gender diversity in the campus and also spread awareness about the LGBTQ+ community among the students.
On Saturday, IIT will celebrate the second year of Rangavali with art, exhibitions, talent shows, panel discussions and film screenings. The one-day queer festival will host two panel discussions ‘Diversity in a workplace: corporate and academic workplace’ and ‘Intersectionality and relationships’ to discuss the issues faced by the people belonging to the queer community.
Abhijit Majumdar, faculty advisor of Saathi, said, “Saathi has been working since one and a half decade to promote inclusivity in the campus of the esteemed IIT Bombay. In an attempt to boost inclusivity, we started organising Rangavali last year. The main aim of Rangavali is to celebrate the diversity in our campus and increase awareness about the queer community among the students.”
As a part of the festival, art pieces related to the queer community will be prepared by the students. Posters made by these students will be displayed across the campus and will be shared through social media to create awareness. A quiz game will be organised for students as a fun event filled with trivia revolving around the queer community.
The one-day festival will host special film screenings from the Kashish Pride Film Festival. The best films premiered at the renowned Kashish film festival will be screened at Rangavali for the students of IIT-B in the evening.
Atharva Jadhav, student volunteer for Rangavali, said, “We will bring selected films from the Kashish film festival and screen them on our campus. The ‘Best of Kashish’ films will highlight the most important aspects and issues related to the people coming from the queer community and will bring a new perspective for all the students.”
