The Cultural Council of IIT Kanpur provides plethora of opportunities for students to explore and pursue their hobbies. It is interesting to know that even in the 1960’s, when the institute was being established, life was not just studies, lecture halls and labs. The students used to produce their own plays, have parties, play music and dance.

During the first 5 years(1960-65), an annual cultural day was organized by students. Here are a few glimpses of the drama days from that era.

1
English Drama Cast: (standing) Rajan Hingorani and Anil Virmani (sitting) Shanker Sanyal, Raj Mohindra, Ashok Bhandari and Prof. EK Das

 

2
Standing: ……,Prof E.K.Das, Prof. K. R. Sharma, Bharat Bhargava,…and others
Sitting: Rajan Hingoraney, Ashok Bhandari, Shanker Sanyal, Raj Mohindra, Anil Virmani, Santosh Mehra, Pratap Misra and Arun Mehra

 

3
There were no girls at IIT Kanpur in those early days.However we had Dhani Sahai Mathur and Raj Mohindra act the part.

 

4
Hindi Drama in progress. P. N. Misra from the pioneer batch is on extreme left.

 

5
Shiam Gupta (far right) acting in a drama (students from other batches were playing the other roles).

Vox Populi thanks Mr.Abhay Bhushan from the pioneer batch(1965) for sharing these photographs with us.

 

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