A festival that decided his destiny

Updated on: Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The curtains will soon rise on the eighth edition of Dhwani to be held at the College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram. And the initial focus will be on one man who turns up at every Dhwani — to help run the cultural event that is so close to his heart.

Whenever Dhwani came around Arun Kunjunny would rush from the photo exhibition he’d created with pictures from the previous years’ fests to wherever he was needed. He couldn’t let anything go wrong with Dhwani - the ‘baby’ he helped raise since 1999.

Arun had stepped out of the college in 2003, but always came back when it was Dhwani time. “Dhwani is like a baby I like to see growing up first hand,” says the former engineering student who ended up in the Relations Management and PR field.

“Dhwani helped me choose the profession of PR. As for photography, the colours of Dhwani really helped me open my eyes to the world around.”

By the first year of college, Arun realised engineering was not meant for him. He never wrote any exams but attended the course all four years.

By the end of the course however, the confidence he gained out of conducting Dhwani and his communication skills helped him land a job with a UK based stock photography company.

He did a correspondence course and took a BA in literature while he was working. “The interactions with students, vendors, police, and other colleges during Dhwani strengthened my communication skills.

Again, public speaking was one of the core areas that I polished during those times. So basically, over the five years in college, I kind of transformed myself into a people’s management person who could speak pretty well.”

His job demanded him to work with photographers around the world which fuelled his interest in photography.

He started using a DSLR and conducted a couple of exhibitions – one with animal expressions as the theme, (“I had tried to initiate a project to bring in mascots for the zoo”) and another, a complete portfolio of his work where he also invited amateur photographers to include their works.

“For men may come and men may go, but Dhwani would go on forever,” a teacher said during the closing ceremony of Dhwani 2012.

The student finance convener Shahi added: “For people may come and people may go, but Arun Chettan will still be here each year.”

A festival that decided his destiny

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