Kavi Sammelan and Creative writing competition

Today was the second day of Antaragni. I had a nice time today. In the afternoon, I participated in a creative writing competition with my friend AC. And then in the evening, I went to Kavi Sammelan with my friends. Kavi Sammelan as always was amazing. This year there was much greater variety in the event. Besides the regular Hasya Ras poets, we had a 'Shrangar Ras' poet and a 'Vir Ras' poet. Lots of laughter and lots of clapping and lots of 'Wah Wah'. Every one should go and watch a Kavi Sammelan at least once. None of the laughter shows can provide you the atmosphere which is created there. You even laugh at the jokes which are common.

Creative writing event was one of the best of its kind that I have seen. There were 5 questions. One was to write a meaningful and coherent paragraph in which the first word of each new sentence has 1 letter, second has 2, third has 3 and so on. Then there was the usual question of writing a story given first few line. Both these questions were attempted by AC. Then there was a question about writing a short poem with 17 syllables. In Japan, these kind of poems are called 'Haiku'. This was attempted by me and AC together. But owing to our incapbility to identify number of syllables in a word (sometimes, I can), I doubt what we have written.

Then there were 2 questions that I attempted. The first one was writing the dialogues of a comic strip. And second one was writing a limerick. Limerick is a 5 line long poem with a rhyming scheme of 'AABBA'. And while writing it we had to use word 'bow' with as different meanings are possible. The limerick that I wrote was this.

Bow to the bow that caressed the string.
Thoughts of joy the masters bring.
An arrow left the bow and struck the hearts.
As groom in the bow-tie departs.
But the maestro continues to sing.

This was all I could conjure up. The meanings of the 'bow' that I have used here are:
1. Bend one's knee or body, or lower one's head.
2. A slightly curved piece of resilient wood with taut horsehair strands which is used in playing certain stringed instruments.
3. A weapon for shooting arrows.
4. A knot with two loops and loose ends.

At the end it was really fun participating in the event. Those were 2 hours well spent. I am looking forward for the Nukkad, Rangoli, India Inspired (a panel discussion) and the professional night. I would write about these events in days to come.