Dorm Olympics

Dorm Olympics is an event celebrating its second year at Ashoka University. It aims to bring forth the fun and excitement of residential life by allowing students of Ashoka University to participate in a day-long series of silly and innovative competitions. And of course, true to the Ashokan nature, the Dorm Olympics are open not just to students, a.k.a the dorm residents of Ashoka University, but also to the Faculty and staff, as well as the people living off campus.

This year’s celebration had a riveting line-up of activities for the participants, with games such as Cow Drop, Slow Cycle Racing, and the famous Momo-eating Competition.

The day started off with the ‘Donuts in a String’ competition, wherein the participants had to eat a donut hanging from a string right above their heads without using their hands. For the many people who had apprehensions about participating in the Dorm Olympics, the idea of free donuts was the perfect lure to get them into the groove of the day.  As Rithika, a first year at Ashoka, told us, “It was super exciting because win or lose, you get a donut!”

In conversation with the donut-eating participants, we were given the following tips:

1. Don’t pull away too fast.

2. Work your way around the donut before getting a bite from the centre.

And most importantly, 

3. Do whatever you can to finish the donut before the others do

Slow

This event was followed by the Slow Cycle Race, which had a very simple rule for winning; the last person to cross the finish line wins. The participants tried cycling as slowly as they could. The task, however, proved to be easier said than done as most participants began losing their balance and falling. The winner of this competition was a first year who won by balancing himself on the cycle and not moving until everyone else had either fallen or crossed the finish line.

After this event, it was time for the Dizzy Penalty Shootouts, a game whose audience had a laughing fit every time someone got to shooting. The aim of the game is to shoot a football into the goalpost after spinning around in a circle 15 times. Almost every participant, dizzy to the bone, fell onto the ground after kicking the ball, unwilling to get up. The number of falls witnessed by the viewers of this event was incalculable, with each slip funnier than the last.

Adding to the laughter was the next event, which was very rightly named ROFL. A team of two was required to participate. One person would roll on mattresses, whilst laughing as loudly as they could, and the other person had to pave the way forward for the ‘roller’ by using the three mattresses provided. The first team to reach the finish line would win and continuously laughing was a must. It was, according to the participants, one of the most tiring events of the day and definitely wasn’t as easy as it appeared to be.

After this laughter fest, participants could compete against each other in Book Balancing, Water Balloon Toss, Cow Drop, and of course the much-awaited Momo-Eating Competition. The water balloon toss left the losing teams wet, but happily so since they all wanted to cool off a bit. The Cow Drop involved a two-person team where one participant had to get onto a ladder and aim spoonfuls of ice-cream at the mouths of their team members, who were lying down on the ground below. It’s safe to say that most of the ice cream landed everywhere but their mouth, resulting in a messy face and strawberry ice-cream stained clothes. It was a fun experience for both the audience as well as the participants (who, yet again, scored on some free food!)

The last event of the day was the long-awaited Momo-Eating Competition where all food lovers could show off their competitive-food-eating skills and all those who had not eaten anything yet could fill their stomachs. There was a timer of two minutes and all the participants were challenged to eat as many momos as possible within that time frame. The winner was a returning champion who managed to eat a whopping 19 momos. His strategy? He split each momo into half and then ate it slowly, taking his time. The audience was left in shock as this seemingly- slow eating tactic brought him victory.

Apart from the events, there were several stalls set up for everyone’s pleasure. There were food stalls serving pizza, chaat, drinks, and homemade cookies and cupcakes; artsy stalls with face-painting and DIY tie-dye; the environmental ministry stall, and even a fun, carnival-esque ring-toss stall.

The Dorm Olympics is slowly becoming an Ashokan tradition that celebrates the adventure of life at Ashoka University. It saw a high attendance this year, and the organizers – all of whom are currently studying at Ashoka- hope that it will keep growing. The ambience, the joy, and the healthy competition that it brings onto campus are something that every Ashokan looks forward to. After all, what’s life without days full of activity, aesthetic photos, laughter, and free food?

Behind the camera: Ritvik Sharma, Shrishti Agarwal and Siddharth Chaudhary

Edited by Vasudha Malani