Digital farewells in the time of Covid-19

Earlier this year, Ritika Agarwal, a final-year undergraduate student at Delhi University’s Miranda House, picked out a purple saree for her college farewell, which

Earlier this year, Ritika Agarwal, a final-year undergraduate student at Delhi University’s Miranda House, picked out a purple saree for her college farewell, which was to take place in the second week of April. With the nationwide lockdown in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 20-year-old had given up all hope of saying a proper goodbye to her classmates and teachers.

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Her juniors, however, had other plans.

“We didn’t expect anything because of the pandemic. One day, out of the blue, our juniors shared an Instagram account with us. What we saw overwhelmed us,” Agarwal said.

Through the Instagram account, the Economics department of Miranda House organised its first-ever virtual farewell for the outgoing batch, complete with activities, testimonials, Instagram filters, and dance performances.

Bahana Saikia, president of the Economics Society, said they realised that holding a farewell on a video conferencing session with over 200 students would be a difficult task. “So we created an Instagram account with a virtual yearbook that had a small note on each of our 68 seniors,” she said.

The group also worked on a customised Instagram filter with the departmental logo on a graduation cap and asked their seniors to put on their farewell outfits at home.

Those who attended the four-day farewell, which began on May 5, said the filter was an instant hit and photos started pouring in the moment it was up online. “We asked our seniors to dress up since we knew many of them had already bought sarees for the farewell. With the north-east Delhi riots in February, followed by the Covid-19 pandemic in March, they were already stressed out. They didn’t even know that the last day they attended college would end up becoming their actual last day at college. We just wanted to do something nice for them,” Saikia said.

The juniors posted dance performances and several photographs to the private Instagram account.

“All of us were excited and kept waiting for the posts throughout the day so that we could comment on them simultaneously. When we were all asked to dress up, I video-called some of my friends and we even danced together at our homes,” Agarwal said. “This virtual farewell let us acknowledge our memories and talk about things. This might not have happened at the actual farewell since there is very little time and people are mostly engrossed in clicking photographs. The best part is that we can keep revisiting the page.”

Miranda House principal Bijayalaxmi Nanda said that the college was also planning to hold a virtual Founder’s Day ceremony and graduation farewell programme towards the end of the month.

Students from several other higher educational institutes in the Capital besides Miranda House, including Gargi College, St Stephen’s College, IP College for Women, Hindu College, and Delhi Technological University (DTU), have also been organising virtual farewells for their seniors.

Like Miranda House, DTU created an Instagram account for the farewell of its outgoing batch. While the event was scheduled to wrap up by May 10, the account is still active as students continue to upload posts for their seniors.

The account saw live artist performances, a DJ night, and messages from the university’s cultural council which organised the farewell for around 2,000 graduating students.

“At previous farewells, students would have a Scribble Day where they’d write messages on each other’s shirts. For the virtual version, we created an online form to collect personalised messages for final-year students and create their own scribble-board on Instagram,” Bhavya Akhoury, 20, a member of the cultural council said, adding that they hosted performances on Instagram between May 8 and May 10.

Pranav Gupta, 22, a final-year student at DTU, said, “It cannot be compared to a regular farewell but it did cheer us up during a trying time. The DJ night was a unique experience. We have organised multiple farewells and so we were expecting to have fun during our own as well. The most fun part was the titles they bestowed on us. They made customised posts as well.”

The filmmaking society at Gargi College took things further and organised movie and game nights during the three-day virtual farewell celebrations, asking their seniors to follow the “strict no-casual wear policy.”

Karnika Gupta, 19, said that for the movie night, the seniors decided to watch Bollywood flick Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham with the members of their society. “We were simultaneously dissecting the movie on WhatsApp and making memes. Next day, the four-hour-long game night was held over a video conferencing app since our society has only 24 members. We also recorded a video for them wherein each member recited a line of the poem written for them superimposed on photos.”

But did these efforts match up to the excitement of a real-life farewell? Zara Khan, 22, a final-year student at DTU, said. “The event shone like a ray of hope during an uncertain time. Maybe digital is the way forward and this is what the new normal will be. The event gave us a chance to get comfortable with that.”