MERAKI SEASON XII, AN EXPERIENCE

MERAKI, it is a very famous and a great program which happens at East Delta University on
each quarter of the year. It is a cultural program which is hosted by the SDS COURSE of Access
Academy. Access Academy is a subject which helps us to groom ourselves. They take the
initiative to groom the students and prepare them for future challenges. Every student of the
university studying in the 2nd semester of their program, has to attend in the MERAKI festive.
This festival is famous in the city of Chittagong and almost everyone wants to attend the
program. The theme of MERAKI has changed throughout its seasons. The theme of MERAKI
this time was “Kingdoms Revisited”. Due to some circumstances, we were facing many
problems. Firstly, we had only two weeks to do the project. We got a Kingdom which doesn’t
have much documentary or music to begin it. The kingdom which we were given through lottery
is “TUTANKHAMUN Dynasty”. It was a kingdom from the 18th dynasty and 1st civilization of
the Egyptian kingdoms. As there’s not much information in the internet or in books about the
pharaoh King Tutankhamun, we had to dig up a lot of information from various sources. We had
to work together as a team and use different skills which different teammates in my group had.
We had to use everyone’s expertise in the project. To represent the kingdom, our course
instructor Shamin Mohammad Ashir assigned us a group of 10 and told us to represent the
kingdom through different artworks and props. On the program day, we will have to represent
the kingdom through a stall. Our faculties will set up a stall for us and we will arrange and design
the stall to represent the kingdom. As there was not enough time we had to work together as a
team. My teammates and I did a lot of hard work to represent our kingdom beautifully. I found
out an Egyptian music named “EL MELOUK” by Ahmed Saad. I wouldn’t have come across
this song if I hadn’t been in touch with different series and TV shows. I choreographed the dance
all by myself and I had to be very creative towards it. This song is an Egyptian song, so I had
almost 0 experience of their dance. I took ideas from different sources and combined my ideas
with them. I chose traditional, yet trendy dance moves to entertain the audience. The two weeks
of our preparation were very hectic. We had the final exams ahead of us and thus we were under
serious pressure. This event taught us to unite ourselves, it taught us to be social. It also taught us
many different problem-solving techniques. It reduced our fear of communicating, stage
performance, shyness. This event will always be memorable to me. As the festival was hectic,
we enjoyed it too. We will forever be memorable towards it.
Labib Ahmed Chowdhury

ID: 222000102
Section: 01