In a flash, mob spreads word in

Vijayawada: Not far behind the cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, the culture of ‘flash mob’ is spreading in Vijayawada over the past couple of months at shopping malls, colleges and other public places.

Like any other culture that attracts youth, flash mob, where a group of people gather in a public place, perform a show or dance for few minutes amidst the crowd, too has attracted the city youth.

Though the students here have of late adopted the culture, they are doing it for various causes like creating awareness on social issues, raising funds for charities or just for fun.

On Wednesday, the students of Andhra Loyola College had a flash mob in the college premises to promote the campaign ‘All Ka Hell’ aimed to create awareness among people on the disadvantages of consuming liquor.

‘To display our desire to make the public aware of the ill-affects of alcohol abuse, we chose to organise the flash mob, as we were sure it would draw more attention,” said a student, K. Swetha, one of the dancers.

As part of the campaign, the students of ALC also organised a signature campaign and would stage street plays on Friday at footfall areas like Lenin Centre in the city.

A couple of weeks ago, the students of VR Siddartha College of Engineering and other colleges too had organised a flash mob at a shopping mall in the city.

Most of them were friends, while some met through social networking platforms.

However, the group performances by city youth did not exactly match the actual flash mob procedure.

Flash mob in western countries is by online friends, while others suddenly join the mob from the crowd of onlookers, for fun or voluntarily do their bit in promoting social issues.

K. Remalesh, one among the students of KL University, who took part in a flash mob at a shopping mall a couple of months ago, said it is just fun to take part in such events. He said youth are ever ready to take part in such events for a social cause.

Some youth also organised flash mob last Independence Day, at MG Road.

Onlookers who got confused by the group of youths doing an impromptu jig, later realised it was a flash mob.