Grand Theft Auto in New Delhi

 

Youth Incorporated was present at IIT Delhi’s annual college festival to unravel who was the brain behind the GTA Rendezvous video. Aayush Ailawadi finds out that it was one talented teenager named Sanchit Kalra. Here’s a special report from the capital city.        

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“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.” – Ronald Reagan

These words hold true for Sanchit Kalra, a second year student from IIT-Delhi who literally transformed his sprawling campus into a mission from the cult Grand Theft Auto franchise.

On being quizzed whether he was the brain behind the viral GTA Rendezvous video, he modestly replied, “I think my seniors deserve a lot of credit. They really guided me throughout and the other students also supported the idea wholeheartedly.”

It is noteworthy how he’s paid attention to every minute detail in the making of this video. Be it the gait of the protagonist or be it how all of us have conveniently used cheat codes whilst playing the game over the years, or be it the archetypal FM channel switching in the stolen cars – the resemblance with the GTA franchise is uncanny.

Kalra is a member of his college’s Photography & Films Club which comes under the Board for Recreational and Cultural Activities. The Board organises Rendezvous, IIT Delhi’s annual cultural fest. This year the festival’s theme was “Made in India” and what better way to promote their annual festival than to make an Indian style GTA video!

When asked about the unique concept, he said, “The idea just struck me one day when my seniors and I were discussing what we should do for a promotional video which would be interesting and innovative. It had to be inviting! So, I suggested that we map a foreign element onto something indigenous or ‘desi’. The theme for Rendezvous was ‘Made in India’ and IIT-Delhi is really desi. So, being fans of the GTA franchise, we took a foreign element and integrated that with our desi pitch. It was that simple.”

Simple thinking indeed, but recreating one of the most iconic games ever with just a camera and a laptop is no mean feat. Kalra, being an engineering student must understand ‘Frugal Innovation’ really well because he was adamant that he could come up with something exceptional using the limited resources at his disposal.

“I asked my friends to help out by playing the Actors in the video. Akash, a fellow student at IIT Delhi played the protagonist in the video – he was the GTA guy. The others were from my hostel and helped me out by playing the other roles. Apart from that, I did all the editing myself and worked on all the effects as well.”

In case you guys missed out on this masterpiece, here’s the video that took the social media by storm in October!