Paramarsh is a national level, non-technical college fiesta, organized by the students of Faculty of Technology and Engineering, M. S. University, Vadodara, Gujarat. It is an annual 3-day gala of workshops and lectures for students. Started in 2001, Paramarsh is now in its 18th consecutive year with the distinction of being one of the biggest of its kind in the entire West zone.

Introduction

The word Paramarsh has its roots in the Sanskrit language, meaning ‘Supreme Thought’. The 3-day long festival aims at improving soft skills among students for excellence in the corporate world. Conducted and managed by the budding engineers of M. S. University, Paramarsh is a non-profit organization that intends to inculcate the 7 commandments of corporate excellence: ‘Leadership’, ‘Team Spirit’, ‘Sportsmanship’, ‘Creativity’, ‘The Spirit of Adventure’, ‘The art of Oration’ and the ‘Science of Deduction’.

History The dawn of the new millennium brought about a change in the hiring strategy of companies. The recruiters now focused not only on technical knowledge but also emphasized communication skills, confidence, spontaneous thinking and the capability of working under pressure. An absence of this aptitude would affect the odds of recruitment. Working towards the amelioration of these prowesses, Paramarsh was started by a group of students as an intra-college event with just one event focusing on group discussion. Today, Paramarsh stands prodigious with 18 events under 7 categories which comprise a wide range of events focusing on various soft skills basically required in the corporate and industrial sector.

Through the years, Paramarsh has evolved and thrived, surpassing its previous edition by miles. And over this time period, there have been some significant events that have only contributed to the growing popularity of this festival. 2007 saw a guest performance by Gaurav Dagaonkar, the IIM-A graduate of ‘College Days’ fame. In 2008, Ankit Fadia, the bestselling author of ‘FASTER: 100 ways of improving your digital life’ and subsequent YouTube and MTV shows like ‘What The Hack’, came to Gujarat for the very first time to conduct a workshop on ‘Ethical hacking’. Another first time performers that Paramarsh gave to Gujarat were ‘Bombay Rockers’ in 2009. This Indian/Danish band with a five-time platinum album enthralled the audience with their hit songs. The same year also saw a riveting performance by the band ‘Agnee’ of Splitsvilla and Roadies fame.

In 2010, the musical instrument maestro Raghav Sachar was the highlight of the event. The 2011 edition of Paramarsh saw a mesmerizing live performance by Suraj Jagan who is famous for his song ‘Give Me Some Sunshine’ from the movie 3 Idiots. 2012 not only witnessed the presence of famous TV and theatre artist Deven Bhojani to judge ‘Goonj-A Street Play Competition’ but also saw a live performance by the famous Bollywood singer, Benny Dayal.

2013 was a year of high points with Tiku Talsania, the TV and movie artist judging ‘Goonj-A Street Play Competition’ and a confluence of 3 live performances by Paradigm Shift, a progressive rock band, Aditi Singh Sharma, Bollywood playback singer and the Indian God of Rock, Parikrama. The star attraction of this edition was a panel discussion titled ‘Follow Your Dreams’, held for the first time ever in Gujarat. The panellists were, Mr. Charu Sharma, an Indian commentator and quizmaster; Dr. Madhu Mehta, pioneer of the Indian Telecom Industry; Mr. Nitin Gupta, a stand-up comedy artist and founder and CEO of Entertainment Engineers and Dr. Anil Kane, the visionary behind Kalpasar Project and a corporate juggernaut.

Paramarsh 2014 with ‘Colosseum of Superheroes’ as its theme had a series of guest lectures by Dr.Kiran Bedi, the first woman IPS officer on the topic ‘Youth: Catalyst of Indian Revolution’ and Hussain Zaidi, the author of ‘Dongri To Dubai’ and other such books. He is also renowned for being the only journalist to interview Dawood Ibrahim after he left India. Siddharth Rajhans, a Google Analyst and founder of Spacify Incorporated, was present for an interactive session ‘Bridle the Bull’, which was aimed towards boosting entrepreneurship skills among engineers. ‘Tennets for a Shutterbug’ brought Money Sharma, a National Geographic Moments Award III winner, who took a 2-day workshop on photography. This edition of Paramarsh hosted the ‘Raghu Dixit Project’, a multi-lingual folk band, which captivated the audience with a passionate rendering of their songs.

The year 2015 with the theme "The Global Exodus" displayed prominent landmarks of the world all over the campus. The year marked the introduction of a new segment "Extravaganza" which attracted and entertained the crowd at Paramarsh. Ashwin Sanghi, writer of best selling conspiracy fiction and Ronen Sen, former India's ambassador to the United States inspired many young minds with their experiences. The editorial director of The New Indian Express, Prabhu Chawla enlightened the audience at "Transcendence" with his powerful thoughts.

Paramarsh 2016 with "La Cineaste" as its theme had a series of guest lectures by "Dr Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan" who is a former chairman of ISRO (19942003) and also the recipient of 3 major Indian civilian awards. He gave a lecture on his journey of ISRO.

The year 2016 added up a new segment to the glory "Startupedia - The Development Dialogue". It is based on the new startup ideas of youngsters providing them a quintessential platform. Many entrepreneurial rewards were the attraction for the participants, such as Silicon Valley incubation experience, mentorship within Google and Apple's entrepreneurial activities, fellowship program at Venture Studios and funding opportunities up to $10,000.

Events

Contests and competitions are the best podia for students to showcase their skills and Paramarsh with an amalgamation of 14 different events from 7 categories, is the perfect opportunity. With such a vast array, Paramarsh covers the nitty-gritty of being a successful corporate person.

‘Your Say’ is an oratorical arena which focuses on English vocabulary and speaking skills. This domain consists of 3 major competitions: ‘Cat-as-Trophe’ being a group discussion event, ‘Block-n-Tackle’, being a debate competition and ‘The LexICONS’, which is a vocabulary-based event.

The next category forays into entrepreneurship skills with ‘Biz-Mantra’, a state level business treasure hunt, ‘Auction House’, a mock bidding event and ‘The Verdict’ being the latest entrant to this hub of business management and marketing prowess. Started in 2013, ‘The Verdict’ was an event based on laws and court case studies.

‘Paparazzi’ is the media galore of the festival with ‘24*7 Live’ covering all aspects of media and ‘Goonj’ which is a street play competition. Since the last two editions, this event has witnessed the presence of famous TV and theatre artists like Deven Bhojani in 2012 and Tiku Talsania in 2013.

Next is ‘Spectros’ with an assortment of 3 different events: ‘9!’ being a mathematical treasure hunt, ‘Wreckreation’, testing the participant's designing and creativity skills and ‘The Prime Suspect’, which is a crime scene investigation.

‘Escapade’ comprises two adventurous events namely, ‘Fantastic 4’ which focuses on inter personal skills and ‘Sirocco’ which checks the survival instincts.

‘I Din’ Noe That’ is a quiz competition with numerous stages, all testing a person's agglomeration of general knowledge.

‘Faneticz’ is the online cluster of events with ‘Etch-a-Sketch’, a doodle-making competition, ‘ViewFinder’, a photography event.

Workshops

Paramarsh has been home to a myriad mélange of seminars, workshops and talk shows. It has been a cynosure of interactive sessions so as to ameliorate all-round development in the students. Acing campus interviews and achieving corporate excellence has always been an imperative aspect and workshops like ‘Campus Recruitment Training’ in 2008, ‘Campus to Corporate’ in 2011 and ‘To Corporate Odyssey’ in 2012 all focused on giving the students an insight to the functioning of the corporate world.

Ethical hacking is perceived to be the high road of cracking an organized and sanctioned practice of identifying vulnerabilities in software. Ankit Fadia organized a workshop on the same basis in 2008 and The Cyber Squad conducted another workshop titled ‘Hack Thy Hackers’.

For the movie aficionados ‘Visual FX’ in 2009 and ‘3D animation’ in 2010 were the toast of the event. ‘Digital Sound Mixing’ was the highlight in 2011 for the song enthusiasts. It is believed that dance is the language of the soul and a peek into the new-age dance forms was what Paramarsh offered with workshops on ‘Salsa’ in 2008, ‘Ballroom dance’ in 2009 and ‘B-Boying’ in 2010.

‘Tanni Rangavali’, ‘Calligraphy’, ‘Aero Flux’, ‘Radio Jockeying’, ‘Disc Jockeying’, ‘Glider Making’, ‘Martial arts’ and ‘Discover Thyself’ are just enumerating some of the workshops conducted over the years, keeping in mind the demands of the students. 2012 witnessed ‘Life in Cursive’ and ‘The Perma-Etch’ as the main attractions that catered to the creativ] souls. 2013 was a year for the logical minded with ‘The Sherlock Key’, a workshop organized by the Indian Forensic Organization. ‘The Pixel Alchemy’ gratified the Photoshop fanatics. ‘Ace the Assay’ was another workshop organized for the psychometric analysis of the participants and to train their minds to deal with stressful and unexpected scenarios.

The 2014 edition of Paramarsh turned out to be bigger and better. ‘Bridle the Bull’ was an entrepreneurship based workshop that saw Siddharth Rajhans, founder of Mindcraft Publications and an analyst at Google, impart business and marketing knowledge to the students. A photography workshop was organized ‘Tenet for a Shutterbug’ by Money Sharma, a National Geographic Moment Award season 3 winner and whose pictures have appeared in prestigious newspapers like The Huffington Post, New York Daily News and The Scotsman. 'The Corporate Launchpad' was a workshop organized to give the students a deeper insight into the recruitment process. ‘The Chromatic Coherence’ regaled the art aficionados with tricks and techniques of spray can painting.

Interplays

Celebrated and acclaimed luminaries have visited Paramarsh throughout its journey for the benefaction of the students via exchange of knowledge, experiences and personal wisdom. Chetan Bhagat, the bestselling Indian author of books like Five Point Someone and 2 States: The Story of My Marriage was here for a panel discussion in 2008. Dr Nagesh, a record-holding hypnotist came in 2010 to conduct an interplay titled ‘Comic Hypnotism’. ‘Live Life King Size’ and ‘Soiree of Success’ were two remarkable interplays in 2012 while 2013 witnessed ‘The Laughter Riot’, a comedy interplay and ‘Be in The Top One Percent’. A vast multitude of seminars have been organized under the banner of Paramarsh that have conceptualized various genres. ‘abc of Stock Market’, ‘Full Throttle’, ‘Top Gear’, ‘Mind Reading’ and ‘ New Thinking, New Possibilities’ are just enumerating a few of them.

2013 also saw a panel discussion titled ‘Follow Your Dreams’ saw the confluence of four eminent stalwarts: Charu Sharma, Nitin Gupta, Dr Madhu Mehta and Dr Anil Kane that yielded a stimulating session with an innate aim of inspiring the students to aspire, act and achieve. The 14th edition had an interplay titled ‘Screw it, Let's Do It' focusing on inspiring the students and motivating them to keep working towards achieving their goals. Apart from these, there were two guest lectures by Dr. Kiran Bedi and Mr. Hussain Zaidi that were the attractions of the event.

Pronites

Pronites have featured well-known and illustrious national artists from various music fortes like Rock, Bollywood and Classical.