Gearing up for Arthashastra!

HYDERABAD: Step into St Francis College for Women a day before their college fest and one will find a lot of hustle and bustle. While on one side there were students using their creativity to make banners and posters, on the other,  some were found busy practicing and shaking a leg to perfect their performance for the upcoming college festivities. Organised by the COFEE (Commerce Organisation For Emerging Entrepreneurs) of the college, Arthashastra is an annual fest, and also claims to be the only theme-based college festival in the city. This year the selected theme is ‘Yuva’. Explained Deepti Sirdesai, a second-year B.Com student and one of the members of COFEE, “Arthashastra is the only theme-based college fest. We have chosen ‘Yuva’ for this year because we wanted to celebrate the youth of today — we wanted to showcase the contribution of youth in different fields.” But how will they manage to do that? To which Deepti responded, “One floor of our college will be turned into a gallery wherein there will be flexes that will display the different facets of today’s youth.” The various sub-themes that are being covered under the theme Yuva are ‘Youth in Governance’, ‘Youth in Culture’, ‘Career Oriented Youth’, ‘Innovation’, ‘Socially Responsible Youth’ and ‘Youth Empowerment’.        Moving on to the fun stuff, various commerce-related competitions will take place. Some of them are ‘Mr & Mrs CEO’ (like a pageant for those smart businessmen/women), ‘Ad-Mad’ (you can show your advertising skills), ‘Turn Coat Debate’ (where your worst opponent is yourself because you will be debating with your own self), ‘Decipher ME’ (you will have to weave a creative story around four random pictures), ‘Junkyard’ (where you have to make something out of junk) and many more. A new addition to the roster of competitions is ‘Amazed’ (where you have to answer a few questions to find your way out in a maze). Apart from a host of competitions and quizzes, the fest will also witness some other fun activities along with Emcee Yasser and a DJ. For the game buffs, there will be live snakes and ladder, a foos-ball table and also a few other games. Lastly, the college will host a number of food stalls to binge on and tickle your taste-buds.The fest will take place on January 20 in the college premises from 10 am to 5 pm. All the college students will need to pay for an entry ticket of `50. But they will also have to carry their identity cards, otherwise they will not be allowed to enter. Also, all the teachers and professors can enter free of cost if they produce their identity cards at the entrance.