– written by Natasha Jain (Vice- president of Talaash 2006)
Talaash 06: This year we Jai Hind College students with the motto of our college – ‘I will and I can’ – being our philosophy, mantra and also our inspiration, we aspired to make the impossible possible and felt no constraints by perceived limitations. We had set a mission that many thought impractical but we had a dream for Talaash that we were focused on achieving. We wanted to take Talaash above the mundane reach of a college fest. We have expanded this fest’s budget beyond any other Jai Hind festival and spent on bringing in quality, professionalism and efficiency. Our finale was at the prestigious Jamshed Bhabha Auditorium, NCPA 
with a lot of celebrity presence and great entertainment. We aimed at making this fest bigger than it ever was before and i think we did.. not only was it the BEST Talaash ever its also touted to be the best BMS fest of the yr (tho Drishti is still to come!!) but response from all participants has been gr8.. they enjoyed, had a blast and even miss it (how sweet !!) we miss it tooo 😀 anyway
Participation: We have reached most of our goals. Talaash is a national fest with a college from Chennai participating for the first time and ground work with other colleges has been laid to take the process forward. It has received amazing participation from the 5 top BMS colleges of Mumbai and has been associated with almost 30 BMS colleges across Mumbai.
Talaash all over: Our Media reach in order to make Talaash, a more common name like other general fests has been extremely wide spread and beyond any other BMS or even General college fest. We have hoardings of Talaash across Mumbai, at train stations and platforms, fliers distributed across the city and advertising in each BMS college. Print articles in Afternoon, Midday, DNA, Express Newsline, Asian Age and even a Gujarti paper by the name of Mumbai Samachar. We also got electronic coverage with a top slot on Sahara Samachar.
New stuff: This year we have also attempted to make Talaash more professional and efficient. We have an official website (www.talaash.info) and an official blog (you know it;) ) all about Talaash. We have made the fest more accessible to participants with centralized messaging systems for latest updates. For the first time we have released a newsletter this very own “Talaash Mid-day” for all the news and buzz about Talaash. Never before in any college event has there been Live Scoring like the type we have incorporated in Talaash. We attempted but were not so successful in making waiting time between events minimal, however, have done our best to provide a great time to participants with entertainment on the form of music and random fun gaming stalls to kill time. Over and above all this our prizes are worth looking at besides clothing and gym vouchers, dining vouchers and consumer-able’s goodybags we are awarding the management teams with a 40,000 cash prize and 3 international return tickets to any destination in the world!!!
Events: Over and above all this we have tried to up the quality of Talaash by having old favorites but also a wide variety of new, innovative and challenging events for our participants. We have new cultural events like Fashion quiz (offering an internship with international brand manager THANKS), Something-out-of-nothing (making masterpieces out of junk),
(an HR student truly converted Nothing into SOMETHING !)
Mock-a-video (impromptu inputs to a mute video) and Walkie – talkie (communication for finding required objects through a walkie talkie). Our old events like Extempore, Debate, Treasure hunt and Dance all were given a new twist that made them different and interesting.
our events team at work !! 😉
Management: Our USP of Talaash this year was our management events. We attempted and this time I think succeeded at making the events as innovative, intelligent and brain racking as possible. They were unique and never done before. It was a challenging knockout where teams were eliminated across 5 events to the final Best Management Team. The first hurdle of Warzone was held in a discotheque, Velocity, where teams had to survive our communication hazards of loud music, distractions and bad lighting and solve mental and IQ related problems.
(a very packed velocity for WARZONE)
The next task was Logic where teams had to use their common sense and team work to figure out the correct combination of screws and pipes. Following this was Ad Mad where teams were asked to sell out-of-the-box products like ‘love bite remover and garlic flavored toothpaste with an impressive marketing strategy. The final climax was the Business exhibition where all facets of management were tested by making teams run a stall in college with limited budgets and asking them to make profits. The final 5 teams battled it out in SandBox which was a brilliant event which asked teams to maximize their teamwork and brain cells and figure out the best path (time and money) for producing the maximum output in a simulated environment of the construction business. These tasks though challenging required application of all studied skills. No prior preparation was required and hence actually testing innate management skills of contestants.
Social: This year over and above the extension of Talaash into the Management games arena, we also wanted to add meaning to the name of Talaash and associate ourselves with a cause that was close to us and meant more than just volunteer work. We wanted to take an honest step toward promoting education amongst under privileged children. We wanted to spread awareness, make a difference and do something symbolic for the same. Hence the social leg of Talaash arose. Appreciated and supported by our administration and all participants we spread awareness through a 4 day drive all across Mumbai collecting support and contribution from over 1.5 lakh people through our ground partners, fliers and hoardings. We have collected over a lakh in donations and will be presenting the amount to our NGO partner LIFE for the establishment of a school-on–wheels for underprivileged children. We kicked off Talaash with the same objective dedicating an entire day to these children, celebrating their Christmas and spread the word and cause to all participants. The day was a great success and will be etched in our memories as the most valuable and meaningful moments of Talaash.
our tree of LIFE
So all in all Talaash was beyond all expectations of participants and organizers and we hope that we lived up to most expectations and hopefully surpassed many!
Talaash '06 
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