Papyrus Trails, the annual literature festival of BITS Pilani, started out as the brainchild of the Department of Paper Evaluation and Presentation (PEP) back in 2014, and has mostly been a collection of diverse speakers sharing their stories. However, this year’s edition is expected to be even bigger, with many more events being conducted under its banner.
One might wonder why a cultural element is being incorporated into a technical fest; Anirudh Singla, the CoStAAn of the Department of PEP, explained how people tend to incorrectly perceive this event. He clarified that APOGEE was a technical fest (as opposed to a technological fest), which meant that it could play host to any event that served to develop a skill in a particular field. Papyrus Trails, being a literature festival, fit squarely into this category.
In the past few years, the fest has witnessed renowned speakers like Jairam Ramesh (a politician), Anand Neelakantan (an author) and Radhika Vaz (a comedian). This year, Papyrus Trails will feature Ashwin Sanghi, India’s renowned best-selling author, more widely known as the ‘The Indian Dan Brown’. Also, on the roll are film director, producer and screenwriter Vikramaditya Motwane, of Sacred Games fame, and Arun Shourie, a renowned economist and the former editor of national dailies like The Indian Express and Times of India.
Papyrus Trails hopes to be a ‘conference of ideas’ and has progressed from having just speakers to hosting short-film screenings and Q&As with film directors. This year, it shall consist of several literary events, some of which follow.
“A Novel Idea” will be an event for the bookworms among the populace. Each participant will buy a bucket of a particular size (Poseidon, Perseus, or Zeus) and try to fill it with as many books as possible from a huge spread of second-hand books on display, for a fixed price. The event ‘A Story in Three Words’ will be held by the Poetry Club and ‘Taboo’ by the APOGEE English Press, alongside other events conducted by the APOGEE Hindi Press, the Anime Club, the Hindi Activities Society, the Film Making Club, the Photography Club, Informalz, and Matrix. QED—the annual debating competition—shall be held under Papyrus Trails as well. This year, Papyrus Trails is also collaborating with BITSMUN 2019, which is set to play host to a large number of domestic and international outstation participants.
The literature fest shall now overlook literary competitions and games such as the ‘Wheel of Fortune’, a game in which participants solve puzzles related to a randomly allotted category such as games, movies or books, ’Conspiring Minds’, wherein students will be asked to justify bizarre theories related to popular franchises like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones, and ‘Wordstock’, a collection of word games, puzzles, and crosswords.
While the speakers will deliver their talks in either of the two auditoriums, most of the competitions, quizzes, and games under Papyrus Trails will be conducted in the FD-II QT. This year, Papyrus Trails hopes to be a crowd-puller, for it has significantly increased its outstation reach owing to the stellar speaker line-up and the multitude of events it boasts of.