Category: Student

Harina Utwani
Grade X

Tranquillity in the woven distress~ White

Ananya Kharade
8-A

The Extras Bringing Out the Extra: Remembering the Forgotten Background Artists

A film is recognised by its charismatic leads and its euphonious music… but never by its ‘extras’. No beating around the bush, we all turn the television off the moment the credits roll up because we are intrigued by each second of a film… until the story ends— happily ever after, for the characters, at least. The viewers, on the other hand, have to deal with the teensy, trifling names of the credited people and we all think, ‘Who even puts up with these credits? I mean, I’m out.’ The point is, let’s call a spade a spade. ‘Extras’ don’t get credited enough. The name itself is so incredulously demeaning! And by the way, if you think that playing a background role is a fantastic chance to talk to the literal actors, I am so sorry to break it for you but background artists are strictly prohibited from talking to the actors. So… no encaptivating autographs? Sadly, yes. The disparaging treatment is not only given on-set but we, as viewers, do contribute to it as well. Oh, before you exclaim modestly (or rather, mendaciously) that you never shamed an extra, recall all the times you found such jobs menial, whether you voiced it out or not. These so-called “inglorious” errands are actually adding all the cinnamon and pepper to the mix and you’ll never even know! Imagine what a laughing stock the actor would look like dancing with no supporting artists! Well, you get the picture. So, what do you do? Uh, no, you don’t really have to rally about it on the streets (let’s hope I didn’t just give maniacs another crazy idea!) but let us all start to change out standpoint! Let us all notice the next time we watch a film and think, ‘Hmm, that artist there has honestly done an incredible job.’ And also, let’s suffer the menace of the credits from this point on because it feels seriously terrible when no one’s interested in knowing that the amazing work you did was done by you (saying from many experiences). You might think that in a world where climate change and global hunger are problems awaiting to be tackled, such problems are a waste of time discussing upon. But I bet, you never felt what’s called as ‘sonder’. A feeling of eccentricity on the realisation that everyone is the lead of their own life, the centre of their own story. And the ‘extras’ are not the ‘extras’ of their story. They too want to be applauded and recognised but we instead choose to devalue their work. The bottom line is, let us make up for all the times we condemned the work by ‘Remembering the Forgotten’.

Aarchi Chetwani
10-B

COLOURS Like every day and every person, all colors represent a different emotion. Though every color represents different emotions these emotions might be different for each person, for instance, consider the color Orange for one person it might represent power, motivation, and enthusiasm but on the other hand, it also might represent calmness of sunset with the birds chirping in the sky. Colors are divided into two categories warm colors and cool colors. Colors like Yellow, Red, and Orange are used in fire and go under the warm color category and colors like Green, Blue, and Violet go under the cool color category. The earthy green color represents balance, harmony, love, support for one another, and communication with each other. The bright sunny Yellow represents humor, fun, lightness, intellect, personal power, and logic. The lovely red represents vitality, an increase in physical energy, stamina, stability, and passion. The deep blue indigo represents calmness, love, kindness, honesty, love, truth, inner peace, emotional peace, and depth. The Violet represents meditation, universal art, imagination, and intuition. Now that we know what each color represents we must bring all these colors into our life so that it results in a perfect, spot-on painting.

Harina Utwani

Space (day 2)- “DEEP SPACE”

“How would you describe a word like space?” asked the slender woman standing on the wooden stage covered with red velvet curtains and decorations, as she saw the lights brimming over all the young people sitting on the seats that seem to have no end after they began from the first row. There was silence for a few minutes before the lady spoke again. “I am waiting! I will ask some students randomly so you all better be ready with your creative answers.”

The lady waited for a few seconds and pointed towards a short, plump girl with dusty brown pigtails, and continued, “The one with cute ponytails. Yes you.” The girl fumbled for a couple of fractions, blushed and stood up, taking the mic that was passed to her by the helpers standing on every second block.

“Good evening, Ms. Wales. I am Eve from grade nine. Umm, I would define the word space as something I can occupy. Uh like say the stage you are standing on. There is a lot of SPACE up there for me.” Eve explained as she smiled up at the judge like she had won something great.

The judge gave her a little smile and continued with her session, “Okay…. so something that you can occupy. Fine….. Next is you- the guy with black, dazzling spectacles.” she pointed towards a thin, handsome boy who wore gigantic, black spectacles.

“I am Jonah. I would describe space as something that no one has occupied and neither is supposed to be occupied. An area much needed for survival. Like there is space between the seats. If I remove the spaces, the seats would feel suffocating.” He said and the chain continued.

“I am Aron. As a developing scientist, I would like to describe space as something that starts where the orbit of the Earth ends.  somethings that is made up of galaxies and planets, something that has no ends for researching.”

“I am Nina, I would describe space as something I have always wanted mentally. Like, don’t disturb me cause I really need some space to breathe.”

“I am Jessica. I would describe space as privacy, like yes, please give me some space to live my own life and don’t ever dare to come into my space where I would be totally uncomfortable.”

After so many answers, Ms. Wales finally showed up a hand indicating everyone to stop as she exclaimed, “Look at everyone of you! So many answers I would be opening a questionnaire on Instagram and close the session right away.” everyone started laughing.

As there was enough silence for the mindfulness of a human mind, Ms. Wales continued, “Perspective.” She asserted. There was so much silence, it felt as though everyone had actually travelled into the orbit of space.
“It’s all a matter of perspective. Some described space as something you occupy or don’t want to fill in. The other students said it would be the space that physics describes and some described space as something needed mentally for survival. It’s the same with problems, obstacles, difficult situations and life. It all depends on the way we look towards certain things and you can never blame someone for not understanding your words, situation or mindset. Everyone has a different mindset and approach towards different things.”

There was a sense of shock, surprise and realization on everyone’s face. And suddenly everyone started clapping. Ms. Wales chuckled and came closer to her mic. “It only got us thinking into one place.” she stated with sarcasm.

“Deep space.”

Tejas Srivastava
9B

Realisation
Every student in this world should have atleast one phase of Realisation
because it is the turning point of a student or any person. Many student
follow the same routine, but they have no idea that Why are they are doing
this? What’s the point in living with no goal? When a student realises he
understands that the time devoted in past on studies or any other work
was not having a clear goal or a fire for working on it which is most
important. When a student realises, he gets a fire motivation to accomplish
any impossible task to possible. This realisation phase happens when you try understanding your life goals, purpose of life, how you can create an impact in the society? What value addition you can do? At that stage you will start growing and then there is no way looking back to your past. Just focusing on future for this nation.

Aarchi Chetwani
9D

Is Humanity even alive?! I always adore animals more than humans because no matter what happens even if you are on your death- bed they will always stay with you, no matter how poor are you or no matter how crazy you are they will neglect the negative qualities of your and cherish the positive one. Even in your worse time when no one is there with you they will be the once to wipe your tears. Yesterday, I was scrolling my social media which was full of tiny little cute puppies and kittens but I after the most heart- warming video of a cat, I got a post of a dog being beaten by a drunk man, the dog appeared black and white but the white marks on its body had turned red. The dog was counting its last breaths and screaming for help , in the video the there was a woman seeing the man beating the dog terribly but she didn’t stop him instead she was just standing there and enjoying it as if some movie was played. Despite making numerous laws in order to prevent cruelty towards animals, they aren’t being enforced properly. People still continue to target powerless, speechless animal. There must some call of action or else people like them are a threat not only to animals but to us also. That is why I request each one of you to spread awareness in your neighborhood and if you notice anyone in your surrounding practicing such terrible activity please inform your parents and ask them if they can speak to that person.

Ved Joshi
XII A

Blinking Cursor…Thoughts getting Digitalized

It has been 50 years since we have started documenting soft copies of texts. Before the digital revolution, information, literature, and records were documented as hard copies. It is no surprise to expect damages due to their bulk and fragility. But how elegant is the paradigm today! Every piece of information can be stored in an unlimited virtual space. The great thing is that it cannot be “destroyed”, instead, it just can be compressed to a thin array of binary numbers. There is one thing to ponder upon though: Our last words. There is a slight chance that someday, if we sent our last words into the space, a being would intercept our last words. Last words can be quite powerful. The last words would be the digitalized text, the final statement, the whole mankind has been leading up to.

Imagine a scenario: A being visits the post-apocalyptic earth, where humans have destroyed themselves. He reads the texts on a computer which has documented every book, articles, speech, and debate. Those texts would be like digitally fossilized warnings. They would reveal a lot about how humans lived, communicated, and progressed with extreme detail. The text would represent the whole humanity.

Today, it is very hard to decipher the ancient texts due to their fragility. That wouldn’t be the case for the future generations, if it weren’t for the technology we have right now. In the next 1000 years, if humans ever want to look back at us for means of references, they can retrieve the exact philosophy, thinking, and psychology we possess right now. They may know a lot about the history than we do about our own. The potential of digitalized thoughts is rather fascinating. The thoughts by the writer can be preserved with extreme details and authenticity. The future generations may need not invest time in interpreting like we do right now. It is said there are two deaths: The first where the body ceases to function and second when someone calls your name for the last time. The digitalized thoughts are, as if they represent the immortality of our mind.

But what if our thoughts are destructive? A true horror would be the dystopian state of the society resulting due to our thoughts actions. In that case, people in the future reading our thoughts and ideas would regret for our actions. We possess the intelligence, which can achieve things like mathematics, engineering, computers, genetics, physics, etc. Our thoughts should be induced by the blinking cursor of sustainability, values, humanity, and progress. An ideal state of the society would be when our thoughts would have existential significance and not dystopian horror.

Riya Hirwani
XII A

The blinking cursor…thoughts getting digitalised

Earthlings often took it for granted,
For never did they understand its value,
Until now that it is temporarily unfortunate,
A cry of pain was only what I could hear!

It was two years ago, they carried bags, really heavy as I could make out, they called it their school bags; went to this building, they called it their BK Birla Public School; read these huge books; played at the playground and probably it was their favourite place in that whole area. I never understood why was that playground and that one extra PT period so important to them, it brought a lovely smile on each child’s face. One tiffin box belonged to the entire class, that seat beside a friend was more important than the one near the window, that day without a friend was so upsetting, that one substitution in the day was better than any other lecture and that building was more like a home to them.

Surprisingly, one sudden day, no child came to that building, no bells, no noise, absolutely nothing. After a few days, I saw that all these children who went to their school, sat at their homes in front of these differently sized boxes which they called their laptops, computers, mobile phones, tablets and what not! I never saw that expression on their faces as it was that day. All with mixed emotions. After that day, they never met their friends, never played at the grounds, just stayed at home.

But, that building, their school, had taught them to never give up and make the best of what they had. The children took these words very seriously, they mastered using those differently sized boxes and helped their teachers learn it as well. Gradually, I could see them getting accustomed to it. They started to come up with amazingly awesome ideas. Those lectures started to attract these children. I could see each child taking a little more effort each day. With the help of their teachers, they showered rainbows of thoughts and made their teachers and the school proud. The students ideated and lead projects and awareness programmes that could help the suffering in their world, donated things, created digital arts, did exciting new courses and most importantly with the help of their teachers, principal and other staff, they successfully organised all their school functions and programmes online, on those differently sized boxes, digitally. Ergo, I could see their cursor blinking and their thoughts digitalised!

Earthlings often teach me,
To never stop trying,
For even in this unpropitious situation,
A laughter of success is only that I can feel!

(This blog is written from the perspective of an alien who is fascinated by the entire idea of a school which is only built on Earth and no other planet.)

Dhruv Thakur
XII

The falcon remains the fastest known creature on this planet. But does that mean it cannot have wounded wings deteriorating its speed? India is known to be one of the world’s largest economies; being at the sixth rank in terms of nominal GDP while being at the third in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). But it still lags behind countries, like the USA and China, in being a superpower. Economists admit that although India is a large economy and is growing at a rate better than many countries of the world, its history impacts a lot when it comes to the final results. Over the years, the contribution in GDP, from the tertiary sector has increased significantly, making it one of the most important economic sectors. Even though, majority of India’s population is employed in the primary sector which has the least contribution to the GDP. Hence a majority of Indians are indulged in a job sector that requires more effort and less outcome. The CoVId-19 hit the Indian economy worse than that of many countries. The simple reason lies in India being the second-most populous country in the world. Despite measures taken by the Indian government, the growth rates of the population show depressing results. The increase in the Indian population remains India’s greatest setback on the path of being a superpower. According to stats if the current rate of population growth continues over the years India might even cross China and become the world’s most populous country by the year 2027. This leads to an even greater threat: a very high population density. The Indian subcontinent faced several partitions resulting in a large population being fitted into a comparatively small land. While a large population can contribute to the GDP, just like the case of China. But an uneducated mass of people falls in the sector of the labor class, which is itself an oversaturated sector. Even after innumerable tries of the government over the years, some communities still exploit the so-called “freedom” to interrupt the birth control policies. The wealthy class has an average of 1 kid per pair of parents; this average is 2 for the middle class while it is 4-5 for the economically backward class. This leads to an increasing population turning into a liability rather than an asset. Those who are not able to afford the necessities for themselves possess a large family: one which they can’t feed. Such people use up health resources, space, basic food necessities, economic support without actually contributing to the country’s GDP.

Indian judiciary is one of the justest and least corrupt judiciaries of the world. But there still exist many loopholes in the idea of jurisdiction. Indian judiciary is based on the principle which states that “Let a hundred criminals slip out, but not even a single unguilty person should be punished.” While this sounds moral and just, this does allow hundreds and thousands of criminals to slip out of the laws’ hands every year. This is a major drawback of the laws set by the judiciary of a country that is already infamous for its crime rate.

It is ironic how a thousand years ago, India was the world’s largest economy with the label of “Golden Bird”. India is a country that housed the world’s oldest Urban civilization, the Harappan civilization. It was also the world’s most powerful nation with a fierce army and with rulers strong enough to tremble the souls of famous foreign rulers like Alexander the Great. Well how then India got messed up in these thousand years to be one of the most poverty-stricken countries of the world? The answer lies in the events that took place in these years. Rulers of India became disunited and often ended up fighting with each other over land or differences of India. This gave the Mughals/Mongols/Afghans an opportunity to attack the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent and later loot India of its treasures. This continued until Indian rulers lost most parts of India to these foreign rulers. Later in the 17th century, the East India Company expanded its influence over Indian markets and businesses which eventually deteriorated the Indian economy and destroyed the Indian textile industry which was once the finest in terms of its quality. The rule of the Mughal and the British affected our country in various ways. Religions like Islam and Christianity added to the number of religions and variations of ideas increased. Also, over the past years, our culture and heritage had been destroyed by these intruders. Even after the independence, The Partition had a great impact on the nation, economically and mentally. Our countrymen were trapped in cycles of poverty for almost half a century.

One of the reasons for India’s downfall on the path of development has been its open-hearted nature. India gave shelter to Rohingya Refugees as a token of humanity but didn’t realize the aftermath. The Rohingyas have been stirring instabilities in North-Eastern parts of India. They have been creating havoc and menace by attacking the native people and even sometimes burning down their houses.

India emerged as an independent nation amidst commotion and disarray. The differences in ideas that suddenly emerged after the independence, regarding the future of democratic India, created a political instability that affected the future of India. After the partition the differences between Muslims and Hindu became significant and India’s diversity soon became its enemy. A partition in terms of religion ignited the spirits of other religious radicals, that soon began dreaming of new nations, as they saw themselves as different from people from other religious communities. These differences in the ideologies of people soon took the form of communal riots. Today, three of India’s 28 states still struggle for independence.

One of the biggest and the most important problems that India faces on the way to being a superpower is its political structure, which forms a weak base for a large democracy like this. It is well known that a country’s political situations affect, or rather determine the healthiness of its democracy. In India, due to sharp differences in the ideologies and aspirations of different political parties, no long-term policies can be implemented. Every time the government switches after five years the new government urges to undo the various policies of the previous government. This is one of the ten reasons given by Ramachandra Guha, the famous analyst and author of the book “India After Gandhi” explaining why India cannot become a superpower. Mr. Guha explains how the political chaos and instability accompanied by the pluralist system make it almost impossible for India to have effective long-term policies.

Nevertheless, the solution remains unclear, with hundreds of new hurdles blocking the path of India, that cannot be even expressed through the 2-3 pages of this article. Although this should not and does not stop India from trying its best to become a superpower. As a teenager and the future of this nation, I express my concerns on this topic “India as a SUPERPOWER.”