WORD’S WORTH: The Calcutta Girls’ team with their trophy and (below) a choir relives the Yuletide spirit

New Year hopes

The New Year will surely bring in new hope for the youth. I asked some of my friends what they would like to see happen in 2005.

A third year history student hoped there would be further improvement in Calcutta?s infrastructure. She also wanted the plight of the stray animals of the city to improve.

Another friend, a Class XII student, is a club addict. She is quite happy that we now have so many lounge bars and nightclubs. She looks forward to spend the New Year chilling out with her gang at these joints.

Another friend, a student of literature, is an active member of the college social service society. She has rather noble thoughts for the year ahead. She would like to see more youngsters participate in activities like blood donation camps.

Many others are preparing for their university exams and they, naturally, are keeping their fingers crossed. As for those famous New Year resolutions, we all know that resolutions are meant to be broken.

Suchi Arya, BA, second year, Loreto College

CALCUTTA
Casting a spell

Two days of whole hearted preparations?frantically flipping through the pages of an Oxford dictionary, copying down the difficult words?yet when we walked into the Rabindra Sadan auditorium on December 20 to participate in Spellinc 2004, none of us felt complacent or confident. Organised on the lines of the US Spell B contest, this one had 125 schools participating, out of which eight schools made it to the grand finale at Rabindra Sadan.

We looked at the assembled crowd of students and said to each other dejectedly, ?No chance.?

When the show finally got on the road, anchor Mir in his hilarious doodhwala outfit helped ease our tension. At the prelims we felt that the spellings were surprisingly easy. We had done well, we thought, but not well enough to qualify. After a while, the results were announced.

When we saw the name of our school on the projector screen, our first reaction was, ?Oh my God!? Anyway, we made it to the stage with chattering teeth and knocking knees. We fared pretty well in the first round of spellings, as well as in the crossword round. At the very end, we had to encounter a nail-biting tie-breaker with Modern High School. But all went well.

We won the tie and came out third. I think that?s when the three of us, that is, Afrin, Eran and I, realised how Neil Armstrong must have felt when he landed on the moon!

Rudrani Dasgupta, Class X, Jewish Girls? School

Musical soiree

The Assembly of God Church Schools of Asansol, Sodepur and Ukhra celebrated the spirit of Christmas by organising a musical show ?Song of the Seasons? on December 16 and 17.

Apart from three well-produced plays, the students came up with enchanting songs and hymns in English, Hindi and Bengali. The young boys and girls in shimmering outfits put up a mind-blowing performance.

Aratrika Mukherjee, Class IX, AG Church, Sodepur

CALCUTTA
Geography quiz

The Geographical Institute of Presidency College?s geography department organised an inter-college quiz at the Derozio Hall on November 25. More than 15 colleges participated.

After a somewhat tough preliminary round and a sumptuous lunch, eight teams made it to the finals. They were Lady Brabourne, Loreto College, Ashutosh College 1 & 2, Vivekananda College for Women, Sri Shikshayatan 1 & 2 and the hosts.

The questions ranged from those on Munich?s famed Oktoberfest to breathtaking visual clues on the lochs of Scotland. After eight hard-fought rounds, the two Ashutosh College teams were tied at 115 points apiece. The first set of tiebreaker questions failed to decide the winner. The second set saw Ashutosh 2 go past Ashutosh 1. Loreto College came third.

Presidency?s principal, Prof. Amitava Chatterjee gave away the trophies while Dr Ashis Sarkar, the head of the geography department presented the medals and certificates.

Rajarshi Dasgupta, third year, geography, Ashutosh College

CALCUTTA
Public issue

December 15 was a memorable day in the history of Calcutta Public School. Our annual function and prize distribution were held at the Science City auditorium.

After a welcome dance called bandana, the ceremonial lamp was lit and speeches delivered. Prizes were distributed for academics, sports, discipline and co-curricular activities.

The cultural programme had lots of dances, skits, songs and mime performed by the students.

The school band Sinners then presented their rendition of the Kal Ho Na Ho title track. The programme ended with a rendition of the national anthem.

Debarati Mukherjee, Class XII, Calcutta Public School

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