When Our Lady Queen of the Missions School Salt Lake celebrated the beginning of its silver jubilee, it was time to reflect upon its journey thus far.
“Our school at Park Circus lacked space for higher secondary classes, so our sisters pursued expansion during our golden jubilee in 1996,” said principal Sister Sherly Sebastian. “With help from the director of Nandan Anshu Sur, the then minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and the then chief minister Jyoti Basu, we received a plot in HB Block in 1997. The foundation stone was laid in 1998, archbishop Henry D’Souza inaugurated the school on March 31, 2001. Classes started in April with nursery, KG, and transferred senior students,” she explained at the event in EZCC.
The school grew under principal Sister Joicy Madassery and provincial superior Smitha Thomas. Infrastructure was completed by 2004 and provisional ICSE affiliation secured in 2007. “In June 2017, we established Manjari School for underprivileged children, offering foundational learning and nourishment,” added Sister Sherly. “We thanked everyone for their unwavering support.”
The school’s first principal Sister Joicy had sent a message on the occasion from Rome: “I was full of joy and hope, but any pioneering work comes with all sorts of struggles and challenges. The sisters and teachers worked collaboratively right from the inception to create a good school environment and culture. My gratitude and congratulations to all,” it read.
The event was graced by minister and MLA Sujit Bose, MLA Tapash Chatterjee, councillor Ranjan Poddar and deputy commissioner of police, Bidhannagar zone, Aneesh Sarkar. “It is more important to become a good human being than merely acquiring a degree,” said Bose. “May you grow into well-rounded individuals and inspire others.”
Grand celebrations
The celebrations were spread over two days, and both days featured cultural shows. On Day One, there was a peacock dance to welcome guests, a junior school skit on the value of time, a senior school dance on women’s empowerment and a ballet titled Nature’s Quartet. “It needed much patience and time to train the junior students for this,” said choreographer Labony Saha.
Students also staged Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. “This play conveyed the message that people can change for the better at any time and make a new beginning,” said Aeindree Mukherjee, who played the protagonist, the miser Ebenezer Scrooge.
Another interesting skit was Resonance of Reality, an AI-inspired play personifying WhatsApp, ChatGPT, and the like, ending in a robotic dance. “Children today depend on AI for creating almost anything and this raises concern about the future of human imagination and creativity. This play was meant to get the audience thinking of a balanced co-existence between human creativity and AI,” said Sudeshna Ghosh, who scripted it.
Students of Classes XI and XII presented a jubilee song that they had written and composed, and there were also musical tributes to Salil Chowdhury and Michael Jackson.