On Children's Day, there was a long queue of beautifully dressed children and their parents in front of counters at the Labony School campus for collecting coupons for participation in quiz contest and gaming, and buying food items and craft materials made by the teachers.
The school had organised Anandamela, a carnival for the students. "This year, we have received unprecedented response from parents and students. Even students from other schools and our ex-students came over," said headmistress Anindita Bose.
Added Chitra Sarker, a teacher: "This is the fourth year of the carnival. We could not organise it the last two years due to the pandemic. The bigger involvement was noticeable. All our 22 staff members are women. We had counters selling different types of food and hand-crafted items prepared by the teachers."
Rishabh Paul, a lower nursery student and resident of Purbachal Housing Estate, could reach the quiz mistress after a long wait. Which car travels in the sky, he was asked. Rishabh could answer correctly and got a smiley. Shubham Jana, who is studying in Class IV of Bidhannagar Municipal School, came to visit his previous school. “We used to enjoy ourselves here, the teachers were so caring. I missed the carnival the last two years.” Ayush Ranjan Singh of St Joan's School in GD Block could answer three questions and was thrilled.
Three-year-old C. Vanlalpeka and his younger brother C. Vanlalfela queued in front of the games counter. There were three games -- darts, Zebra Wonder and sorting of balls. They could find the target in the dart game and fixed the tail of the zebra blind-folded but were unable to sort out balls in time. “They got admission a few months back and are enjoying classes and the other activities,” said their mother. The headmistress handed them a colouring box and a toy car as reward.
Teacher Arpita Pramanik was busy making eye masks. "We wait for this day through the year. All our 90 masks are sold out. To meet the demand, we are making some again," she smiled.
Another teacher Madhumita Ghosh, a resident of CC Block, was handling the food counter with her colleague Maksuda Parveen of Sraboni Abason. “This is one of the best childrens schools in Salt Lake. Recently we have also started a play school,” Madhumita said.
