A student performs a play as part of the Snappy Snippets Inter-DPS east zone drama competition held at DPS Kalinga in Cuttack. Pictures by Badrika Nath Das

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 5: Students from six branches of the Delhi Public School (DPS) of the east zone participated in a drama competition Snappy Snippets held at the DPS Kalinga, here on Saturday.

The objective of the competition was to throw light on burning contemporary issues by staging one-act plays.

The performances were based on the themes such as, a day without electricity, confusing Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system of examination, traffic congestion and security at airports. Two teams staged their plays by putting up chat shows.

All the performances were highly appreciated by the jury and got loud cheers from the audience.

The event kicked off with a satirical chat show Lassi with Laila staged by DPS Rourkela, in which the participants focused on the impact of corrupt politicians, fake godmen, righteous terrorists and crusading journalists on the aam aadmi.

The winners — DPS Ranchi — presented a chat show on the confusing CCE system of examination. Host team DPS Kalinga — which staged a play on examination as an issue of botheration from generation to generation — won the runners-up slot, while DPS Farakka highlighted the nagging problem of power cuts. Other participating teams were from DPS Jamshedpur and Guwahati.

Sangeeta Gosain, director, of the Orissa Research Centre, film director Birendra Das and retired English professor and quizmaster Frederick Wright were members of the jury. All of them praised the performances of the young actors.

In Lassi with Laila Samriddhi Chowdhary, played the role of journalist Barkha Dutt and hosted a show called Barkha Bindaas in the play. Samriddhi said that the competition was a wonderful experience for her and all schools should encourage such events.

“Although we have exams in 10 days’ time, we bunked classes and practiced for this contest. My dream of becoming a journalist was also fulfilled through this show,” she said.

When asked if she actually thought journalists are insensitive as depicted in the play, Samriddhi said: “In my opinion, some journalists are insensitive as they make jokes out of serious incidents. They go and ask a dying person how is he feeling. Just for the battle for TRPs and their obsession with exclusive news, they can act thoughtless at times.”

Sources said that out of about 147 branches of DPS in the country, three winning teams from each zone would be given a chance to participate at the inter-DPS national dramatics meet.

More pthan 18 schools in the east zone, which were supposed to participate in the mega-event, had pulled out at the last moment due to the swine-flu panic, the source added.