The team from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan takes part in the preliminary round of the Laughter Challenge at Sona Chandi The Great TTIS Challenge at Swabhumi on Monday. A total of 48 teams participated in the event, where they were given three minutes each to amuse the panel of judges and score points. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

Over the past few years, Sona Chandi The Great TTIS Challenge has come to hold a prominent place in the school-goer’s fest calendar. This time, the fun began at Pailan World School on November 26, where the finals for the collage and T-shirt painting contests were held. The preliminary rounds for the other events of the biggest school carnival in the city began on Monday at Swabhumi, off EM Bypass, with 103 schools participating.

The day started with Three Minutes of Fame, a contest where participants got a chance to showcase their talent within the given time frame. If Alokananda Bhattacharya of St Augustine’s Day School, Shyamnagar, sang the classical-based Aan Milo Sajna, Rupam Biswas of Don Bosco, Liluah, moonwalked his way to applause to the tune of Rishie Rich and Justin Timberlake numbers. Arijit Das of Don Bosco, Park Circus, brought the house down mimicking a certain Bengali film-maker enacting the role of Gabbar Singh in Sholay. Said Arijit: “I have always mimicked people, but it was in the eighth standard when I enacted Dev Anand in a school play that I realised I had a flair for it.”

While the Fashion Parade brought up ingenious designs by way of attire, the off-stage event Laughter Challenge saw students drawing from daily life for humour. Bollywood was by far the most popular recourse, Mithunda, Bappi Lahiri and Amitabh Bachhan being the most imitated. Students from the primary section of AK Ghosh Memorial School enacted the day of an errant student going to take an exam, with one of the participants playing the superstitious mother, while Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan suggested an unlikely solution to the woes of the Indian cricket team by way of replacing Greg Chappell as coach with Manmohan Singh.

Students from Springdale Montessori and Day Care School, Kalyani, showcased jute attire designed by the teachers, while casual wear of the GeNext man-about-town was the theme for Calcutta Boys’ High School. War of the RJs, followed by a screening of the film Born Free finished the day.

Events galore promise to jazz up the days till November 29. The winners in the preliminary rounds will bag an entry into the finals to be held from December 7 to 9.

Romila Saha

 

With a difference

Five days of fun under the open sky topped off with a performance by Pakistani band Jal who regaled the Sunday troopers, mostly school students decked up in their weekend regalia. That sums up Ozone 2006, the fest organised by the Interact Club of Mahadevi Birla High School for Girls from November 13 to 19.

Says Rashi Chandgoti, president of the club: “We all met the principal before the Puja vacations and requested that we should be allowed to organise a fest. It has been a learning curve from there, running around to meet sponsors being just one aspect.”

Sporting mix: The annual sports day of Army School Barrackpore held recently was a colourful extravaganza with folk song, fusion dance, yoga and aerobics thrown in with the routine races and sporting events

The fest balked the norm by way of usual standards: an open air event, with a performance by an international band, with events like the street play and O3 Entertainment at Forum. In O3, the participants walked up to the visitors and offered to entertain them for which they were awarded points (picture by Bishwarup Dutta). Carmel High School performed a play on AIDS awareness, distributing leaflets on the topic to the public. South Point High School were the winners for the street play contest, enacting a play called Iqbal on the problem of child labour.

Mock-d-Band, where participants imitated well-known bands, and the Indi-pop competition, judged by Bodhisattwa Ghosh of Insomnia, saw South Point emerge winners. They also stole the thunder in the debate on ‘Should MMS facilities be given to students?’. The host school was declared the winner, but they gave away the award to South Point, which had come runner-up.

Jal was a hit with the crowd, performing their trademark numbers Woh Lamhe, Aadat and songs from their new album. Said Zeeshan Akhtar Sarkar of Apeejay School: “I enjoyed the performance of the lead guitarist Gohar Mumtaz.”