It was a summer of performing “Jungle Book yoga”, making sandwiches and sandcastles, dabbling with Shakespeare and even learning to make round rotis. The kids of New Town’s Mallika Malancha enjoyed a month-long summer camp and it didn’t cost their parents a penny as it had been organised in-house by their ladies club, Maitrayee.
The idea was the brainchild of Maitrayee secretary Anuradha Biswas, who used to live in the US and teach at a preschool there. “In the US, summer meant summer camps. So when my son remarked sadly that this year there would be no camp for him to join, I got thinking,” says Anuradha.
The first challenge was to figure out the days and timings when maximum kids would be available. “It was tough since many were going for vacations and had other commitments round the clock. But we slotted some activity for every single day,” says Maitrayee president Sonali Acharya. The camp catered to the age group of three to 13 and there were nearly 20 kids daily.
Since the ladies have watched one another perform at puja functions they had a fair idea of who could teach what and thus began the fun. Binita Palit taught zumba, Sumana Sinha and Sanjukta Das conducted extempore. “I work at IBM but luckily my shift is in the second half of the day so I could teach them collage-making in the morning,” said Sharmistha Ghosh.
“I doubt the kids would have agreed to do regular yoga so I gave it a Jungle Book twist and they were left asking for more,” says Sujata Patodia, who told the kids they were Mowgli and were to perform asanas as per the animals they saw in the jungle. So tiger, bear, cobra all got covered.
“I loved learning Spanish,” said Pragya Sinha (Khushi) of Class VII. Vanisha Tripathy (Pari) of Class IV liked learning patriotic songs that she called “independence day songs” and Paroma Banerjee liked the introduction to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Pinak Ghosh enjoyed playing soccer in a match involving the fathers. “It’s not everyday that we get to play with dads. They were very good and we hardly got possession of the ball,” he noted.
“Usually vacations are boring and all we do is study, complete projects and watch TV. But we learnt something new every day this summer,” smiled Kirti Bhatnagar of Class VII.
The 20-odd women organisers said they were relieved to see their children occupied with something other than TV and video games. “We also realised that it doesn’t take a big, expensive toy to make a child happy,” smiled Anuradha.
Some men had chipped in too. Saikat Biswas and Purnendu Singha Mahapatra took the kids on a nature walk and photography session to Eco Urban Village outside their house, Srinibas Tripathy and Pankaj Sinha took them jogging and cycling and a ninth grader Animesh Jha taught Bollywood dancing.
The schedule had woven in IPL and Fathers’ Day too. “We knew no one wanted to miss the IPL finals so we made everyone watch it together. The kids spent one day making cards for their dads and on Fathers’ Day ate breakfast with the fathers,” says Sonali.
It’s tough to decide if the kids had more fun at the camp or the organising parents but it’s clear that this first camp at Mallika Malancha is unlikely to be the last. “I want a winter camp now!” demanded Ruhani Sarkar of Class IV upon realising the camp was nearing its end. “And I want an igloo at the winter camp,” added Kritarth Bhatnagar of Class II. And the wide-eyed kids got dreaming and screaming for more.
