Category: Vitan Praful Patel

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CAS in general has been a very fruitful experience for me, helping me learn and grow as a person. I think Nature Club’s Tree Plantation and Khel Mahakumbh are two activities that would stand out for me. While the first one can be categorised into the Service component, the latter one is an Activity. As a part of my ESS course, we have studied activities being done on a global scale which impact the nature negatively, and the importance of trees in this world has been reiterated time and again. Therefore, to be a part of a service which would impact mother nature positively had been on my list, which was successfully ticked off through this activity. Talking about Khel Mahakumbh, Basketball has become one of my newfound passions, and to be able to play for my school has been a really impressive and significant achievement for me. Both these activities, have acted as life lessons in many ways, helping me take baby steps onto the ideal path of life.

I have learned a magnanimous amount of lessons through CAS. Each component has helped me in different and significant ways to incline myself towards being a more mature and levelheaded individual.I think learning these lessons at the age of 16 will form a basis in helping me survive the struggles life has for me in the upcoming years. During and through team activities, I have been able to become more open-minded through listening to perspectives, opinions and approaches that my fellow members would have, Additionally, I have been able to become a better communicator, as actions and decisions need justifications in front of teams. Naturally, a time limit and deadlines have helped me become a thinker and a risk taker, simultaneously being principled. This is because creativity is required in order for my ideas to stand out, principles are required so that we don’t stray away from our ultimate goals, and risk taking is required in order to generate rewards. My CAS Project is an epitome of the three of these, as we catered to the Creativity component by making a Foosball table within a certain amount of time.  

As briefly mentioned previously, I have learnt greatly about myself and others through CAS. I have been able to become more evaluative and analytical through CAS. Taking decisions which would have impacts on myself and others has been a significant part of CAS and because of this, I have become a better decision maker, taking a utilitarian approach. I have learnt to not panic in any emergencies or urgencies because what panic creates is chaos and confusion. What I have learnt about others is that if one person starts panicking, others start reflecting it. Moreover, panic derails us from achieving our goal, causes tension and stress and wastes time, effort and energy. On the other side, I have the opinion that emergencies should be a part of any activity/event as it nurtures our ability to perform under pressure, and make quick decisions, while helping us to become a more optimistic person. Optimism, is one more attitude that I have developed through CAS. When time is running faster than ever, and hopes of winning/completing a task on time is low, optimism could act as a gentle push which helps you cross the finish line. Sometimes, a positive outlook or a positive approach is all you need to inspire people working with you to work harder, faster better, in order to accomplish our ultimate objective.I believe CAS has helped me calm down and become more level headed, as emotions of anger/frustration has always deviated individuals from their paths and drained their energy. I have learnt to not waste my time on searching and shouting on a group member in case of blunders, and instead tried to be more positive and look for solutions. I yearned to move away from being a short tempered, and impatient individual and CAS has helped me do that exactly.

Throughout my CAS experience, I have encountered many difficult situations which needed to be resolved as soon as possible. Most of the time, difficulties faced involved being our precious time being at stake and were a result of poor communication. I have learnt that effective communication can resolve almost all matters. If wars are ended through communication, the issues we faced were to be paltry. Sometimes, difference in opinions, approaches and mindsets meant that things were done differently than instructed, resulting in conflicts. However, we always had someone to guide us through these : our mentors, parents, seniors, fellow members or ourselves! I think learning to help ourselves would be one of my greatest takeaways from CAS as when nobody steps up for you, you got to step up for yourself. Different people helped us in different manners. Incase of people like our mentors or parents, their approaches were more sophisticated, and helped us view situations with much more clarity and maturity. Simultaneously, our seniors or fellow members made us realise where we had gone wrong, and presented with approaches which would rectify the wrong. Either way, it enabled me to improvise and counter the difficulties with greater ease.

I think learning outcome 3: “Initiate and plan a CAS experience” naturally required the greatest amount of work, time, energy, brains and efforts to be carried out. This could be because we were required to start from scratch, starting from searching for ideas to perfecting its execution. So first up, I had decided to do something out of the box and thus I filtered events such as tournaments, fests and so on. Pairing up with two of my like minded classmates resulted in some serious brainstorming sessions, and after three long months, it resulted in us deciding to create one of a kind Foosball table which fitted our budgets. Initially, we figured out we had four months to execute this, but we didn’t realise where these four months flew by. The technical difficulties regarding the type and quantity of materials required were resolved by our supervisor and our school carpenter. Our commitment was on full display as we tackled time issues through putting in extra hours on chilly winter mornings before school. I also believe effective communication through the use of social messengers and division of work helped us channelise our energy into taking the next task available. I also learnt to value the virtue of patience, as our CAS project took us seven long months. Our patience was tested throughout these months, and I could only imagine what would have happened if we gave up in between.

On a whole, I believe CAS could be a very significant part in students’ life as it acts a medium where people discover their passions, which could turn into their profession. The service component of CAS is closely related to the concept of community service, which exists in many countries. Increasing the scale of at least the service component into real life is highly required in this dynamic world, where people need the support of other people more than ever before. I would definitely try and take this forward in order to help others and make this world a better place, where humans understand the needs of other humans, onto the path of ideality.

When the term ‘CAS Project’ came to my mind, I always wanted to do something unique, something out of the box. So, obviously, my mind had already screened out mainstream options such organising sports tournaments, art festivals, charity events, and so on. Meanwhile, I enrolled myself for ‘Maker’s Space’ as part of my AS(Arts Special). I realised that I could build/make something extraordinary and out of the box with the opportunity I had with Maker’s Space. This would in turn, fulfill the activity and creativity components of CAS.

Maker’s Space provided us with a platform where in our creativity could be nurtured. I had 3 other classmates with me in this program. However, one of them decided to go solo. The remaining two(Aarsh and Pranjal) and I decided to team up and create something three times the capacity of an individual(considering that we were three people). Maker’s Space started out in the last week of July 2015 and ran until Feb 6, 2016, which was the date of our AS exhibition. In this exhibition, we were supposed to display our creations to parents, students, teachers and other visitors. We figured out that we had enough time to explore, think and finalize our project. For three months, our minds wandered like a pendulum from here to there, in search of ideas that were in our budget and realistic in nature, while acknowledging time constraints. Fortunately by late Oct,  we zeroed down onto creating a Foosball table. This meant that we had 4 months to execute our project. In November itself, we finalized the design after rigorous searching and brain storming. After inputs from our supervisor, we created a blueprint and ordered materials accordingly.
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In trying to contribute my part towards the nature, I ended up stepping out of my comfort zone, into mud! I have always hated monsoons for the gloomy and humid atmosphere that they come with, and the puddles they leave us with. In spite of I hating even the idea of getting wet, I participated in a plantation drive held by Nature Club, going by the pure thought of serving mother nature. On the first Sunday of July, I chose to wake up at 7 AM, tackle heavy rains and reach KV Central School at 8.00 AM sharp, joining fellow classmates. I had a very simple goal in my mind : to utilise this opportunity to the fullest by consciously making efforts towards saving and serving the environment, as a volunteer.

I wasn’t planting trees for the first time, I went to a tree plantation last year too. Hence, I knew the basics of planting saplings. But the twist here was that we weren’t planting saplings for shrubs, plants or bushes. We were planting the saplings for trees that would grow huge in terms of size and volume. This meant that there were changes in the sizes of the holes and the sizes of saplings itself. Consequently, we had to collaborate and join hands to plant every single sapling. As it was raining heavily, there was an additional hurdle we encountered : the holes constantly filled themselves up with rainwater. How ironic it is, removing one force of nature for the betterment of another! Coming back, we now had to become quicker and more efficient to drain rainwater outside, plant the sapling, cover it with soil , ensure it had good support and check that it isn’t getting crushed. So, to plant one single sapling, we had to demonstrate our skills and work together efficiently and effectively.

I knew that on an individual basis, my work would not affect the environment’s status quo to a huge extent. However, at the same point in time, a quote crossed my mind “ I maybe a one single drop, but together, we are an ocean!”.  This ocean here that I am referring to, is the engagement of people on a global basis, trying to show the ill effects of climate change, and how they can be mitigated through a task as simple as planting trees(afforestation). The negative effects of climate change have been seen and acknowledged by people across the world, implying how it has become an issue of global significance. Increased percentage carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be tackled through planting trees who take in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. Cutting down of trees for various purposes have brought us increased temperatures. Unless we practice afforestation, climate change remain an issue of global significance. Hence, I think that this experience was a service for our environment.

Last but not the least, I would rate this activity amongst the top as I think I did something meaningful while stepping out of my comfort zone. After all, stepping out of your comfort zone is exactly when your life begins!

I participated in a Basketball tournament known as “Khel Mahakumbh” in men’s open category on the 2nd of February, 2016.

Inspite of I playing Basketball for a fairly long time now, this tournament stood out from the rest of the tournaments for a couple of reasons. One, for the first time, I was playing alongside my coach. This turned out to be an enlightening experience as our coach was superb on-court, actually putting into play the tactics he told us as a coach. The second reason was that we played in open category and therefore, had to face highly experienced players as our opponents.

I identified my strength as a good ball collector as well as having fair level of passing and co-ordination skills. I developed new areas for growth as we faced adult, well built, highly experienced and fierce players as opponents. Not loosing our self esteem just by their appearance and career was one good thing I did and hence, I developed how to not judge anyone/anything superficially.

Challenges were undertaken as we were firm on booking a spot for ourselves to Vadodra(host city of the state competition). We also tried zone defense as a defense tactic, which worked out amazingly well as we left the opponents in a state of helplessness and forced them to shoot from a distance.

There arises no question of our commitment and perseverance because of the following incident. After winning 18-6 to the defending city champions, we are left agonizing as they protested against our eligibility. Finally, they pointed out a mistake in the lots of the competition and the whole competition re-started. This tested our perseverance, and as a result, we again beat them 19-7 in the semi finals. This was a moment of pure rejoice.

Further, we benefited hugely as all the team members joined one another to help and achieve a common goal : Win, and play fair and square. This, to me, is an epitome of collaboration as we stood up to accomplish what we believed in.

We found ourselves pondering for a solution to the social issue of global significance : Manipulation by powerful individuals for their self-interests. The defending champions(Kosamba Team) had some highly experienced as well as influential players who tried to prove us ineligible but failed to do so, because of the transparency we maintained. Though they weren’t able to throw us out, they deliberately pointed out errors in the lots after they were knocked out of the competition as they lost to us.

As our motto was to “Win, and play fair and square”, we had already talked amongst ourselves how we had to exhibit our abilities staying under the boundaries of ethics. We cheered the opponents when they played well, and showed sportsman spirit by appreciating them post-match. On a personal level, I took out time to cut my nails and remove my watch before matches in order to be considerate about the opponents.

Overall, this was an enlightening experience for me as it took me to the next level of competitions.

The squad- donning our new jerseys.

I had to serve as the Transport Head in the Organising Committee of this Basketball tournament.

We had to start our planning as early as two months from the day of the event. I had some volunteers under me who had to be designated work as per their strengths. Being the Head, I also had to communicate with the school’s Transport Department in order to avail adequate transport facility, discuss routes and fix costs. We had also been lent the helping hand of UBER cabs for the transportation of outstation participants.

I had to collaborate with the:

• Registration Department, for the quantity of transport needed
• Transport Dept. volunteers, for efficient and effective work
• Planning Dept. , for the bus timings
• City Co-ordinator – UBER , for outstation participants

I identified my strength as being an able leader, which led to numerous benefits such as:

• Buses running on time
• Zero confusion within the volunteers
• Minimal miscommunication with other Departments

I think that I have my own way of getting things done, but this didn’t help as I had the Tournament Directors above me who had given clear instructions on the ways thing should get done. This, I realized is an area where I need to develop as a person.

I take pride in being one of the initiators of this event although when compared to the inputs and work of the Tournament Directors, I stand far behind them. I was assigned the role of a Head because of my capability as well as my inputs.

For 60 days, I had to work with perseverance and dedication in order to put up a good show. Meetings at cafes after school time had become a common thing for us back then. In order to secure UBER as a sponsor, a lot of efforts were needed.

The ethics POV also came into the picture when I had to decide how much workload to be given to the volunteers under me and what work should I keep aside for myself. Also, I had to ignore the pleads of some OC members who asked me to fix routes which suited their place of residence. By this, I recognized the implications of ethics.

Overall, all the three components of CAS were fulfilled, as I had to physically drain myself persuading people and running back and forth, serving as a medium between School’s Transport Dept. and TDs. I volunteered for the post of Transport Head(so Service). I think the format of the tournament(3 on 3) was not common as well as tournaments such as these are rare in our context, so it also achieves the criterion of Creativity.

I participated in an U-19 inter-school basketball competition which was organised by School Games Federation of India.

For the first time, I had made my way into the school basketball squad and got the honours to represent my school. I was absolutely thrilled to find my name in the roster for this tournament. I had been practicing a new sport(basketball) for a brief period of time and had improved my game to certain extent, justifying my selection.

We had to travel a good 50 km in the morning to reach the venue of the competition. It was fun to travel with my team mates as well as the school coach.

Earlier, I did not use to understand how players with fantastic basketball skills were not able to perform in competitive games but as soon as I was put on the basketball court, I realized that the pressure to perform existed across all of the sports.  I understood and identified my strength as a rebounder and played accordingly. It was a challenge upon me to perform on my school debut. I had also zeroed on my weaknesses that were pointed out by my well wishers and hence decided to work on them.

I recognized the significance of playing fairly, safely and within the ethical borders. I had cut my nails, removed my wrist watch, and gave the respect the opponent players deserved. I had put playing with integrity as my top priority, even if we we were on the losing side. I intended to avoid physical contact with opponents and was fairly successful in doing so.

The format which was followed was of knockouts. We won three games on the trot to book a spot for ourselves in the final of competition. We all had a fair chance to demonstrate our strengths to the selectors present there. We also had planned out strategies and tactics and exhibited them to a satisfactory level. Unfortunately, we lost the finals but had got a huge chunk of things to go home with, such as: our strengths, co ordination, game skills, etc.

It was an amazing experience overall and I hope to continue grasping more and more from this sport.

Walking up to take positions in offense.

Going for a rebound.

I, along with a group of classmates, started attending the school gym on alternate days for a period of 4 months.

In this period of 4 months, I learnt life lessons that I couldn’t have otherwise. I was excited as soon as I heard that training in the school gym was a possibility and I grabbed the opportunity with both my hands. In the first quarter of the time, I focused on strength training for 2 days, and cardio for 1 day. With time, I moved to strength training on all the 3 days after realizing that cardio is done anyway when I play sports.

I had to wake up at 06 hours in the morning, for which I had to make many changes in my rather unorganized routine. I had to improve my food habits to actually see the results of training. I had to spend time nurturing my body and give it enough rest to recover from the micro tears it had suffered. I learnt to channelize my limited energy into the right direction, in the right proportion. I understood the deeper meaning of: ” Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy and wise”. One needs a lot of motivation and commitment to wake up early in the morning without cursing his/her life but, I chose to feel sore today and not sorry tomorrow.

I got a reality check when my muscles didn’t inflate like balloons do, and no where were in comparison to that of any of the celebrities. I understood the importance of perseverance as I realized that you actually have to challenge your own self for a long period of time, constantly and consistently, to get balloon-like biceps. Although I did not manage to end with huge muscles, I surely had gained a lot of confidence and felt good about my body.

Some of the exercises I performed were :

• Chest seated rowing
• Barbel rowing
• Barbel curl
• Dumbbell curl
• Bench press (flat+ incline+ decline)
• Skull crusher
• Barbell squat
• Leg press
• Leg extension

Summary of the results that I achieved were:

1. Stronger leg muscles(calves, hamstrings and quadriceps)
2. Stronger Back Muscles
3. Broader Shoulders( 17.5″ to 19″)
4. Healthier food habits
5. Better BMI

Hammer Curl

Leg Press

Tree Plantation in the town of Vansda was my first CAS activity. Because of the same, I was thrilled to be a part of it. The Govt. of India had initiated to build an artificial forest which would be named “Janki Van”. We had to plant saplings for the same.

We started off at 7 in the morning and left the city by school bus. We reached the place of plantation at around 10.30 AM and started to work after a short break.

It was the first time I was planting saplings and found that it is not as simple as it seems. Planting saplings was quite laborious and I had to get out of my comfort zone to do so. One of my IB subjects is ESS, which teaches us the negative impacts of deforestation at the global level.

It was a  huge challenge for me to dig up mother earth to plant the saplings. The process to do so was quite elaborate.

1. Digging up the ground with a heavy and huge axe in an awkward and endurance-testing position.
2. Planting the sapling exactly perpendicular to the ground level.
3.  Carefully watering the sapling.
4. Adding right amount of fertilizers
5. Covering up the sapling

This process had to be repeated continuously for 5 hours, in addition to walking back and forth to fetch the materials.

I realized the role of ethics as there were many “if” and “then’ situations running in the back of my head. For example, when my back pained, I thought ” If I don’t water this sapling, then this plant won’t grow”. I then thought of the importance that one single plant would hold in the future, sucking up CO2 and giving us oxygen. Therefore, I decided to align by actions which were not ethical and did not have a negative impact on the society and the future.

By this, I fulfilled the component of Activity(physically excruciating) as well as Service(volunteering for a good cause).