Category: Avina Umashankar Agarwal

Hi everyone, I am Avina and I love warm hugs! The one thing that life has taught me is- Everyone has a different journey in life, which is beautiful in its own ways!

There are a lot of things that I enjoy, few of which include… watching movies, listening to music, talking to people, visiting places, travelling, doing adventures sports/activities, reading romantic-cliché novels, doing crafty things, dancing, trying different cuisines, receiving gifts, swimming… and listing things like this :P. Thanks to all these things that I enjoy, there are a few skills and talents that I have acquired and developed throughout these years, which I believe includes being creative, patient enough to listen to people as they pour their heart out and to cook delicious food. However, this journey still remains incomplete; there are a lot of things I would like to do, a lot of skills that I would like to acquire, a lot of moments that I would love to cherish. I would love to learn different languages and learn to read people’s hearts. I not only want to learn new things but I also want to improve a few skills that I believe are essential in one’s life. One thing that I find the most difficult is with language (see what I mean!) and that to send my messages sharp and clear. Additionally, I want to improve my management skills that I feel are significant after being an IB student.

The biggest concern in my life is seeing things that hurt people so much that they start to lose interest in life, and take decisions that are life threatening; which is why I want two things to stay constant in my life. First, to always stay happy and second, to never let the child in me disappear. So, at least once before I die, I want to get involved in things that spread happiness around and create a difference either in someone’s life or in the society itself.  Lastly, the one dream that I want to fulfill is to take the world tour checking things out off my bucket list and visit all my relatives before I die.

 

 

Proposed Activities	Description of the activity	Components (C/A/S)	Duration with start date and end date	Goals	Learning Outcomes
Plantation	Helping in gardening at a public place that is developing; it includes planting, digging, working and organizing	Activity/Service	19-july (4 hours)	Do as much of service I am able to and do it happily and willingly.	LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiencesLO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Dance Classes	Learning a new skill, one of the Extra-curricular activities	Creativity/Activity	21-july-2015 to 1-Nov-2015	Learn new art form and better my skill.	LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the processLO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
Champak workshop	Workshop by Champak, where there are different learning departments such as creative writing, designing, and photography.	Creativity	8th August 2015 (8 hours)	Learning designing layout through technological integration.	LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
Volunteer in Kalakriti	Volunteer as an anchor/announcer in an interschool event	Service	26-september-2015 (8 Hours)	To help in management areas to improve knowledge	LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
Garba Fest	Working as a head volunteer for decoration department	Service/Creativity	7 September to 11th October 2015	To improve my skills of management.	LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the processLO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
Creative-Mela	Volunteering to tutor in a workshop named Stomp dance.	Service	14-september-2015 to 17-october-2015	to make the kids enjoy what they are learning and do a good job as I am no master in dance.	LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the processLO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
CAS Project: Flash mob	Our group project where we are going to do a number of flash mob performances with an objective as our themes.	Creativity/Activity/Service	14th August- 10th October 2015 (about 3 months)	To create a worth in the society, improve upon my various skills and work dedicatedly.	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Cooking	Improving Skills and Learning new dishies in AS classes	Creativity	once a week for the whole year (about 40 classes)	Learn new dishes and enhance my skills.	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
Trip to Naggar	Adventurous trip to Naggar with my classmates	Activity	27th December 2015 to 4th January 2016	To try out each and every activity, and not let go of any opportunity and enjoy them.	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Whenever I say the word CAS, The first thing that comes to my mind is my group project. It was one such activity where I had learned so much, I over came so many of my fears, and I saw so much of change in me in way of managing. Additionally, this activity was solely done with our efforts, we were not depended on anyone, the teachers or our parents or any adults but it was thought by us planned by us worked by us. And this activity really makes me feel proud of me.

One thing that I have learned from CAS is how to manage my time and work from my heart for one of the IB components that does not even gives me points. Jokes apart, the one thing that I have definitely learned is that I have a global significance and that I need to work on my skills and use them to make the world a better place. The one thing about CAS that I loved is writing the reflections, even though they were a tedious task to fulfill, for me, they act as treasure because when one day I will reread my reflections it would act as motivators to me to further work like that. These reflections have helped to know the true me- a risk-taker, thinker, communicator, principled, caring, knowledgeable and balanced inquirer that has learned to think open-mindedly.

CAS has not only gave me some lifetime memorable memories but it has also given me the platform of understanding and growing my inner strength, to know what I could do with all the abilities that I have with me; even if, I don’t help others with my abilities I could surely use them for my personal growth. One major skill that I improved with doing CAS was know how to work with people and learned to bring people together for a better cause and to manage better. Even if I was not able to bring people together at times, it helped me become better analyzers, to try and find other alternative solutions when there are none left. These helped me to learn how to help me when no one could help me. (I know it was confusing but try and understand!)

The learning outcome that was most difficult for me to achieve was to see how things made sense globally and that there were ethical considerations. However, the easiest one or rather the one that I achieved without conscious efforts was to show commitment towards any activity however boring it was or could have been.

I enjoyed the whole journey of CAS and I would love to take the opportunity of doing such activities given my way, even latter in my life.

So much fun, so much of heat exertion, so much of experience and so much of so many things! Even after eternity has passed, whenever I recall that 9-day-long trip, a smile breaks to my face. I don’t even need to look at my photos and yet all the amazing memories come flashing like a photo album in front of my eyes. Those beautiful sceneries, morning chills, SNOW! Mountains, fun evening exercising activities and unexpected events!

The journey, as always, began with the most tedious task, Whole-day-long-zig-zag-tiring travel time! This time of the trip is always a challenge for me. I, at times, am not good with just sitting around and those feeling of nauseous, just adds to the pain! Although, this time, after learning a lesson from my previous experiences and after making it my goal to enjoy every part of the trip, I took precautions. We played games, listened to music, talked with each other to reduce boredom and I took medicines with me for feeling better. These really helped me a lot! I also took efforts to talk to travelers other than whom I knew and interact with them. I learned so much and I understood how different people’s lives are.

The first day when we arrived at the palace- the place of our stay- we were asked to be in groups of three with whom we would be sharing our room, plus a mentor.  At first, I was a little sad and hesitant about it because I had to share my room with people I was not well-versed with and not too comfortable spending time and space with. We had to share the bed, which was a big deal for me because my classmate was a bit persistent about sleeping in between my friend and me. However, these challenges made me learn how to compromise and learn to work in synergy with people and train myself to work in situations that are out of my comfort zone. After all, best growth takes place that is out of one’s comfort zone. Additionally, I was happy that one of my close friends was there to accompany me in the room. After, settling in our rooms we went on a visit to the nearby village and learn a few customs of the town. We also went to see traditional temples that were famous around. Well, due to my views and interest for the temples, I was not particularly excited about it. However, I loved the architectural plan of each of the heritage places. It reminded me of ancient classic monuments, which interested me.

After the trek, I was so tired that I went to our room and slept. By the time I woke up, I got to know that all the people around me were having backaches and pain in their calve muscles. Well after doing my part of being Sherlock, I was just not able to stop myself from laughing! By the end of 5 minutes, my stomach started to hurt because of the way my friends described their amazing yet back aching experience of exercising in the evening that I had missed. Well, at first I felt happy that I was not a part of that backtaking episode but somewhere down the line I felt unfortunate on losing such a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (don’t ask me to pronounce it! Because for all I know Google suggested me this word for what I am typing!! :P) escapade. In short, an amazing experience. After that, I joined everyone for fun games and talks and horror stories!

The next day we went to a village on top of the hill named Rumsu. I was so excited for the day! Well, not just because of the visit to Rumsu but also that I heard that there were chances that our organizers were looking for another room and due to the changes the room that I was staying in would be left with me and my friend. And that was oh so good news for us! We were so excited to look forward to those changes that we both started to dance in the room when no one was around to look at us! We had literary gone crazy! So by the time we went for our breakfast the good for the day had taken place and the room was left for the only both of us to share. We were so elevated by the happiness that we both had cleaned our room, tidy it up and set certain rules for us! So after that, the food that we both had was displayed on a table, the dressing table was set up, the place for our suitcases was set, the place for our foot wares was decided, the bed was cleaned and set, pillows in place bed sheet in order, clothes in rack and all the dirt in the bin! The room looked as if we had just asked for room service to clean our rooms! Well, it was so fun and manageable! I enjoyed… sorry let me correct that! We enjoyed the look of our room and the efforts that we put in that we started to screech and jump again! I seriously think that if someone would have seen us like this they would have sure shot would have thought of sending us to a mental hospital!

After that, we went to Rumsu. I would be lying if I would say that to reach to that village is like cutting a piece of cake! We had to walk up the 2000 stairs to just reach to the village and exploring the village was another account! And at that time I wished that my endurance was 6 feet under the ground, and I should definitely work on my health. At first, it didn’t seem much and thought I could climb without much effort but to my misery, I was proved to be wrong! By the mid of it I was so tired and I had taken so many stops that I didn’t want to continue the ascent and had made my mind that I was alright for me to not climb further and not explore the village, to not fulfil my aim, to wait for everyone to go ahead and wait for them until they return and it was time to descend! However, I decided to be determined and to break out of my comfort zone! After making my mind, being determined and plugging in my earphones, I started again with the stairs and after that, I was one of the few to reach Rumsu first! It felt so good, I felt as if I had reached in heaven. The village was on a hill top, surrounded by mountains covered with snow, air filled with clouds around and gentle chills every now and then! Simply breathtaking! There we learned about their lifestyle, the architecture, their norms and tradition, their current state of education. We also got to know about their view on the current ongoing election in the village for the head. There were a few things the villagers were sharing with us that surprised me and were different than what I believe. Even though I wanted to, you know, correct them but then I also believe that I should never be persistent in changing what people believe until it hampers me. But, the visit was quite insightful! And off course, the sort-off workout that reminded me that I need to work out! ALOT!

After we reached to our rooms we were so tired, ate our lunch and straight away went to the beds and rested! However, today I made sure that I didn’t miss the evening exercise. Although, I did not participate a lot in doing the exercise well, but it was so much fun to see people do it! Instead, I was busy taking a few candid pictures of everyone around and let me tell you they turned out to be fabulous clicks, at least that’s what people that I took photos of said. The exercise was followed by games. I for a fact learned there that I love to play outdoor games with my classmates.

Oh, and how could I ever forget the dinner!!! That dinner! That THE DINNER! Everything was so good and so delicious until I found out what exactly I was eating! I am a girl that does not and I repeat DOES NOT eat non-vegetarian cuisine, that includes eggs as well, or even like to- or feel comfortable- watch a person eat non-vegetarian cuisine and for the first time that day I ate rice mixed with gravy that was made with egg! And as soon as I got to learn about the ingredient to the dish I was chewing, I was about to vomit! I was so much in utter shock! I could not think straight and with that, I just ran leaving my plate aside. Spit all the things that were in my mouth, into the bin! Took a sip of water and cleansed my mouth, so that there are no traits of what just I ate anywhere inside me! I kept my head down so that nobody could see my face and kept walking fast towards my room! Even when someone tried to talk to me I tried to stay calm and pretend as if I was alright and kept walking! After reaching my room and unlocking it, I could take no more and with that feeling of sadness that was filled with so much of guilt inside me- due to my ethics and morals- and my tears started to flow uncontrollably! I was so confused, what to do next and that taste that still lingered on my tongue I rushed to my backpack and brushed till I felt that the taste was no more! The best part about this horror filled ordeal was when all my friends were there to calm me down and make me laugh and make me eat my dinner. That was when I realized that I have a life filled with a treasure box called friendship. Every treasure in it was different and unique with different quality of each but all precious! And I was so happy that I have such a treasure box with me! (Too much clique?! I know, but true!) Finally, by the end of the night I calmed down a bit, and I was looking forward to the next day because I could not live the rest of the night, no more.

The 30^th, the day when I would experience snow for the first time in my life! I was so excited! I was trying to avoid few of my classmates because they were constantly pestering me about the events from last night, and were teasing me! We went to the mountain for some adventure, to ski and enjoy other snow activities! We had two stops before we started to ski. The first one at the ski suit shoe (oh boy, that rhymes!). You know that I was wearing five layers every day and after that ski suit it just got 6 layers! I felt like I was a bear and I felt that I had swelled up! The second one was at some shop to get all the equipment. Although, let me tell you that it was so cold and windy out there that my hair where literary flying like they show in the movies, and I so liked that! When we reached to the mountain that had our destiny, we had to slide down the snow to get them. Everything was so fun! We, finally, reached our destination and were divided into groups of 7-8 people. We later were passing our skiing equipments and were enjoying our time. You know when skiing, at first it is like you are left to walk with your feet dipped in oil! You can’t just get your feet into control even on a flat surface with soft snow! So, by the time everyone else was skiing, I started a snow fight with one of my friends, after which another one joined and later we were literary one team versus another. I thought I was in a movie scene and everyone around acted fun because let me give you a reality check, the snow hits really very hard! After ski, we all left for some other snow adventure. Our next stop was at some amusement park kind of place where all the rides were related to snow! So one of the rides that we went to was two people sitting in a truck size tire tube and then that tier was dropped from a really high height!

After the whole day, we went to the palace back! The rest of the evening was the same but until= the dinner. I was so cautious of what I am putting on my plate. The best part about the dinner was that there was a dish called paneer chilly, and let me tell you I a big fan of cottage cheese. So when I went to take it another time, reality hit me again and this time far worse than yesterday! I was eating chicken chilly. (Oh boy!) At that time, saying that I was in shock was an understatement. It seemed that I had gone into a trauma! I started to laugh! And after a moment I was crying and then again laughing and the episode continued until I was crying and laughing together! (Well, who say you can’t do both together?!) I was laughing on my destiny and I was crying for my destiny! Isn’t it ironic! (Tell me!) And with this, you should have seen my friends look at me! They defiantly thought that I had gone crazy! At least what they did next proved it to me. One of them took away my plate from my eye-sight!  The second one made me sit and the third one got me some water and asked me to drink it! And the fourth one was just asking me to calm down and get my mental state back to its equilibrium! After a few minutes, my roomy took me to my room and was constantly debating with me that it was alright and the night won’t give me more shocks! She offered me some chocolates that I gladly took it! It gave me some relief until I realized that the chocolate that was offered to me contained non-vegetarian substance! This just made me go back to the traumatic stage I was in earlier!

This time I was so not looking for the next day, even if it was the New Year! Because a next day would mean that I was enjoying the first half of the day and then there would be ‘The dinner’! After 11:30 everyone one of us gathered around in the lobby and waited to celebrate the New Year with our friends and classmates. For fun, we danced and had a sort of DJ. However, the best was the next. We got to see one of the New Year traditions of the village. The palace had a temple that the villagers thought highly of and came first to visit when doing anything new or good. So we got to see the tribal dance and sayings! After the celebration, we went back to our rooms to get sleep for the next day. However, after the recent events I didn’t want to see the next day and due to my luck, the next day came too soon for my liking!

The morning of the New Year, the day was also quite adventurous; we went for the ATV rides. Although due to that all my clothes that I was wearing got muddy. Then we went to the hot springs at Vashishth. The water there was so hotly warm like someone had taken efforts to keep it boiling for like an eternity.  For lunch, we got ourselves a treat in Manali. The treat was so delicious that I would love to get treats like that every single day for the rest of my life! For the evening, we went to a local market. That day it was especially too crowded because of the festival that was coming around. It was so much fun. Every one of us were given a time of about an hour and we were allowed to roam freely in the whole market and be good eco-tourists. For a fact, I really don’t like when a shopkeeper is charging unexpectedly high amount just because they think we our tourist and won’t know about the fee and will be okay with it and won’t bargain. So, when my friend was busy buying at the rates she thinks is alright to pay, I was stopping her and bargained with the shop keeper for a better price! And the worst part about it was after me helping my friend by getting her stuff in fewer rates, she gave me looks for doing so because she believed that it was unethical. So we went back to each of the shops again and paid them the rest of the bargained price. I still doubt her definition for ethical, though.

One of our friends had her birthday on the last day of the trip! So, we took efforts to get her some cake and celebrate with her. And I made sure that the cake tasted good because I was so not willing to eat dinner at that place anymore! The next morning was a small trip to a temple which survived one of the most deadly earthquakes. The temple was quite interesting because there we got to listen to many love stories of our mentors and adults guiding us for the trip. After the visit to the temple, it was time for us to go back! And even though there were many unfortunate events that took place, I didn’t want to leave the place!

 

Reflection on CAS project- ASTH

This was one of the most interestingly initiated plans that came up to us! Just before the day of India’s 68 years of Independence, my friend came up with the idea of doing a flash mob for the celebration on such an auspicious day! As the idea seemed interesting to me, I signed up for being in-charge (with my three other friends).

1^st flash mob: Independence Day celebration (15^th August 2015)

We had a lot of work to be done as it was a spontaneous plan. We decided on our plan by 6:00 pm on 14^th and only had about half a day to prepare and then to execute. We had to decide upon the songs to dance on and choreograph them, prepare a drama related to our idea and most of all take permission from the event manager of the mall where we wanted to perform; which was a challenge. This flash mob, our intention was to inform on the subject of- problems faced by people due to religious and caste based discrimination. As we planned on working on social issues we had to be really careful of not to hurt anyone’s emotions and to do something that is morally and ethically wrong. We (Vidushi and I) decided to choreograph the dance, for which we had worked the whole night. The problem here was that we had less time before our grand move and till 8 in the night we didn’t even have the parody of our songs ready, volunteers to participate with us in this and to top it all, most of our friends could not help us by volunteering; and response that we received were “don’t do it”, “You will not be able to succeed”, “your plan is not good enough and won’t work”, etc. Due to all such criticism that we heard from our friends, we (Sakshi, Vidushi, Unnati and I [the organizers]) started to lose our confidence and it was all heartbreaking, but I tried to cheer them all up and tried to be optimistic. At this point in time, I was filled with gratitude of our parents for keeping faith in us and supporting and encouraging us every time even when every other didn’t and when we thought that we would not be able to succeed. So by the end of 14^th we did our best and choreographed the dance with a little bit help from YouTube, took ideas from our siblings to help us in composing a drama script, had created a page on social networking site (Facebook) to gather public and to inform them and last but not the least created our logo and finalised on the design.

On 15^th I was so excited and tensed that I woke up at 5 in the morning and meet with Vidushi to work on our script. When we all meet at Sakshi’s place, I was so happy to see that few of our parents and relatives decided to volunteer for us, even though how uncomfortable they felt performing in front of such a huge crowd. That was the time when I realized that how grateful we were to have such a family with us. I was really happy to have such a group which knew that we were in a lot of pressure and hence everyone gave their 100% of efforts. Within the next 5 hours, we had to assemble at our destination and we still had a lot to do; we worked on coaching everyone -most of them being non-dancers- to dance on the steps that we choreographed, rehearsed the drama with cousins and compose & practise the song on the same. Later, we were still left to take permission from the event managers of the mall, so I went with Unnati to ask for permission. Now here was another challenge for me, I am not good with putting words forward and I had to convince someone to use their resources in such a short time, but when we meet the event manager, I felt that I was in the seventh heaven because the event manager was someone I got to know recently. This just helped me communicate my thought better because I could see the likeliness of the ball being in our court! I felt happy that I socialised; I talked to her about the things we needed and luckily for us they could provide all of it.

During our show, the good part was that we could gather a whole lot of crowd to audience our performance but, due to this the sound from the speakers that we used was inaudible to the crowd watching us from the top (3^rd) floor. This became worse when using the collar mike while acting out the drama. To overcome this challenge all that we could do was use the maximum of our voice level to speak, which resulted in having badly sworn throat for a week. During the dance performance, we also realized that we had lost a few props that we planned on using while dancing. All these things that were happening just made us doubt our efforts, the quality of our work and so the response of the audience.

Even after all the challenges and wrongs that we had faced in the two days, we got a lot of compliments from the audience, the friends that criticized us earlier and of course our supporting and caring family members. This was the time when I felt proud of all the hard work that I and everyone else had put in to make the event such a success. I did not feel bad about all the problems that we had to go through, the criticism that we had to hear and the sleep that I had to compromise upon :P! This was one of the most enriching experiences of my life where I had learned so much. After all, all’s well when it ends well!

2^nd flash mob: Teacher’s Day (5^th September, 2015)

The second mob, we thought of doing it on teacher’s day, we thought of taking the issue of illiteracy in our country. For this mob, we were well planned and this time, we had more than 40 volunteers. By just looking at the list of the ones that wanted to join our group, made me feel happy and proud that our first mob did not only completed the purpose of making people aware of their action but the mob also helped us earn volunteers; we did not only found volunteers from our grade but also many other grades (which just showed how amazing our work was to persuade people without our telling them to join).

As we were well planned for the mob and it was no such challenge, this time, we decided to challenge our capabilities by deciding to make our mob effective enough for the people to be persuaded to donate money to an organization that is working for educating underprivileged children on a roadside.

The one thing that has always been a problem for me is the thought that working with people from slum areas is that they are not well cleaned and people from these places are well known for their unhygienic behaviours. This mentality of mine always makes me cringe when a person living in that is near or even around me, making me uncomfortable to work with them, effectively.  So when I was given the task to make them practise for the performance that included them to perform, it was a personal confront for me to overcome this mentality of mine, which was for me as difficult as using the correct English on the first go without any grammatical error. After working with them, I won’t say that I overcame this mentality of mine but I tried to cope with it.

This time, also we had to face certain technical issues while performing like the only a few people could hear the ones performing a skit. Talking about the skit, when the dance performances were over and we started it people started to vanish like an evaporating water. It was really heart breaking for a while, and so to gain audience’s attention back we had performed our dance again. This plan of our worked to gain attention and for the fact we understood that we are not going to perform drama for our next mob, if that’s what makes our audience lose interest.

When the performances were over, Unnati and I went to collect donation from the people shopping around the mall. We went to collect donation from shoppers from the ground floor to the top floor and in the food court as well. When collecting donation, there was this one incident that took places, where when we were asking if the shoppers could don’t even a single rupee the children would benefit, so one of the shoppers actually donated only a coin of 1 rupee, although I felt good The one thing that I felt by the time we were asking for donations in the food court was that people were not donating money for the children but to shoo us away and let them enjoy their time. This made me realize, that we should not have gone to the floor asking a particular groups but just be there and go around announcing so if anyone thought that if our work was good enough they would have donated money without us going around asking for it. (By the way, we collected a good sum of money! And obviously we donated it to the NGO for which we felt grateful!)

Our third and final Mob: 10^th October, 2015 (Garba fest)

Till this time we had learned quite a few lessons, that is to check the speakers before hand in a huge crowd without any one suspecting so that we know that people will be able to listen or not; second, to stop performing informative dramas as people don’t really get awareness through it; and thirdly, never ever, ever go around for asking for donation in a place like malls.

To do things a bit differently from our other mobs, we planned to mob an actual event this time. But because IB is all about ethical considerations we could not do it without the event organisers consent we had to give them a clue as to what our intentions were. So, this became a mob only for the ones enjoying the event.

The theme of this mob was women empowerment, as the event was based on the celebration of the victory of Indian goddess over evil i.e. ‘The Navratri’; also as this was going to be our last mob and all of us organizers of the group were females, we thought that this would be the perfect theme. We planned to do dances related to garba. When practising for this mob we knew that we are going to have enough volunteers for our mob for it to be successful, we wanted the dances to be energetic enough for the audience to want to see our performances again, and the volunteers had to give their 110% of efforts. I was so caught up in making people doing their best that I sometimes got angry on why they are not practising, which was bad on my part.

There was this one girl that did not dance well and made terrible sync mistakes, so to avoid a bad performance, we had decided to tell her that she won’t be able to be a part of this, as she is not able to do well. But just a day before when we were going to break this news to her, in the night, the girl’s parents had called me telling that she is a girl suffering from asthma and that we ask her to not put so many efforts as she is not listening to what her parents are telling her and as she is facing breathing problems when she reached home. This call of about 5 minutes, made me think of how judgemental we were, especially I, and this made me think about myself for more than 5-6 hours, this call just made me change my paradigm about that girl. So, the next day I talked to my group and told them about the phone call, and I got the same reaction from them, shocked and guilty. This phone call did not just made me think of my actions but also made me check myself! What my thoughts have become? This call acted like a self check-point for my life and helped me improve and refresh my thoughts.

This mob was one of the best mobs of all the three that we did; there were minimum management problems we faced and people enjoyed this mob the most.

I loved this three months journey of mine, which taught me so much and gave me so many life lessons. This was the most amazing activity of all that I did throughout the year.

It was a CAS trip planned by our school. We went to Vansda, a public garden that was being constructed by the government. Making huts, digging pits, planting sapplings and creating amazing views. We helped them in making garden.  After dividing in two groups, our group was to garden at one place and the second one at other. I was given a task to cut open the plants from the plastic bag and to create Ridges for plants (keeping water flow/consumption/irrigation in mind [all about science!]).

When I was cutting open the plants out of plastic bags, I had no clue as to how am I supposed to do it and as a result, I had damaged a few plants in the process; which ended up in scattered soiled plants, drain off a lot of energy and many people taunting me for my unexpected work. For improving my work, I had asked a few people to guide me and later on it helped me work better and faster, with the bonus of saved energy for later use.

My second task of working with others for forming ridges was an unexpectedly easy task. Usually, people fight for the task that seems comfortable to them and easy to do, hence results in small conflicts; but because all of us over here wanted to help and came with a purpose of providing good service, people were ready to take up difficult task and do more. This time, after the experience from my first work, I decided to understand how to do, what I am supposed to do. This action helped me in reducing my efforts and helps me do a smart work. I was able to work fast, leaving me time in between to take rest for few seconds.

As it was in monsoon season, I thought it would make our task easier; but the unexpected seasonal changes increased our workload. The task of bending down for doing your work and then staying/walking in the same position made it all better for an experience of hard core pain in the calve muscles. This experience of uncomforting only made me realized the tedious efforts of the laborers working in here for the same, for months!

After we completed our part of work everyone one was tired and was ready to run away. While working, everyone was sweating in the sun, there were times when everyone was thirsting for water and we had less of it available; that moment of fight and sharing the resources made me realized the importance of it as well as the hard work everyone was doing.  As we had distributed our work, we could work in more synchronization and effective results were seen.

After completing, we all were discussing our experiences with our friends from the other groups, and that enthusiasm with which we talked showed how happy/satisfied we were on our success of servicing. After the whole act of service, we all were appreciated in front of our mentors and pals; making us all feels proud of ourselves. You see, hard work always pays off!

 

It’s been a year of learning cooking, once a week in my school. It was an activity that I took as my arts special classes. As I already knew how to cook, there were instances where I was the only one been praised for my perfect work (“practise makes a man perfect”). I had learned many recipes. We had been taught about +50 recipes.

I knew many of them, but the challenge in here was to do it in a different order then I usually use! For example, in the beginning we were given the task of making perfect round Roti (Indian bread); and the tools which I used while making it at home and the technique was all different, which resulted in taking lot of time and also there were times when it use to get it torn from the middle, because of applying a lot pressure (physics everywhere, when will it leave our backs!!!).

In the initial days, we didn’t have our kitchen ready and were given a temporary space (a space for only two people to work, whereas we were about 15) to work. There also were times when we all (15 people) had to cook together and many of us had no work to do except for watching (which is a tedious and insipid job!). At this point, many of us started to have issues with each other as we all wanted to work and learn more than the other gets to, but at the each end of the class when we are done with cooking we feel good about it and these fights don’t seem to be a problem (coz as we say, “When ends well, All’s well”).

By the end of the year, others (my companions) had left the class because of their exam preparative leave and therefore Disha (my friend) and I were the only ones left to learn. At first we used to think how we will be able to manage but then it turned out that because of their leave we had more work and we could learn more and connect better. There were a few recepies that I had also tried at home after learning in the class. The best part about it was that they were easy to cook and as delicious to eat.

At the end of the year, we have to showcase our skills and knowledge learnt throughout the year. So for this year, we (all the students learning cooking in art special classes) decided to keep live kitchen, where we will sell food (Frankie, Mexican Bhel, and watermelon juice) that we had learnt during our classes, and this all was recorded and projected on our dinning area’s LCD screen, with it visitors were also allowed to have a walk inside the kitchen while we were working. For the same event, we were given chef coats, and name tags (this made me feel like a real chef! It had felt so good!). I was assigned to cook Frankies with my juniors. At the time of rush hours, I was actually working with two pans, 10 ingredients, and a lot of pressure of piling orders for Frankie.

I had loved this experience more than any other and felt good after doing so.

I had taken a three month course of learning and improving my different types of dance skills. By the end of the course I had learned a couple of dance forms such as Contemporary, Jazz, Salsa, Bollywood, hip-hop, Lyrical. When we were learning hip-hop and lyrical, that was the time that I enjoyed the most, also I use to find myself giving so much effort, while learning, that my cloths used to get drenched in sweat. I use to go 5-6 days/week right after my school use to get over. Due to this there were times when I was too tired to do dancing, although by the time the class was about to end, I would have gained so much energy and would have rejuvenate so much that I would want to do more.

At the end of three months course coincidently we had a dance carnival (something they did every year at this time of year), where we were going to perform. For that, we had been preparing from about a month before final recital. We were doing contemporary and had to perform in front of an audience due to which we had to bring our dancing to a whole new level and had to practise hard. Me being one of the non-dancers in our batch, there were step that were too difficult for me to do; and even though, my body use to ache due to unusual movement of body and tight schedule, I overcame the problem and was able to do the steps correctly; although it took me about a week or two to do so.

As the days passed, I started to realize the efforts everyone was putting in, just to make this carnival the perfect one, and for the same we (as students and performers) had to begin being on time. It was difficult, as I had to make it really quick with eating my food and getting ready (which is a challenge for all women existing on this planet), but I use to try my best. The most challenging thing was my exams and the show. The show was in between the days of my examinations and because of it I had to really be punctual and not waste any on my precious time. There were times when we had to meet up with all the batches and practise on the stage, on those days I really had to take my books with me just so that I don’t miss any of it.

On the day of the carnival, I could see all the people so excited to do their best and enjoy, off course. As the performances were getting over and ours was getting near I could really feel my heart beating a second faster. Our performance was one of the most praised ones (after all we all disserved it, come on! We had worked hard for days).

Because of this activity, I had started to make new friends and I also use to enjoy my time spent in the evening after so much of work out; another way for me to sweat while enjoying and keeping my not so fit body, fit. All though, I had joined the dance classes for completing my CAS requirements, I enjoyed my classes so much that I continued for more. Over all, after so much sweat and work out and fun and dancing and making new friends, I enjoyed being part of this amazing experience.

It was an inter-school Arts competition, which included drama, dance, music and visual arts as different areas where people could participate. Our school was the host of the event and hence had asked me to do anchoring. I had volunteered to help as an anchor, but also ended up in helping with registrations. I had an option to do anchoring at many different places, but as I loved to see different dances and always use to end up being there, I decided to anchor at the place where dancing competition was held. I had to work with one of my friends, and so that I get equal opportunity to do anchoring, we decided to split our work.

When we had reached the venue, I got to know that we were having troubles with registrations because of which we had to wait before we get the dancing competition started. So instead of just waiting around, I decided to end the process of waiting by providing my help. Due to my help one of our teachers got free and was able to do the rest to start the competition. I had missed a few dances because of this and also parts of my anchoring work (which I feel sad about) but it was one of the interesting jobs and later I felt happy that I came to good use, which fulfilled my intentions, to come and help here, properly.

The worst about this event was that I had to wake up at 6 in the morning to be on time and had to speak and help continuously for about 8 hours without stop, due to which I ended up having a sore throat and drinking warm water for the next few days. It was kind of a tiresome work, but I learned about registration processes a bit.

I had an experience of anchoring in the public once before and hence I thought it would be similar, adding fillers, entertaining audience and so on; but to my satisfaction I got to know that my part of job included just speaking out the names to audience about who is coming next and see to it the judges know that too. After knowing this piece of information, I felt good that I had gone up to helping in with registrations. I enjoyed my time being there, I got to see many dance, and be with people. Overall it was a good experience.

For this event I had decided to work with a partner and organize the whole event successfully, but I saw failures in my actions and thought that as I am not giving any ideas and instead of taking leadership, I am doing the worked asked, I resigned from my post. Although I resigned, I wanted to be a parted of Creative Mela so I participated to take a workshop of Stomp Dance.

As I had initially thought of taking up a challenge of managing the Creative Mela and was not able to, I thought of taking up a workshop which was challenging again. As I had recently been learning dancing I thought of applying my skills here as well as learn a new dance form.

A day before the workshop, I learned about the number of kids in the workshop, the time and the rest of the details; with deciding upon what will I make the children do while the workshop and planned accordingly. For my help, I also searched for dance tutorial and tried to imitate the step shown. On the day of Creative Mela, I realized that I had not book the venue and hence we will not be able to have an appropriate place to dance and conduct our workshop.  To my great fortune, there were two of my friends that wished to conduct the workshop with me, one of them having a great background to dance. With this, I decided to divide the kids in three groups and each of us leading one. At first I gave all the kids some brief background to what is stomp dance, and later without wasting time we started with making new moves. To make the workshop more interesting I decided that each group will compete with one another and learn. This turned out to be great as every kid wanted to win and hence had put their 100% in learning.

Although, I left the post of an organizer, I felt good that I had taken Stomp Dance Workshop as at the end of the workshop I could see kids enjoying and wanting to learn more and not leave. This was one of an amazing activity that I did, and I enjoyed it!