Category: Grade 12 Equanimity

Garba Fest was an event whose idea was an instant spark that turned into fire. I was really excited and nervous because I had never-ever organised an event in my entire life. My companion and I organised this fest in the school which was open for everyone. The motive of this fest was to raise funds for the people who need the money to fulfill their basic needs and to create awareness about women empowerment.

No matter how much cliché it sounds, but I feel that I cannot put this feeling of success into words.

Planning

We started to plan before a month and a half. First, we thought that we should take sponsors, then we thought let’s try without external help. Being an organiser is not an easy task. We were supposed to look from all the perspectives and think what will be best for the people and what will fulfil our aims. We divided our work into different departments and kept heads and volunteer who were responsible for each department because we thought that this event needs multiple great minds to come into action.  We had to take interviews and decide the volunteer. Here the ethical part comes into the picture, we had to decide the volunteer based on their skills and special talents, rather than giving my friends an upper hand. We had to communicate and collaborate with all the heads about the venue, or the transportation or the menu of the food which we will be providing and even the decorations.

We also thought that an event like this should have a motive like it was a fundraising event. But we felt that people should go home by taking a message in their mind. Therefore, we decided to have a special performance by an organisation called ASTH, who would do a flash mob on something that has a global significance. As a result, we chose the theme Women Empowerment which is a very common theme across the world, especially in India. And while planning it out, we inferred that a speech on the regular stereotypical paradigms of society about women would leave a great impact on the audience.

Personally, one problem that I faced was in delegating the responsibilities to the volunteers. I am not usually a person, who takes leadership to do something; I usually like to decide things by myself. However, I tried to overcome that problem by myself and agreed to other’s suggestions as well. Overall, I felt that the planning required a lot of hard work but I got to know many people’s talent and also that sometimes people can surprise you.

Execution

On the day, we had to take care of a LOT of things; from decorations to food, to every small thing. Due to this, we were running all over the school like mad people. I was amused by my stamina, though, because even after working and arranging things for the whole day, I danced in almost the whole fest (which was like 2-3 hours long). * Shoulder tap*

Well, there were many people who thought that the event would not be so great. However, after looking at our decorations and arrangements, we had a list of people who wanted to buy the passes on the spot, which clearly made me more content.

Many sudden and unexpected crises occurred on that day, one of them was the problem with mosquitoes. Although we tried our best to not kill any mosquito or not make the people feel uncomfortable, due to the limitation of the venue, we were not able to do too much about it.

At the end, I looked at the lights and felt the atmosphere around me- which was full of smiles and liveliness and enjoyment.

Wake up with DETERMINATION, go to bed with SATISFACTION and HAPPINESS.

Feedbacks.

This quote truly describes my emotions after the event was over. Though there was a scope for improvement and the event would have been organised much better than it was, to a great extent I was satisfied.

Overall, I had fun and it was good to know that I also have some leadership skills in myself. And the money that was collected through the fest will further be used for a good cause. Two places we already used the money were- donation to ASTH and giving food to Bhikshuk Bhojan ( A place where poor people are provided food)

Representation of the views by few people who attended the Fest.

Creative Mela is an event that happens once in a year. I usually do not participate in it, but this time, I took a challenge to teach grade three and four, something that was new to me too, mask making. As the event manager told me that I had to organise mask making, I had mixed feelings- excitement plus blankness.

I am an artistic person but I had to collaborate with someone who had less or no idea about art at all. My partner and I researched about various possible masks that grade three or four children would like. We took an initiative to plan the whole activity in a way that would interest all the students, even the ones who are least interested in artistic stuff. Before the activity, we added superheroes to the sample mask list and in our school meal breaks, we made sample mask to make them understand what they could do. It was extremely important that we plan and execute because if we try to be spontaneously creative and learn mask making on the day of the event, then there are high chances that the crisis would occur.

The execution was much difficult than I thought. Children were pouncing on us, especially me because they had high demands of distinct types of masks and were not willing to draw by their own. Each of them was like ‘Can you please draw this for me? Please’. Here comes the ethical part, if I drew for one child, then the other student would be disappointed. Personally, I thought that it would be morally incorrect to do that, especially to ones who want to learn from me. Therefore, what we did was that I showed them how to line-draw on the board and told them that you could copy. To a great extent, this simple idea solved this problem which made me feel satisfied.

As I have never tried mask making, I learnt that while preparing and teaching. I thought that I was not good at crafty things, but I realised that it is a natural thing to me. It was really important for me to realise this because I gained some self- confidence that I can do this too.

Due to the limited resource as well as time, we divided children into two groups- drawing and sticking. My partner and my cooperation were an important thing as it was like only two of us for thirty children. There was a moment where we both got pissed due to the constant mischievous nature of the kids, so we both decided that we will play the music of their choice. Surprisingly, this made the students happy and later on they worked how we instructed them to. This made the activity looked much more organised than before.

At the end of the day, I was both mentally and physically tired but I had a feeling of accomplishment which I thought was worth it.

“The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow” Robert Tew

I have NEVER in my life imagined myself anchoring at a stage or any place at all. But there I was anchoring in Dance Sector in the Art Fest, where around fifty schools from all the cities around Surat participated in classical, folk, fusion and international dance styles.

One day, one of our teachers asked me if I can anchor for an event. And surprisingly I said yes, thinking that it’s time to try something out of my comfort zone and learn how to be good at it as well. The event was on an early morning plus on the weekend. After having a tiresome week with loads of work, I was having a second thought on my decision but eventually I was persistent to keep my word and attain the event.

At the start, we were not given a script in particular. We were informed that this is the dance sector and you have to anchor for it. I was blank. I did not have any experience in anchoring and here I was speaking without even having a blueprint of what I was supposed to do. Eventually, my companion and I collaborated and spoke spontaneously about various dance styles and the participants. As it was not planned, there were many instances where we both started speaking together and then both stopped, leaving us in awkward moments in front of more than two hundred people. Therefore we decided to speak alternatively which cleared our ways out.

After some time, there was crisis going on because new participants were coming so we had to add them as well. We were extremely confused due to the constant change in the schedule. I am not usually good at handling spontaneous problems, however, my friend and I took the initiative to help the teacher plan, organise and change things while doing our original task which was to anchor. It was a demanding job for us to handle the situations, both on and off the stage.

At the end, the event turned out to be successful, better than the outcome I expected and surprisingly perfect; on time, all the participants seemed happy and the teachers appreciated us on our contribution and helpful nature.

It gave me a lesson for future that you should be ever ready for a sudden crisis and take an initiative to try to solve or help them even if it’s not the part of your work.