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School Watch

Spic Macay organised a Bharat Natyam Perfornance by Malavika Sarukai on 6th November

Commerce students of class 11 and 12 took part in the Eco- Shastra Inter school competition

Meghna Mehta and Yaman Verma of class 11 participated in a book discussion on ‘Chroniclers Daughters’.

The Junior School Soccer Team have made a habit of winning and are the CBSE league champions.

The Junior School Basketball Team were the runners up in the basketball tournament held at Ryan International School.

he American Embassy School Forensics Tournament was held from the 6-8th November.

Rohan Arora, Chaitanya Murti, Yaman Verma and Abhik Ghosh went for the Italia Quiz on 4th November. The team comprising of Rohan Arora and Chaitanya Murti came in Third.

The 6th Vasant Valley Debate was held on the 30th of October.

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Potter Gets Just Desserts

Having started the Harry Potter series as a single mother writing in cafes over cups of tea she could ill afford, J K Rowling has now become the richest woman in the U.K., 10% richer than the Queen

So, anything short of profound praise about the Potter phenomenon- especially from another, somewhat less successful writer – will inevitably be dismissed as literary sour grapes surfacing due the fiscal fangs of envy.

Such has been my fate since that fateful evening when I read the first five pages of the third book.

So as we revisit the phenomenon for the fifth time with only (phew) a couple to go, let me start with the positives.

ny book that gets young children reading, rather than watching television, playing video games, obsessively text messaging or worse, has to be ‘A Good Thing’. Any book which results in young people being unashamed to be seen reading one, let alone entering a bookshop or library, perhaps for the first time in their lives, also gets my unqualified seal of approval.

And my problem is? When I read the third book and then to make sure I was right the first two, I found the quality of Rowling’s imagination distressingly lower than I expected.

Eager to see what the fuss was about, I had looked forward to a magical ride through some enchanted world similar to those of Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island and Peter Pan.

Instead, I found myself struggling to finish a tedious, badly written version of good versus evil on broomsticks.

The brief spells of attempted humour were like those momentary lapses of consciousness that one experiences during a coma. Rowling’s characters unlike life’s are black and white with no shades of grey in between. Her story lines are highly predictable and the suspense minimal.

Did Harry, like so many child heroes before him HAVE to be an orphan?! Harry’s dead parents were uncomplicatedly good. His uncle and aunt unequivocally bad.

The thrill at the smell of danger is defused by the certainty that virtue will prevail. No Roald Dahl type risks for Rowling. Young minds are unstretched in her breathless narrative.

Potter fans may have enriched Rowling beyond her monetary dreams. But how much has she enriched them? Harry Potter is a craze that will blow away with the sands if time, after all, our trust in books is at stake.

A man still looking for his dictionary.

Rohan Arora 11

The American Embassy School Forensics Tournament.

The 6th AES Forensics tournament was held from the 6th to the 8th of November. Riding high on last year’s success we prepared ourselves for three fun yet tiring days.

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Small Talk

THUMPING THROUGH THOMSON PRESS!

On the 30th of October,the students of class 5 visited the Thomson press, which, incidentally, also belongs to India Today. Thomson press was founded by Lord Thomson from Canada in 1967. He wanted to help the illiterate in India become literate. He and his partner, Mr. VV Purie made Thomson press what it is today. It took us about an hour to get there. Over there, we were divided into groups. We were told that there are 3 phases of printing- Pre press, Post press and Printing. First, we were shown the off set process. A sheet was fed into the printers by the in feed unit. The printers could only do 1 sheet at a time. In this printing unit, they could print only 3 colours- seyan, yellow and black. Then we were shown the Mitsubishi machine. In this, the only difference was that it could print four colours plus any 2 special colours, making a grand total of 6 colours. The whole offset process was controlled by the computer control panel. This was where they fed in information, such as the quantity of ink needed etc. The in feed unit has a sucker which only lets one sheet out at a time. Then we were shown the Ultra Violet machine. This causes the paper to look glazed in specific places. The next machine we were shown did something very similar to this, the Lamination machine. This covers the paper with a sheet of plastic. There are 2 kinds of Laminations- gloss or matt. Gloss lamination makes the paper shine and glow more, while matt lamination is less shiny and glossy. We were then taken to the plate making department. This department gives a sample of the print-out which is put into the Printing unit to get it out in fair. Mitsubishi web machines. That’s what we saw next. This is almost the same as the offset process, except it prints a whole roll of paper. One roll weighs 784kgs, and lasts for about a month. This is where the magazines and newspapers are printed. This unit includes the dampening unit, which sprinkles water on the parts of the paper which are not to be inked, and the inking unit, inks the parts of paper without water on it. One colour is printed at once, the left to dry. The second colour is printed after that. We were then shown the folding unit, where the paper is folded and cut on 3 sides to form a book. Binding is done in the Post press unit. We were then taken to see the Tipping machine. This applies glue on the paper. The saddle stitching machine is where the stapling is done. Page after page falls on each other and then are stapled together. Instead of stapling the book together, the Rotor Binder applies glue to the spine of the book. A cover is then stuck to it. Some books are spiral bound and punched here too. In the hard case unit, cardboard is stuck to the paper. Then, the cover of the book is stuck onto the cardboard pieces. This forms the jacket of the book. How many times have you noticed that towards the end of the year, your textbooks start falling apart? The stitching machine is here to prevent that. This machine stitches pages together so they do not fall apart. So the next time you find yourself wondering how a magazine is printed, just remember this article and you surely will know!!

Ayesha Malik V- A

ALWAR AHOY!

We went to Alwar on the 17th of October and had lots of fun. We learnt about the Babul tree. The people of Alwar who do not use toothpaste or toothbrushes use the branches of the Babul tree. I also saw the Aravalli hills and they had very few trees which made them look bare. We saw goats and sheep. Their backs were full of thorns from bushes. They looked so cute that I stroked a few of them. I also saw camel carts carrying cotton. So, I learnt that cotton grows in Rajasthan. We also visited a king’s palace which had windows called ‘Jharokas’. The lady who was separating the bajra from the husk spoke very kindly to us. The people of Rajasthan wear very colourful clothes. I think their favourite colours are green and orange. After a long day there we came back tired but happy.

Pia Chatterjee III-A

I had a pillow fight and I told ghost stories and we had a bonfire and we had a blast during the night stay.

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Crossword
Literary Characters

ACROSS:

1. A Satyajit Ray creation running on the lines of Sherlock Holmes. (6)
2. Pandora, the love of my life is aptly described in my now publicly owned diary.(10)
3. The biblical figure whose staff bid the Red Sea part.(5)
4. I was poor and starving, now I own the world’s most famous chocolate factory.(7)
5. He possess the services of one of the most sought after butlers in England.(7)
6. My father is a drunk, my best friend is a runaway black slave and I have a name fashioned after a fruit.(11)
7. My master is the ring bearer and I have had the life long wish to meet the elves.(3)
8. He shares his name with the Greek Sun God and at the age of eleven is a criminal mastermind.(7)
9. The African lioness truly Born Free.(4)

DOWN:

7. A man useful only for brute strength features in Dickens’s Oliver Twist. (5)
10. The middle-aged man who travels wide and far in hope of becoming a knight. (10)
11. She is a society figure who keeps her nose in everybody else’s life except her own.(4)
12. She has a name which shares the name of a colour and her obsessivness leaves her Gone With The Wind.(8)
13. This Belgian (often mistaken for French) has plenty of what he calls "the little gray cells".(7)
14. This little girl has the entire future of life depending on her while she shifts from parallel universes. (4)
15. Jane Austen’s proud and prejudiced leading lady. (9)
16. The creator of the science of pschychistory in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Saga.(6)

ANSWERS By Svati Goyal 9-C

ACROSS: 1.Feluda; 2.Adrian Mole; 3.Moses; 4.Charlie; 5.Wooster; 6.Huckleberry; 7.Sam; 8.Artemis; 9.Elsa DOWN: 7.Sikes; 10.Don Quixote; 11.Emma; 12.Scarlett; 13.Hercule; 14.Lyra; 15.Elizabeth; 16.Seldon

EDITORIAL BOARD

Sheenum M. Kumar, Aman Raj Khanna, Rubaina Khan, Anjali Malik,Alisha Damodran, Noor Jehan Rajput,Swati Sood, Rishab Sareen,Ashutosh Kumar, Svati Goyal,Saranya Misra, Arnav Sharma, Varini Sharma,Ashish Aggarwal, Anna Ahmed, Yaman Verma

Sports Desk

Rohan Arora & Tiya Tejpal>

Editor
Mihika Acharya

Matrix Revolutions

Starring – Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie Anne Mosse, Hugo Weaving.

Direction – Wachowski Brothers

"Everything that has a beginning has an end"

The eye popping, heartstopping, last hour and a half of the Matrix Revoulutions more than makes up everything plodding an ponderous that has taken place since the mindblowing first hour of the 1999 original. Matrix Revolutions starts of with where Reloaded left us. Neo( Keanu Reeves) lies in a coma- at a train station, a program that represents the realm between the real world and the matrix. Morpheus(Laurence fishburne) and Trinity(Carrie Anne Mosse) must rescue Neo as they believe that he is THE ONE who will save Zion from the machines. Meanwhile the virus Smith has multiplied to unprecedented levels (due to its ability to assimilate any program inside the Matrix). Thus Smith has become a threat to the machines as well. It is impossible for the humans to fight the machine army and it is up to Neo to do something - and fast. The action starts off quite early in the movie. Although the film does not have much credibility as an individual venture( and must be treated as the extended climax of the trilogy) it is much darker than the first two and is jam packed with action scenes, and amazing special effects. But, bewarned this movie should only be seen after fully understanding the concepts of its predecessors. Bold in the questions it answers, fearless in refusing to answer them all, and boasting quite a few seat gripping twists, the movis final act was certainly worth the wait.

Nipun Sharma 11 A

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