Hindi movies revealed

Did you fall asleep during the movie? Did you walk out of the theatre? Did you start sobbing at the dreadful acting skills of Bollywood’s pretty faces? Did you laugh during the sad scenes? Did you dance on the five-hour songs during the movie? Can you guess what these questions are about? I’m talking about a Hindi movie…
Hindi movies aren’t always exactly what you call “star quality”, besides the few that turn up once every half a century, all the others are just a waste of film. So why bother? Isn’t there, like, an English version to every Hindi movie or is it the other way around? India leads the world record in the number of movies made every year but at the end there are only two or three films which are of true caliber. For a movie to succeed there are many aspects to be looked at such as :the interesting theme (e.g. Indo-Pak war, Indo Pak love story, war, love story with no story line), duration of the film (Hindi movies are excluded from this, because they simply cannot go without the 20 minute songs in the middle of the movie), star quality(everyone goes to see a Shah Rukh Khan film regardless of the stupidity of the film) and a good ending(which doesn’t necessarily have to end with someone dying).
However, not all support this view. A lot of us actually enjoy having a painful headache while waiting for a movie to finally end and a lot of us like to be put in the fantasy of running in an orchard in a sari one minute and dancing on top of Snowy Mountain in a miniskirt the next. So if most movie-makers would follow these guide-lines, they wouldn’t run into such a loss at the box office and we could perhaps earn some Oscar glory!!
By Anandini Rathore (9 C)

The Talk with Mr. Pavan Vaish

Maybe its because of a resume which boasts of IIT and Stanford alumni, maybe its because he studied and taught at the Doon School, maybe its because this multi millionaire seemed as down to earth as a friendly parent but when Mr.Pavan Vaish COO Daksh Processing Services IBM spoke all 90 class 12 students listened...and listened hard.
Mr. Vaish gave us the lowdown on how good education is the backbone to a successful career, on how important it is to NOT compromise on your values and ethics, not count on your parents “chickens” and basically how being level headed through all your enterprises helps. Being a student of the Doon School and being taught buy our very own Mr. Kapoor (Who apparently was a lot of fun!) he could relate to student life
perfectly and although he along with two colleagues set up Daksh Processing Services, a BPO that has known been bought by IBM for over a billion dollars, and grew the company from a 3 manned enterprise to a over 20000 employee company he still holds teaching at the Doon School as his favorite occupation. Over anecdotes on how his father in law was ever so speculative about his success to the fun he had at his school he managed to impart valuable knowledge to us. Right from the fact that after a point every incremental rupee has no worth, to the fact that hard work has no substitute to the fact that mechanical engineering has NO relation to setting up a business Mr.Vaish got his point across. The session was not however a monologue as students posed their queries to Mr. Vaish he tackled each question with ease and made the students understand his point. Right from why he named his enterprise Daksh (because all English U.R.Ls were taken..!!) to how he would compare Indian education to Foreign studies he answered them all.
So in the end I would like to say Mr.Vaish was one of the BEST speakers we have ever listened to. (and there have been quite a few!)
By Nivedita Venkateish
(12 C)

A whole lot of birthday fun!

So after a terrible wedding I hope that for a few more days I do not have to meet my relatives but obviously having around 92 of them, I meet my cousins the very next day. I am driven to a fancy five star hotel where the place is decorated with every single color of balloon you can possibly imagine. On closer inspection I realize that these balloons are irrelevant as on them things like “I love you” and “Happy republic day” have been printed. We then enter a large banquet hall where once again chairs with badly color- coordinated tables have been set up. I look around and notice that this, being a kid’s party has no children. After a few minutes I am told that the children’s section is behind a curtain in the far corner of the room. Upon entering, the scene is totally different. A man (probably the hired entertainer) is surrounded by a bunch of screaming kids asking for a balloon. On the other side an egg-spoon race is taking place and before it has started at least four eggs have fallen. Two girls are pulling each others hair and fighting over a doll. Four kids have fallen asleep on the floor and a collection of “didis” are having their own party. My brother, obviously excited about the whole thing screams and runs over to the balloon man. I look at the colorful present in my hand and realize that the birthday kid is no where to be seen. I search for him all over the room and find him lying on sticky dried coke oblivious to what is happening. I grab a glass of coke and sit down. An hour passes by and there is no improvement in the scene of chaos in front of me. The only real difference is that the children have started playing musical chairs and six of them are crying because they were out. Suddenly, out of the blue, one of the mothers comes in and tells everyone its time for the cake. The kids look at her for a second and get back to what they are doing. Seeing that the parents are coming the “didis” busily pick up their charges and walk towards the cake area. By now all my cousins have gathered around a large chocolate fudge cake and are trying to sing Happy Birthday, though only a kind of mumbling can really be heard. At the end of this someone stupidly sprays a can of magic snow all over the cake. Even though the parents of the “birthday kid” tried to sort this out, most people ended up eating low quality ice cream which they really didn’t seem to mind. At around ten thirty we disperse and half heartedly make an attempt to say goodbye to the oblivious birthday kid. We get our return present which is a “Bayblade” and by now my brother is ecstatic with happiness. For me, well I have just witnessed another Indian function.
By Bhavik Singh (9 B)

Morning prayers

Have you ever wondered what goes through the minds of people during assembly…well we have and we decided to tell you what we think goes through their heads…..
Jocks
We thank thee for physical education, for the ecstasy of swift motion, for green fields to run in, for the goodly sound of a basketball on the court, for goals to score and lessons to miss, for all skill of hand and eye, for trophies that lift our social standing in a few wins to the top, and for the hand grasp of Mrs. Krishnan….let us pray.”
Nerds
“Where the mind is without fear and the book is held high, where knowledge is free, where the class has not been disrupted by troublemakers , where the words come out from the teachers mouths, where tireless striving stretches it’s arms towards ninety percent , where the clear stream of science has not lost it’s way into the dreary desert sand of physical education, where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and practice in to that heaven of discipline my father let my peers awake….let us pray.”
Teachers
The day returns and brings us back to our round of duties. Help us to control the class, help us to teach the children without losing our minds; let cheerfulness abound with submitted homework , let us go sanely on our business all this day ; bring us to our resting beds weary and alive and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep….let us pray.”
Fashion freaks
“Grant that we here may be set free from fear of fashion calamities, from the fear of criticism and the love of praise, from the desire to be liked rather than to be respected, to be fashionable rather than to be outdated, to be guided by what is in rather than by what is acceptable……let us pray.”
By Avanti Gupta and Mahi Titus

Mr Debroy – Effervescent, Flamboyant and Knowledgeable

On the seventh of March 2006, 90 students of class 12 as well as more than 40 teachers from leading schools in Delhi sat through an hour long sojourn delivered by Mr.Bibek Debroy a leading economist and member of the Indian think tank.
“I was asked to talk on the budget but I feel that is irrelevant” These were the opening lines to the radical and unconventional speech that followed. Broadly encompassing topics like the India-China competition, the lack of infrastructure and Fringe Benefit tax, Mr. Debroy was completely impromptu. Delivered in his characteristic flamboyant and energetic style, he highlighted that the only difference between the Indian and the Chinese economies was that the efficiency of manufacturing of the latter was greater and that given this, the possibility of the Indian economy surpassing that of the Chinese was rectified. He also said that it wasn’t India vs. China, but taking a global perspective it was India “and” China. After his 30 minute dialogue Mr. Debroy encouraged the audience towards asking questions .In the 20 minutes that followed he responded to each query with effervescence, ease and diligence coupled with his inimitable style of delivery. In the end Mr. Debroy’s talk left us with a lasting impression of India Shining and to quote, “India’s past was glorious, India’s future is glorious, it is only the present which is bleak.”
By Nivedita Venkateish and Rakshit Sharma (12)

Exposure-School Water

On the roads of our city, you must have noticed a certain unique kind of truck. On noticing these, most of us just comment from an outsider’s point of view, (“By the time that truck reaches its destination, there’ll be nothing left in it”). That is just the unfulfillable function, but what about the hygiene? Does anyone actually bother to clean those trucks? Or does anyone close the top of those trucks so that flies don’t die in it and mosquitoes don’t lay their eggs in it? After such an experience, we should thank God that we don’t need to depend on those great blue trucks whose insides probably even change the composition of that life giving substance which we all need, or do we? Do we ever use this water, unconsciously, somewhere in our lives? As a matter of fact, we do use this water. In fact, sometimes, we use only this water. This water, ladies and gentlemen is the water that comes out of our school drinking water faucets.
In our very own school, the water from these blue germ expelling, unclean, microbe paradises is being used to quench the thirst of over a thousand of this world’s innocent, unsuspecting, youth. One might say that the government board in charge of such matters arranges this water, namely the DJB, and therefore nothing unhygienic can be in the water otherwise, it would not be given to us, and the rest of our population who is dependant on it. To prove my point I would like to bring to the front a couple of incidents.
A few years ago, in a certain colony in Delhi, which was struck by the seasonal shortage of water, one of our blue friends arrived. A thirsty girl, about 9 years old, ran towards the truck. As soon as they opened the water outlet, she cupped her hands and drank a healthy amount of water, about a minute later, she was vomiting, and by the end of the next minute, she was dead. Surprised, the truck driver looked in through the opening at the top of the truck (which, by the way is supposed to be covered), and noticed that a snake had drowned in it.
Don’t worry, no one died, but I know of a number of cases of people who have got diseases like typhoid and cholera possibly by drinking this water. Also, just by the way, the water pipes starting from the DJB stations where these trucks come from, which were designed over 80 years ago, run alongside sewage pipes. Now that is disgusting. In Mumbai, due to a similar design, recently, there was a leak in the sewage and water pipes, which led the water to get contaminated, and now gastroenteritis which may begin to spread as an epidemic.
Actually, it is not only the trucks who give us the water, it is also the faucets. In the field, the tap on the right outside the gym has been frequently used to clean the cricket ‘L’ guards by touching the guard to the tap. Also, you must have seen people coming and cleaning the bathrooms, but have you ever seen anyone actually cleaning the faucets? And even if they do clean the faucets, what are they cleaned with? A cloth, which has been used to clean the other faucets like the ‘L’, guard faucet, or even maybe the flush? Everyday, a part of the germs from both the faucet and the trucks are entering our mouths.
The school water has finally been exposed.
By Kunal Datta (9)

A tale of two Cities

A recent school trip for class VIII students transported us to a different and charming city in just half an hour, a world bursting with history, tradition and culture at every corner. This was the amazing market of Chandni Chowk, a place that still retains some of the exciting rhythm it once held when it was the major market of Mughal India. This place inside the walled city of old Delhi consists of thousands of shops, religious places of all faiths, and a confusing array of small endless ‘gallys’. We first visited a beautiful ancient Jain temple, and then a bird hospital where we saw peacocks, parrots, eagles, pigeons, and, strangely enough, even rabbits. We then went to the famous ‘jalebi wala’ whose jalebis and samosas were simply divine. After that delicious treat we saw different types of shops in the gallies, selling everything from perfumes to street food. It was a long and tiresome walk, but it was all worth it: we went to the famous ‘Paranthe vali gally’ (known for its mouthwatering variety of vegetarian food), and ate to our hearts’ content (a total of 40 students ate 112 paranthas and drank 30 lassis!) It was a satisfying meal, and the paranthas were out of this world. Once our stomachs were filled, we took rickshaws to the stunning Jama Masjid, and even though we were not allowed to go in because the afternoon namaaz had started, we still got to see its beautiful exterior. After that, we went to the place where a well-known poet produced several world-famous historical poems.This was Mirza Ghalib’s haveli. We then rode the rickshaws to the Metro Station and took the metro to Rajiv Chowk. Traveling on the metro was a first for most students and we were amazed to see how clean and sophisticated it was. The buses met us at Rajiv Chowk and took us back to school. The trip to Chandni Chowk was a fun and enthralling experience that we will never forget. It was a real eye-opener for us; it made us realize the richcomplexity and culture of our country.
By Devika Agrawal and Nikhil Pandhi, class 8