Coffee With The Coach : Our Culture - Anvesha Rana

Today We Talk About Our Culture

People are only mean when threatened, which is what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people with jobs in our economy are threatened because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money as a god. It is all part of this culture. 

We should build our own culture. It doesn't mean disregarding every rule of the community, but while obeying the little things, we create our own choices for the big things - how we think, what we value - those you must choose for yourself. You can't let anyone- or any society - determine those for you. 

Our culture conditions people. It's the same for women not being beautiful enough or men not being rich enough. It's just what our culture would have you believe, but don't believe it. Every society has problems, and the way to do them is not to run away. You have to work at creating your own culture. 

No matter where you live, the most significant defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We are still determining what we could be. We should look at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if you're surrounded by people who say, 'I want mine now,' you end up with a few people with everything and a military to keep the poor from rising up and stealing it. 

The problem is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Men and women, whites and blacks, young and old. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be eager to join one big human family in this world and to care about that family the way we care about our own. 

We all have the same beginning - birth, and we all have the same end - death. So how different can we be? Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you. At the start of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, and at the end of life, we again need others to survive, but the truth is that in between, we need others as well. 

Anvesha Rana 

Grade 10-B 

Gyanshree School

Could Have Been - Reveda Bhatt

“Sometimes, the one who loves you is the one who hurts you the most.” - It Ends With Us.

Found this quote accurate in and out, and, you know, it’s one of the bitter truths of life, but you just have to accept it that way. Although, in a way, it’s a bitter-sweet truth because once you realise that, you won’t care much about the fact that someday, sometime, someone will, and that would be it - you’ll go back to the ones you had to pretend to forget for the one whom you loved just so that he or she didn’t get offended and lose themselves - but; hey, maturity is where you realise how to control your emotions, how to prevent yourself from losing them - and if he or she does, what you need to do is place aside your feelings and just keep one thing in your vision - you!

Even if leaving hurts, just know they didn’t deserve you because you are better.

Me: Thinking…
Intense thinking…
Processing…

“I’d like to take the last of my words back because it’s easy to say that the wound will heal when you forget all about it, but, in reality, only the person going through it knows what it feels like. Nobody, literally, nobody in this world does.”

People say, “It’s easy”, and say, “Maybe you just don’t want to let go.”

Well, don’t you think they would have already tried that!?

Either way, maybe they just don’t want to forget that and change because what if the fault wasn’t in them?

Look, in our lives, people come, people go, but we need to ensure that they don’t take away with them a bit of our soul that once shone in the bright light and made us stronger.

It could have been better like that.

Reveda Bhatt

Grade 9

The Aryan School

Swami and Friends - Anvesha Rana

Swami and his friends are anxious about their match with the Young Men's Union. Specially Rajam, who is troubled by Swami's lack of practice and can't think of anything except their game. But what can Swami do? How can he elude drill classes and scout classes without getting caught? Somehow Swami manages to convince his doctor to tell his Headmaster that Swami suffers from Delirium and he must die if he were to attend these extra classes. 

Happy at the prospect of being able to skip these classes, Swami now has enough time to practice and hone his cricket skills, but the freedom doesn't last long. The Headmaster catches Swami, scolds him and punishes him; Swami also realises that he had been tricked by the wicked doctor; the only option left for him now is to leave the school, leave his home and leave his town and then he finally goes to bid goodbye to Rajam.

However, on meeting Rajam, Swami realises there seems to be no other option. He fills Swami with the spirit of victory and the team's need for Swami, and Swami feels that he will leave after the match. 

My favourite subject in school is History because knowing about the past to not repeat the same mistake in the future is History. History improves us. It makes us take rational decisions, creates a conscience and helps in an outlook for the future. 

Anvesha Rana, 

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School

Swami and Friends - Anvesha Rana

Swami, Rajam and Mani are thrilled to have new bats, balls and wickets. The entire team is filled with exhilaration at the prospect of being able to practice with new equipment. The M.C.C. has no stop now; their victory has begun; everything is perfect from the Tate of the team to the Captain and till the picker of the ball until Swami once again dooms it all. 

No longer being a part of Albert Mission School, Swaminathan is burdened with homework, assignments, scout classes and drill classes; in the midst of all this, poor Tate hardly manages time out for cricket. Rajam, being a captain and a friend to Swami, is divided between his responsibilities. He can't scold Swami since it is not his fault, nor can he remove him from the MCC. 

The friends decide to persuade the Headmaster to permit Swami to leave school early because he has to practice cricket. Still, the Headmaster does not get through, and poor Swami is left without an allowance, with tons of assignments and no time for playing. 

Sometimes, we might feel lost amid the constant chaos around us, just like Swami, the way he did not see the vital thing, among other petty issues. Swami felt like quitting when surrounded by multiple tasks but when we feel like quitting, think about why you started? 

Continue with your purpose in life till your pot of wit is overflowing, not with material value but with lifetime value. Do not deem to fill the pot with I.Q., but realize to put some emotions, values, adversities and solutions because that is all that gives you wit. 

Anvesha Rana, 

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School

The Art of Giving - Rishona Chopra

 

When God blesses you financially, don't raise your standard of living. Raise your standard of giving. - Mark Batterson 

It is true what Mark Batterson has said, we should give not only when we are rich in our everyday lives, we should raise our standard of giving, it may not be just giving money, even giving a toy to a person who needs it or a book is an act of giving too! 

A small act of giving could mean everything to a person. Giving not only makes the other person happy but also makes us happy. As said,' make others happy, and you will be satisfied in the same way give and give, and you will feel better.

Bill Gates, one of the wealthiest people in the world, still has a kind, generous heart. When we are super rich or famous, we tend to become more competitive, and while doing that, we sometimes forget about the value of giving. Giving did no harm to Bill Gates; he has succeeded as a better human being. This doesn't mean we only offer when we are super-rich; we can provide as we wish.

We can give hope, love and happiness, and that is, in fact, faithful giving. When we give, we shouldn't expect the same from a person. We should give from our hearts.

At Christmas, we receive gifts but have we ever thought that instead of receiving, we should give more and buy things, not for us but others in need. If we can not afford it, it makes no sense to buy things for us until we need them. There is a tremendous difference between want and need. When we want something, we don't really need them; when we need them, we want to use them properly. So on Christmas, we should give and not take, and we should give it in such a way that we do not mind if the other offers a return gift. 

Giving is a sense of happiness and pleasure. Making someone smile makes your day smile.

Rishona Chopra 
Grade VI 
Gyanshree School

Swami and Friends - Anvesha Rana

Swami is back with Rajam and Mani, but this time he endures an adventure, so tormenting. It is the 15th of August, Independence day, and the celebrations in Malgudi are wild. People are celebrating Independence with heavy zeal, jubilance and violence. The youngsters are so overflown with this wave of unprecedented patriotism that they don't think about what is essential. 

Swaminathan is gullible; he does what he believes others will feel is correct, not caring about his conscience or opinion. He simply flung his Khaddar cap, considered a foreign cloth, when someone doubted him about it. On being caught by the peon, Swaminathan could not sustain being beaten, and henceforth Swami ran away from the school. 

Independence means being free from the mind, body, and soul, for we are only in harmony with ourselves and others. Selflessness is also a part of being independent, and my mother is the most selfless person I know. She is softhearted yet strong-willed, she is compassionate yet unwavering in principle, she is a loving mother, yet she risks everything; she suffers due to conflict but never blames anyone; she has done everything for us and has never asked for anything in return. 

Anvesha Rana, 

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School

मित्रता - यशराज शर्मा

किसी ने सही कहा है कि सच्चे दोस्त वे होते हैं जो आपके साथ बुरी और अच्छी परिस्तिथियों में खड़े रहे और आपके जीवन के हर मोड़ हर कदम पर आपकी सहायता करते हैं l 

हमारे जीवन में हमारे कई मित्र होते है और आगे भी होंगे। कुछ बहुत सहायता करने वाले या कुछ जिनको ज्यादा करना अच्छा नहीं लगता। लेकिन हमारे जीवन में जब भी कोई एक अच्छा, विश्वसनीय मित्र मिले तो हमे उसका भी आदर करना चाहिए जिससे हम भी उससे कुछ सीख पाए और अच्छे संबंध रख पाएँ, यह सब बाते लिख कर मेरे मन में मुझे अपने एक बहुत पुराने दोस्त की याद आई उसका नाम है आयुतांश। आपको उसके बारे में थोड़ा कुछ बताता हूँ ।

 

जब मैं कक्षा ३ में था तब मैने ज्ञानश्री में दाखिला लिया था। मुझे याद है मेरी कक्षा थी '३ स'l  एक दिन मैं स्कूल के मैदान में फुटबॉल खेल रहा था जब मेरा पैर मुड़ गया और मैं ज़मीन पर गिर कर गुलाटी मार गया। तब वो मेरे पास आया और मुझे उठाने के लिए हाथ बढ़ाया , मैं उसकी सहायता से उठा और हम दोनों उस क्षण से बहुत अच्छे मित्र बन गए । तबसे हम हमेशा साथ में फुटबॉल खेलते थे और हमेशा एक ही टीम में होते,हम दोनों एक दूसरे की गृहकार्य में भी मदद किया करते थे, वे हमारे लिए बहुत मज़े से भरा समय हुआ करता था। 

लेकिन जब हम छट्टी कक्षा में पहुँचे , एक दिन उसने मुझे बताया कि उसके पिताजी का जम्मू में तबादला हो गया है और वह अब स्कूल छोड़ कर जम्मू जाएगा। वो दिन हम दोनों के लिए बिलकुल ख़ुशी का दिन नहीं था। उसके जाने के बाद भी हम बहुत समय तक संपर्क में रहे लेकिन अब हम दोनों कई महीनो से बात नहीं हुई है। मुझे कभी कभी उसकी बहुत याद भी आती है। 

काश वो समय वापस आ जाये…और हम फिर सी वही पल जी सकें। 

यशराज शर्मा 

कक्षा ८ - ड 

ज्ञानश्री विद्यालय 

Swami and Friends - Anvesha Rana

Friendship makes us foresee all difficulties, it enables the world to go blind and our friends to shine bright like a new ray. Swami, Rajam and  Mani had to meet each other at any cost; despite the heat that hit their heads, the tar that burnt their feet and the lone streets that gave shudders, the friends had to come together. 

This stubborn hope for meeting our friends, whether it rains or snows, hails or blows, windy or stormy, sunny or cloudy, is what makes friendship so great. The eagerness to meet our friends with the same smile, vigour and energy, as if meeting them for the first time and listening to their talks, as if they were the most essential thing in the world, is what makes a friend the best. 

Swami, the however kind he may be at heart, is a leisurely mind. His brain dwells on the tale behind the sum when he witnesses math sums rather than quickly solving them. It’s true sometimes it’s simply impossible to concentrate - we just want to have fun, but seeing the complex numbers dance in front of our eyes and not getting the correct answer even after solving the question a million times, can be frustrating - but education is an excellent teacher, it has taught us not to give up on that math sum, not to lose hope in a subject and to be genuinely confident in ourselves.

Do your best, 

And leave the rest

For the Almighty, he is looking at us, 

He is seeing if we are good or making a fuss

Live the way you want it to be, 

Just be happy and be free

Only Remember to enjoy the roadway,

And not devour the fruit halfway.  

Anvesha Rana, 

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School

Be Unstoppable - Gaurangi Rastogi

The line is motivational to me. 
People just say, “ Stop! it’s enough!” But why is it enough? 

There is a story about a girl named Sara. She was from a humble family. She was always keen to learn something, whether dance or singing. She would go from house to house to sell her creations to earn a living. Somebody would give her an Rs. 100 notes or a coin. She used to accept it humbly. She used to collect the money to go to a good university abroad.

Once, her family got to know about her work. She was beaten very severely. She had scars all over her body for at least a month. They decided to get her married. On her wedding day, she ran away and came to my home. I had to hide her inside my room. After 12 years, she went to a law college in London. She is one of the best lawyers today. Her family was furious at first, but they supported her at last.

The story is motivating. Isn’t it? But, there is a big lesson I learned don’t stop yourself, or you will stop being a beautiful butterfly. 

Gaurangi Rastogi 

Class VII 

The Doon Girls School 

Swami and Friends - Anvesha Rana

Swami loves being amiable to everyone, especially to his best friends. He loves Somu for his geniality, Sankar for his intelligence, The Pea for his connection, Mani for his strength and Rajam for his personality. Swami is a fun-loving boy; his friends mean the world to him. Often friendships are a two-way street; if one of the givers in a bond of friendship stops contributing, this bond can also break. 

Something similar happened when Swami became friends with Rajam and unintentionally pushed Somu, Sankar and Samuel out of his life. Still, when Swami realized his mistake, it was too late to correct it. 

We pamper new people and forget the ones whom we have known forever. We often have so many desires that we change friends and relations to fulfil all our wishes. But fulfilling our desires does not lie in completing them but in controlling them. 

Anvesha Rana, 

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School

The Art of Focus - Anvesha Rana

Positive thinking should be the most essential attribute for each of us. If we are positive, then we are happy, independent and self-sufficient. Still, if we are negative, we always lack confidence in our actions. We will doubt our deeds and even make the others around us doubt themselves, so we must stay positive. 

Life is short, and death is inevitable, so we should make it count. Life is not the only time for living, but death is also an episode to discover the epitome of joy if you have done punya in your Life. Death is not the end of Life but the ultimate meditation to reinstate the clarity and perspective for each aspect of Life.  

Our soul's journey is Life, but after death, our body passes, but the soul continues its journey in another form, which is defined by karma in the previous Life. Death is simply the transmigration of the soul. We should not fear death; instead, in every moment, we should be prepared to die because it can strike us unexpectedly anytime, anywhere.

Death makes us powerful, more robust and bolder by prioritising what we need or want; it gives us a sense of urgency and importance in our Life. Death makes us more grounded humans who believe they are one of the infinite children of God. It makes us grateful for every small action, unshackle from mental anxiety, and live up to ourselves. 

If we all can go from fearing death to embracing death, 

then we can be positive humans who have understood Life. 

Anvesha Rana, 

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School

Sri Aurobindo on forms of Love External

Sri Aurobindo on various forms of the Love-vital, psychic, human, universal and the Divine, with a beautiful letter on Love for the divine Mother in the end. Ordinary human love is vital, emotional and physical and always egoistic—a form of self-love. The psychic element is very small except in a few. * Human love is mainly vital, when it is not vital and physical together. It is also sometimes psychic + vital. But the Love with a dominant psychic element is rare. * It is difficult to define its [psychic love’s] limits or to recognise it. For even when there is the psychic love for another person, it gets in the human being so mixed up with the vital that it is the commonest thing to justify a vital love by claiming for it a psychic character. One could say that psychic love is distinguished by an essential purity and selflessness—but the vital can put on a very brilliant imitation of that character, when it likes. * It depends on what you mean by psychic “love”. One can have a psychic feeling for all beings; it does not depend on sex nor has it anything sexual in it. * There is a fundamental psychic feeling which is the same for all; but there can also be a special psychic feeling for one or another. * It [psychic love] is sometimes turned to the human person, but it never gets its true satisfaction till it turns to the Divine. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-31, Pg. 301-302   A psychic love towards all is also emerging; this love is a thing inward and does not seek to express itself outwardly like the vital love which men usually have. The psychic and spiritual attitude is also not dependent on the good and bad in beings, but is self-existent regarding them as souls who carry the Divine in them however thickly concealed and are children of the Mother. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-30, Pg-358 On the other hand, human society, human friendship, love, affection, fellow-feeling are mostly and usually—not entirely or in all cases—founded on a vital basis and are ego-held at their centre. It is because of the pleasure of being loved, the pleasure of enlarging the ego by contact, mutual penetration of spirit, with another, the exhilaration of the vital interchange which feeds their personality that men usually love—and there are also other and still more selfish motives that mix with this essential movement. There are of course higher spiritual, psychic, mental, vital elements that come in or can come in; but the whole thing is very mixed, even at its best. This is the reason why at a certain stage with or without apparent reason the world and life and human society and relations and philanthropy (which is as ego-ridden as the rest) begin to pall. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-31, Pg-286 I suppose “love” expresses something more intense than bhalobasha which can include mere liking or affection. But whether love or bhalobasha, the human feeling is always either based on or strongly mixed with ego,—that is why it cannot be pure. It is said in the Upanishad, “One does not love the wife for the sake of the wife” or the child or friend etc. as the case may be “but for one’s self’s sake one loves the wife”. There is usually a hope of return, of benefit or advantage of some kind, or of certain pleasures and satisfactions, mental, vital or physical, that the person loved can give. Remove these things and the love very soon sinks, diminishes or disappears or turns into anger, reproach, indifference or even hatred. But there is also an element of habit, something that makes the presence of the person loved a sort of necessity because it has always been there—and this is sometimes so strong that even in spite of entire incompatibility of temper, fierce antagonism, something like hatred, it lasts and even these gulfs of discord are not enough to make the persons part; in other cases this feeling is more tepid and after a time one gets accustomed to separation or accepts a substitute. There is again often the element of some kind of spontaneous attraction or affinity, mental, vital or physical, which gives a stronger cohesion to the love. Lastly, there is in the highest or deepest kind of love the psychic element, which comes from the inmost heart and soul, a kind of inner union or self-giving or at least a seeking for that, a tie or an urge independent of other conditions or elements, existing for its own sake and not for any mental, vital or physical pleasure, satisfaction, interest or habit. But usually the psychic element in human love, even where it is present, is so much mixed, overloaded and hidden under the others that it has little chance of fulfilling itself or achieving its own natural purity and fullness. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-29, Pg. 339-340   It is not necessary to have love for everybody just now. If you have a general goodwill, that is enough. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-31, Pg-291   No, that by itself [expressing one’s affection to all] is not the wideness needed—the spiritual wideness brings the sense of being one being with all, of containing all in oneself, as it were, and with that comes a kind of universal love which is spiritual, free and pure, but which one is not moved to show to everybody by outward signs, but which has its effect. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-31, Pg-304   The oneness with all in its basis is something self-existent and self-content which does not need expression. When it does express itself as love, it is something wide and universal, untroubled and firm even when it is intense. This is in the basic cosmic oneness. There is also the surface cosmic consciousness which is an awareness of the play of cosmic forces—here anything may rise, sex also. It is this part that needs the perfect psychisation, otherwise one cannot even hold, contain and deal with it in the proper way. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-29, Pg. 337   The Divine’s love is that which comes from above poured down from the Divine Oneness and its Ananda on the being—psychic love is a form taken by divine love in the human being according to the needs and possibilities of the human consciousness. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-29, Pg-336   There is a love in which the emotion is turned towards the Divine in an increasing receptivity and growing union. What it receives from the Divine it pours out on others, but freely without demanding a return. If you are capable of that, then that is the highest and most satisfying way to love.   The next day the correspondent asked, “What must one do to have this love?” Sri Aurobindo replied, “First you must want it in a continuous way. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-31, Pg-291   The love which is turned towards the Divine ought not to be the usual vital feeling which men call by that name; for that is not love, but only a vital desire, an instinct of appropriation, the impulse to possess and monopolise. Not only is this not the divine Love, but it ought not to be allowed to mix in the least degree in the Yoga. The true love for the Divine is a self-giving, free of demand, full of submission and surrender; it makes no claim, imposes no condition, strikes no bargain, indulges in no violences of jealousy or pride or anger—for these things are not in its composition. In return the Divine Mother also gives herself, but freely—and this represents itself in an inner giving—her presence in your mind, your vital, your physical consciousness, her power re-creating you in the divine nature, taking up all the movements of your being and directing them towards perfection and fulfilment, her love enveloping you and carrying you in its arms Godwards. It is this that you must aspire to feel and possess in all your parts down to the very material, and here there is no limitation either of time or of completeness. If one truly aspires and gets it, there ought to be no room for any other claim or for any disappointed desire. And if one truly aspires, one does unfailingly get it, more and more as the purification proceeds and the nature undergoes its needed change.   Keep your love pure of all selfish claim and desire; you will find that you are getting all the love that you can bear and absorb in answer. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-29, Pg. 338-339 M.S. SRINIVASAN Sri Aurobindo Society

This message was sent to sandeep@ebdmail.com by srinivasan@aurosociety.org No. 11, Saint Martin Street, Puducherry, Puducherry UT 605001, India

On the Divine Force of Love

We are celebrating the value of Love this August.

Love is one of the great universal forces; it exists by itself, and its movement is free and independent of the objects in which it manifests. It manifests wherever it finds a possibility for manifestation, wherever there is receptivity, wherever there is some opening. What you call love and think of as a personal or individual thing is only your capacity to receive and manifest this universal force. But because it is universal, it is not an unconscious force; it is a supremely conscious Power. Consciously it seeks for its manifestation and realisation upon the earth; consciously, it chooses its instruments, awakens to its vibrations those who are capable of an answer, endeavours to realise in them that which is its eternal aim, and when the instrument is not fit, drops it and turns to look for others. Men think that they have fallen in love; they see their love come and grow, and then it fades—or, it may be, endures a little longer in some who are more specially fitted for its more lasting movement. But their sense in this of a personal experience all their own was an illusion. It was a wave from the everlasting sea of universal love.

Love is universal and eternal; it is always manifesting and identical in its essence. And it is a Divine Force; for the distortions, we see in its apparent workings belong to its instruments. Love does not manifest in human beings alone; it is everywhere. Its movement is there in plants, perhaps in the very stones; in animals, it is easy to detect its presence. All the deformations of this great and divine Power come from the obscurity, ignorance, and selfishness of the limited instrument. Love, the eternal force, has no clinging, no desire, no hunger for possession, no self-regarding attachment; it is, in its pure movement, the seeking for the union of the self with the Divine, a seeking absolute and regardless of all other things. Love divine gives itself and asks for nothing. We do not need to say what human beings have made of it; they have turned it into an ugly and repulsive thing. And yet even in human beings, the first contact of love does bring down something of its purer substance; they become capable of forgetting themselves; for a moment, its divine touch awakens and magnifies all that is fine and beautiful. But afterwards, human Nature comes to the surface, full of its impure demands, asking for something in exchange, bartering what it gives, clamouring for its own inferior satisfaction, distorting and soiling what was divine. 

The Mother

CWM, Vol-3, Pg. 69-70

 

The force of love in the world is trying to find consciousnesses capable of receiving this divine movement in its purity and expressing it. This race of all beings towards love, this irresistible push and seeking out in the world’s heart and all hearts, is the impulse given by a Divine love behind the human longing and seeking. It touches millions of instruments, always trying, always failing. Still, this constant touch prepares these instruments, and suddenly, one day, there will awake in them the capacity of self-giving, the capacity of loving.

 

The movement of love is not limited to human beings and is perhaps less distorted in other worlds than in humans. Look at the flowers and trees. When the sun sets, and all becomes silent, sit down for a moment and put yourself into communion with Nature: you will feel rising from the earth, from below the roots of the trees and mounting upward and coursing through their fibres up to the highest outstretching branches, the aspiration of intense love and longing,—a longing for something that brings light and gives happiness, for the light that is gone and they wish to have back again. There is a yearning so pure and intense that if you can feel the movement in the trees, your own being will go up in an ardent prayer for the peace, light, and love that are unmanifested here. Once you have come in contact with this large, pure and true Divine love, if you have felt it even for a short time and in its smallest form, you will realise what an abject thing human desire has made of it. It has become in human Nature something low, brutal, selfish, violent, ugly, or else it is something weak and sentimental, made up of the pettiest feeling, brittle, superficial, and exacting. And this baseness and brutality or this self-regarding weakness they call love!

The Mother

CWM, Vol-3, Pg. 71-72

M.S. SRINIVASAN

24th Aug 2022, shared via the email newsletter

Love yourself!

As we grow, we start thinking about what others think, but what matters is what you think.
Love yourself!

Comic Strip Team @ My Good School

Please meet the comic strip team for August:  Rishona, Anvesha, Simar, Arav and Gaurangi. Thanks to all the interns, they have worked hard to create comic strips on Humility. 

Arushi Goswami, a teacher at Gyanshree School, is our guide for the project.

No love like Sibling Love !

Love in a Comic Strip! 

A sibling is a lens through which we see our childhood. They may be close to you or miles apart, but they will always be in your hearts; they are your siblings. So, share about the bond between you and your siblings as My Good School celebrates 'Love', and Sibling Love is the most hilarious kind of Love!  

Comic Strip Team @ My Good School

Please meet the comic strip team for August:  Rishona, Anvesha, Simar, Arav and Gaurangi. Thanks to all the interns, they have worked hard to create comic strips on Love. 
Arushi Goswami, a teacher at Gyanshree School, is our guide for the project.

Motherly Love - our comic strip for August

Motherly Love is the greatest of them all. So, join us as we celebrate 'Love' at My Good School by unfurling your treasure of stories. 

Comic Strip Team @ My Good School

Meet the comic strip team for August:  Rishona, Anvesha, Simar, Arav and Gaurangi. Thanks to all the interns, they have worked hard to create comic strips on Love. 
Arushi Goswami, a teacher at Gyanshree School, is our guide for the project.

What makes me feel positive? - Rishona Chopra

My mother makes me positive, maybe sitting in her lap and reading a book make me feel positive. There is no reason for it; it's just her face that shines so bright and makes me smile. She, for me, is the most spiritual person I know and the most positive person too. Seeing her, I feel that everything in the world is just great. It gives me positivity and hope.

This is for you, 

When anything happened, you knew.
You taught me to be true,
And that's how I grew
You cared for me,
You are the one that makes me feel free!
The kindest one ever,
When I needed you, you were always there whatsoever. You make me positive, You are so progressive, You give me a new sense of hope, There is no one like you on the globe! There is no reason for this, It's just a natural bliss, That's probably why you are my mother, You are like no other! Rishona Chopra Grade VI Gyanshree School

The World Of Design - Rishona Chopra

Into this fashionable world, I go,

Fashion started long ago.

Design and embroidery it's much more than that,

This design can make expensive mats.

Fashion doesn't always have to be a trend,

It can be simple and still be a friend,

Perhaps nothing too fancy, but something light to wear,

Made with love and care.

Perhaps the best design doesn't stand out,

But it is gently made, no doubt.

Cloth is not decided by price,

But its simplicity makes it so nice.

Even a plain white cloth made with love,

Will shine out more than a golden dove.

It's all about creativity and what you think,

If made with effort, the effort will never shrink!
The beauty is within,
And that's where the true fun begins.

I wrote this for a fashion teacher,

But this thought made me think deeper.

Rishona Chopra

Grade VI
Gyanshree School 

Left So Soon - Reveda Bhatt

The year 2019 gave me a new life (Let’s not get to that), but the following ones, 2020-21, took many of my beloved ones’ lives away!

I’ll roll back the rim of my life to the year 2021. Someone really close to us all was my grandmother’s niece, Kanchan, my aunt, just a young girl with dreams and hopes for a bright future like any other.

One odd day, she got her hand fractured, went to the hospital, and surgery was to be performed for implantation of K-wire in her hand. After that, tests were conducted, and the results diagnosed her with MEN1(Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Link Type 1 syndrome, a rare genetic disorder mainly affecting the endocrine glands). The message spread virtually on WhatsApp to us in our family group, and after reading it, all of our hearts sank in. But, not losing hope, we wished her a speedy recovery and gave her mom, and her brother hope for her stay! 

Surgery after surgery, treatment after treatment, our prayers and everyone else’s, and meanwhile she was stable, with all of us crying out our mixed emotions, I sat there, scrolling through her Instagram profile-her smile, her sweet voice, and her charm-all faded behind the beeping of machines. Even though her, being in Noida, and me in Dehradun, it hurt, you know, in such situations, the gap does not matter; it’s the prayers from the bottom of hearts that do! But God plans a bummer for everyone’s lives, and his plan for hers was different. The disease could not be cured, maybe controlled, but not cured.

 Stable…Stable… Deteriorating …Survival hard…

 I remember the last time I talked to her was the previous phone call we ever had, the night she passed away. My dad spoke to her when I requested to have a word and hear her voice-her feeble voice saying my name THE LAST Time, and I reassured her to stay strong and not lose hope. That was it!

The next evening, her brother called and cried out that she was no more; our hearts sank more profoundly, and we moaned. Like that, her dreams, future and her smile in photos evaporated against the garland over it.

Postscript 
Her Instagram account remains a remnant of her existence in our hearts and this world. `

Reveda Bhatt
Grade 9
The Aryan School

Sayonara Totto-chan! - Anvesha Rana

Yasuaki-chan left Totto-chan, and now Rocky also vanished. Everyone whom Totto-chan loved seemed to disappear one after the other. Tai-chan no longer spoke to her, Rocky could no longer be heard, and Yasuaki-chan no longer stayed with her. It was as if her little world of love was tumbling down and she was walking alone on a broken road with the rain constantly thumping over her head. Her near and dear ones had gone far away in sight but not in mind, for love is what remains even after you are gone. The little Totto-chan had learnt lessons that made her stronger and bolder in a world full of strangers. She now knew that she had to live up to her limited time in this race on earth, but Totto-Chan remembered to always run with happiness and happiness that makes others happy. 

I have often heard a story of a woman who lost her son but was so desperate to get him back that she went to Lord Buddha to bring her son to life again. In listening to her story, Lord Buddha said he would bring her son to life again only if she could get a fist full of mustard seeds from a house where no one had died. So the woman had set out on her task, she had gone to every home in each locality, but there was not a single house where someone had not died, be it the grandfather, father, mother, child, someone or other had always passed away. Lost and depressed when the woman returned to Lord Buddha, he had simply told her that human lives are like flickering lights. They light for a long time, but suddenly they extinguish. We need to learn to accept the loss and let the ones gone be always loved in our hearts. Just like Totto-Chan will always love Rocky and Yasuaki Chan.

When Ryo-chan, the janitor at Tomoe, had to leave for the War, all the students had organized a special Tea Party just for him. Everyone drank saké and shared something or the other for Ryo-chan. It was a fun time and the children continued the tradition of the Tea Party even after Ryo-chan was on the war ground. It was the last time they had ever gathered at Tomoe. 

Whenever I have to drop someone at the station and bid goodbye, I feel as if they could have stayed just a little longer; no matter how many days we spent together or how much fun we had, at that point, all that matters is whether they can be here for just a bit more time because no amount of time feels enough when you are with your loved ones. 

Sayonara, Sayonara is a Japanese goodbye, but it literally means 'if that's the way it is'. We have learned so much from Totto-chan, the Headmaster and Tomoe. It is even so unique that a young girl, simply through the means of her actions, has taught us friendship, responsibility, coping with loss, freedom and most importantly, love. So all we can say is Thank You and Sayonara, Totto-chan! 

Anvesha Rana,

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School