Let There Be Light - Sanvi Rai

Anemones 

 Anemones, also known as windflowers, are flowering plants in the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae). They thrive in temperate and subtropical regions across the world, except for Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, and the Middle East. These plants exhibit a consistent structure in rainforests due to competition for sunlight. When a large tree falls, creating a gap in the canopy, small trees rapidly grow to fill the space. Over time, they compete for sunlight, resulting in a predictable size structure across the tropical rainforest.

 Battle for sunlight in the forest 

 Rainforests have a consistent pattern of tree sizes due to competition for sunlight. After a tall tree falls, sunlight reaches the forest floor, allowing small trees to grow rapidly. As their crowns fill the gap, some trees are left in the shade, leading to this characteristic size structure observed globally in rainforests. 

 Sanvi Rai

 Sunbeam School

BHAGWANPUR

Memphis Tigers - Akshar Bhasin

Cover photo: Akshar Bhasin with the Memphis Tiger

It's wonderous, really, how quickly a moment captured and stored away in a phone, when seen years later, can induce a rather long yet delightful walk down memory lane. One can think of memories like a spider web basking in the sparkling droplets of early morning monsoon dew. If he chooses, he can take a stroll down a string of the web, passing through those little dew drops of memories, but even when he reaches the end of that string, there is yet another one that commences. So on and so forth, memories connect and merge into each other, combining to create the 'past' of each individual. But, eventually and inevitably, as those dew drops are bound to vanish when when the sun comes up, we, too, forget these moments as time moves on.

But, today, as fate wills it (in my case a wonderful educator and friend did too), I shall reach into the unfathomably vast web of memory, and choose to stroll through one of those strings of web. Now, as I fade away from the present, moments and images flood into the screen of the mind and a movie begins to play.

The year is 2016 and I'm residing in the U.S.A, in the state of Tennessee. To be more precise, I was living in the University of Memphis campus area. I'm enjoying life though. Teachers see me as a 9 year old incorrigible Indian headache, but, frankly, I'm not aware about the strenuous concepts of societal expectations or self image or what-do-people-think-of-me. Or maybe I was but I was but just didn't care.

I was too annoying to be befriended by anyone at school, but I really never felt lonely. The company of books doesn't really ever let one feel alone. And gratefully, I had the Benjamin L. Hooks Memphis central library to refill my shelf with 25 different books each week. I could honestly go on about that piece of paradise for hours on the end but, I suppose that string of web is for another day.

- Akshar Bhasin is a student at Jodhamal Public School, he loves to read and this is his reflection for The Great Dreams from Jataka Tales.