A Day In My Life - Reveda Bhatt

24th September this year was exciting.

So, it was Saturday, and my colleague, Kunal (with whom I had been talking for about one year), was in Dehradun (where I live) on his School trip. We had been discussing meeting at the NATIONAL OFFICE*, at The English Book Depot, for days.

We fixed the date to meet as 25th. Talking about something on the 24th, we changed our plan to meet that day as they were here in a group! I requested my Mom to drop me off there.

When I reached with my Mom, they all hadn’t arrived, so we went to the back side of the book-shop and into Sir’s office, spoke to him and just a while later, the whole group arrived. After meeting them, my Mom left.

Seeing them all the first time, I hadn’t spoken to any one of them except Kunal. But, that day, meeting them, we all had fun.

Sir bought us coffee and then went somewhere. Later, to discuss work, we both sat at a table nearby.
Soon, it was time for them to leave. We clicked a photograph to keep as a memoir and drove away.

Learning from each other and experiencing new things under such a group with such influential people is what keeps me going on this path of my life that I have chosen! 

Reveda Bhatt
The Aryan School, Dehradun

*The name might sound dramatic, but it is so called because that place is the root which keeps us all connected on a platform even though we, THE STUDENTS OF MY GOOD SCHOOL, are scattered all across India.

The Value Of Integrity - Anvesha Rana

Reading Chapter 18, The Art Of Focus
Honesty Wins
Human Quality: Integrity

Honesty is a value, but integrity is practice.

We can be honest without having integrity, but we can never have integrity without being completely honest. Being truthful to others is honesty and being truthful to yourself is integrity. A lot of people are honest, but hardly a handful possesses integrity. Honesty is visible to others, but integrity is the amount of transparency between the world and us. 

Trust is a vital factor for integrity. If we have confidence and belief in ourselves, we can only do what we deem right, but if we don't trust our instincts, we may end up being wrong. Faith in oneself should be the maximum, and it should be such that even if we are wrong for the entire world, we will still do what we think is right. 

The king gave seeds to everyone for planting, and the one who grew the best plant would be rewarded, but no one had the ingenuity to arrive with an empty pot. None of the people trusted themselves because the prospect of the award made them blind to any sign of failure. Still, only the young boy was truthful, confident, honest and humble enough to accept his defeat and admit that the plant hadn't grown even though he had tried his best. 

We all need to be like the boy. We need to be transparent enough in this world of opaque people, learn to absorb the rays of happiness and hope and let them penetrate through to others, and be solace to others in times of hardship. 

Anvesha Rana, 

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School 

Autobiography Of A Top - Rishona Chopra

Hello there! I am a top, and my life is spinning. I hardly ever stop. My balance is excellent!

I am a top, 
I am as small as a drop.
I spin very fast,
I will leave you aghast! 

I have my own spinny life, you see. I can't see anything correctly. I have two best friends - My Owner and my Floor. My Owner spins me so perfectly that I never fall and always do in on the floor because he knows he is my best friend. But now the only floor is my friend as my Owner lost me and threw me away, left alone wounded.

Now, I am sitting in the park, separated from my friends, and finding a new owner.

Rishona Chopra
Grade 6
Gyanshree School

Why The Mistakes? - Rishona Chopra

Albert Einstien was once teaching a class and said 9x10 = 91, the whole class burst out laughing, and Albert Einstien calmly said, "I said 9 correct answers, but no one appreciated me, but I made one mistake, and you all laughed at me. This means that our society notices the smallest mistakes but never the good things." 

When our teachers make a small mistake like a typo error, don't all students point it out, but most of us don't even thank them when she teaches well. We, humans, practice always pointing out mistakes, and even I do, but we never appreciate things. Look at nature; we never understand its beautiful branches but point out the dry flower. 

In the same way, we all don't notice what we have but see what we don't. We have a family, a home, a school to go to, books, fancy pens, and clothes to wear, but still, we eye the things we don't have. Like a pair of shoes, we don't appreciate that at least we have feet. Have you ever thanked God for giving you a healthy and happy life? Have you felt gratitude for having a beautiful face, hands, and legs? We think it is normal, but it's not. Even giving birth in this world is a blessing. 

Rishona Chopra
Grade 6
Gyanshree School

Makeshift Spinning Top - Ishwar Pratap Singh

 

Hope you enjoy spinning the top! Share your top moment with us, comment below and maybe even share your experience with a लट्टू  (top in Hindi).

Ishwar Pratap Singh
Doon Girls School

Learn To let Go - Reveda Bhatt

Left one moment and then waiting for its return...

neither to your left nor to your right, and boom!

Then realise that it's just the one you've lost during its finding; just like that, you lose another moment in figuring out where the first one is hiding

but in this process, you tend to create a series of lost moments that just keeps binding.

So learn to let go!

Reveda Bhatt
Grade 9
The Aryan School

Act With Humility, Defeat Ego - Rishona Chopra

You love modesty; you hate artificialness. You do your best to be humble. Yet your ego and pride show their strength from time to time. Does this happen? Sometimes we don't realize what our stubborn ego is up to. The problem could be as fundamental as not knowing what ego is. Any image which is not our true identity is ego. It is when we make something we have acquired as our identity.

Our qualification, position, skill, relation, religion or caste - when we make any of these our identity, we play our roles based on this identity. We expect others to behave accordingly to us. Every time you act with humility, your ego gets defeated. 

At the same time, Appreciation for others shows your modesty and humbleness. Instead of thinking about ourselves, we appreciate other person's efforts. Humility and Appreciation build a good relationship between peers, two base values of a healthy classroom. Values like cooperation and respect come in when we have the base of humility ready.

Humility is that rare value that we hardly find in people today. Simple gestures like holding the door for someone else or picking up someone else's belongings show humility. It demonstrates that you do not consider these actions small or petty. Humility is not thinking less about yourself. Instead, it is about thinking of yourself as less. We don't have to stop thinking about ourselves, but we must stop thinking of ourselves as more significant than all because we are equal in many terms. We should treat others the way we wish to be treated. I believe in life, we all need to be humble, and it is the only way to peace, happiness, and success because humility is, after all, the mother of all virtues and beings. It is the supreme power. Humility is essential in the classroom; it teaches us to be able and kind to all around us, our peers and teachers. Rishona Chopra Grade VI Gyanshree School