Magic moments

SHOBA RAO

"I've had a very long association with The Hindu..." said Mr. Anil Kumble, the Chief Guest of the two-day Young World Fest 2000, held recently at the Guru Nanak Bhavan in Bangalore. The function was to mark the completion of ten years of Young World. It was the culmination of a three-month-long inter-school literary and cultural festival organised for North, South and Central zones. The dancer and model Ms. Lakshmi Gopalaswami presided.

Prakruti Hoskare gave a dance performance for the invocation. The array of events took off with the finals of the debate. The stage boomed with the opinions of children. The winners were Ashwini and Somashekar from M.E.S. Kishore Kendra and the runners up were Shruthi and Rohini from Sri Aurobindo Memorial School (CBSE).

At the auxiliary stage, where the sketching and creative writing were on, children were engrossed in bringing out their best. The juniors and seniors for the sketching competition numbered over 1,000 and they impressively drew pictures for the topics "River bank" (juniors) and "Nuclear holocaust" (seniors). The creative writing event saw both the juniors and seniors giving their ideas on the "Role of Newspapers in our daily lives". The children had a choice to write in Kannada, Hindi or English.

Lightening the charged atmosphere of the competition, the children from Asha Kiran Special Needs School, put up a lively skit titled "Everyone can do something". The much-awaited competition - quiz finals (junior) - had the children all set to take on questions by the quizmaster. The audience too had a great time winning gift vouchers and caps. There were also prizes for "Best Cheering Team". After six interesting rounds, the Bishop Cotton Girls School emerged winners with Sri Aurobindo Memorial School, not far behind.

The dumb charades saw a lot of excitement with children trying out "dumb" actions. Perfect understanding between the actor and the ones who guessed the correct words or answers saw Poorna Pragna High School walk off with the prize. A six-year-old magician Karun Krishna had the children enthralled with his tricks.

The next day saw yet another round of competitions. Innovative events like "News flash" and "Cartooning" had the children expressing themselves with maturity and intelligence.

Nikhil Chinnappa, the popular MTV VJ was also present to share a few thoughts with the children.

In the junior quiz the first prize went to National Public School, Rajajinagar represented by Bharath and Kiran.

The grand finale was the fusion dance and 40 schools displayed their dancing skills. The Oxford S. S. School (CBSE) won the first place.

Then, it was time for prizes and more prizes. The stage was set to receive Her Excellency, Smt. Rama Devi, the Governor of Karnataka. Also on the dais was Smt. Rani Satish, the Hon. Minister for Kanada and Culture. The Governor was happy that children were given a platform to display their talent. "You are the future, more than anything else, be a good human being," she said to them. The event was managed by "Activity".

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