Aug 2

All the world’s a stage,
and all men and women merely players.

—As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7
Shakespeare was generous enough to call the world a stage, but 193 students from 16 branches of City Montessori School(CMS) made CMS Gomti Nagar Auditorium the stage for the fourth session of the Sunday Seminar on August 2. They filled in the attendance sheets with the help of Mrs Sangeeta Negi, Assistant Coordinator, Sunday Seminar. Things began happening when Mr Raza Hasnain Naqvi, Chief Coordinator, Sunday Seminar, began with important instructions. Those not in proper uniform were made to sit in the row of chairs arranged at the back of the auditorium.

The auditorium echoed with French songs while all this was in progress. Rashshad Rasheed, Class IX-A, CMS Rajajipuram Campus-III volunteered to coordinate the PowerPoint presentation, Mother Earth, by Dr Preeti Shankar, Editor, World Unity Education Department. The presentation emphasized on the feminine features of the earth as a planet. The earth is facing a lot of problems like environmental degradation, air pollution, water pollution, overexploitation of resources, and natural disasters caused by human activities. The only viable solution to all these is proper divine and material education of the masses. This would contribute to saving the earth from further destruction. We ought to think of the earth as our mother, only then can we save the earth from eminent destruction. The presentation ended when everyone ended with everyone asked to write a paragraph on what one would want mother earth to be like.

Among other things, a challenge was put forth before the students to perform a skit on a theme on the next Sunday Seminar, an English song singing competition is also on the cards on August 9, while the students greeted the idea of a Super Singers Club with great enthusiasm. Mr Raza stage-managed the show as he elaborated on the virtues of the mike, which he called his best friend. The three qualities that the mike is supposed to have are strength, helpfulness, and confidence giving. The mike seems to love the three words ‘close, clear and slow’. It requires the speaker to speak clearly and slowly while holding the mike close to the mouth. The presentation concluded when Vobhor Bahadur, Class VIE, CMS Gomti Nagar Campus and Satyansh Sharma, VII A, CMS Aliganj Campus II were instructed to run to the end of the hall and utter their favourite sentences in the mike.

Ayushi Kapoor, Class XIF, CMS Aliganj Campus I, Neha Singh, Class XID, CMS Aliganj Campus I, and Naveen Mittal, Class XIA, CMS Aliganj Campus I were appointed as the judges of the extempore speech competition, while Vishal Raghuvanshi, Class IXA, CMS Rajendra Nagar Campus III and Saima Fatima, Class VIIB, CMS Aliganj (OB) Campus were appointed to keep track of the time taken by each speaker. Ashutosh Pathak, Class IXB, CMS Rajendra Nagar Campus III was to maintain the record of the 19 participants.

The participants had a tough competition among themselves as they picked up slips declaring the topics on which they were to speak. The topics varied from honesty, friendship, deforestation, wars and flattery. Mr Praveen Srivastava, Coordinator, CMS Mahanagar Campus I was chosen to give away the prizes. The first prize was bagged by Mariyam Zaidi, Class IXB, CMS Chowk Campus for speaking on_______. Sajjal Singh, IXD, CMS Gomtinagar Campus was awarded the second prize for speaking on_________. Kshitij Jaiswal, Class IXA, CMS Kanpur Road Campus walked away with the third prize.

Sunday Giveaway was another give and take among the students. A number of stensils were brought by Mr Raza to be given away. Neeraj Kumar, Class VIIA, CMS Aliganj Campus II, Saima Fatima, Class VIIB, CMS Aliganj Campus I, and Vipul Srivastava, Class IXA, CMS­­­______Campus were the lucky ones to get the stencils. Prashant, IXB, CMS Chowk Campus, Atul Yadav, VIIIA, CMS RDSO Campus and Haroon, CMS Chowk Campus were lucky enough to get the artistic pens. The pool of names was again resorted to for the recipient of the small fish. Kiran Maurya, Class VIIIC, CMS Mahanagar Campus I was the lucky one.

A few pieces of chalks were shown to the students with some artistic design by Mr Raza. He challenged them to do the same on pieces of chalks. The vote of thanks was delivered by Ms Priyanka Bharadvaj, WUED.

(Reports filed by Mr Faisal Zafar Ansari, Creative Writer, WUPED)