What an Interest!

This is a story about the Archery Workshop that took place at our school:

            After the Commonwealth Games recently held in Delhi, my mind, as with many others, found a new interest in archery. The idea of archery had long since exhilarated me, since I learned about Arjun’s precision with bow and arrow and until the recent use of them in AVATAR. I felt that I too should be given the privilege to learn this magnificent art.

            As if the teachers could read my mind, they set up an Archery workshop in out VIVA at Pune. They must have known that feelings for Archery would lift up because of the impressive performance on the Indians in the games. At the same time, I knew this opportunity was too great to miss. I leapt at it, ignoring what at that time seemed like a slightly high cost (Rs. 600) just to grant myself another path to journey on and master. It may have just been another outlandish idea to prove to my brother that I knew something he didn’t; but, all the same, I was very hopeful.

            Just one week later, I felt myself wallowing in self-pity. Most people around me were generating negative impulses; telling me that Archery will be a rip-off and it would be just a scheme to gain more money. They told me I would be using small, plastic bows to shoot equally small arrows into cheap targets. With so many negative beliefs around me, my mind finally decided that they must be right. I immediately plunged into the corrupting pool of self-pity and I was sure that I would have the worst time of my life on the 17, 18, and 19 of January. My only consolation was that a few of my friends would have to suffer with me, and, therefore, I would have some company. For each of the 112 people who opted for Archery, I had immense pity.

A Window of Oppurtunity

How can a competition at school change a life? Well, this is what happened to me:

“Never miss an opportunity; it won’t come again.” I had this firmly kept in mind as I raced up the stairs to the SPA room on the second floor of our school. Archery had been running late; we had been so engrossed in the activity that I had been practicing over time. And that was bad since I had a competition right when it ended.

           Vibgyor Viva's Ad Mad World. Another competition in an enthusiastic extravaganza. But not just any competition. One that had acting, writing, and laughs mixed into one composite solution. I was really looking forward to it, since I love acting. If I hadn’t gone, I would “miss an opportunity” and that would change my life- but how I was still yet to find out.

            My arrival at the room was overflowed with a gloomy faced torrent of shock, anger, and betrayal. One of my team mates was in the Basketball team, and his match was running late, so he wouldn’t be able to come. If that’s not enough, my other team mate left for a reason that only God knows. I was forced to sit in a corner, waiting for some team to let me join the group. One major obstacle was that each group could only have three people; and since most of them already did, I was lost, feeling very much groupless.

            It was plainly my luck that one team was missing a person, and I filled in the gap. Although the other two people were girls from Vikhe Patil School, I was grateful to God that he had given me an opportunity to attempt to win the competition. The first round was identifying the slogan of certain companies. We were given a paper and a sheet and we were told to match the columns.

            As I sat with those two girls, I reminded myself that not participating would be something they would expect me to do. Then I would seem unimportant and the group would fall in ruins. I decided that, since I like performing the unexpected, I should leap right in. The round was rather easy and we flowed through. The next round, however, proved to be quite a tough one. The teachers played about half of an advertisement, and we had to guess the name of the company. That was quite a stumper, but we managed to get most of them correct. The third round was my favourite.

            I mentioned before that I love acting, and this was the part that actually involved it. A group had to make a jingle, or a song, to back up a product that they were representing. My team, Group Five, was given the topic “Vanishing Cream.” I thought of the idea for the skit while one girl created the poster and the other created the Jingle.

Just In Time

This is a story about the Chilean Miners......

                I shouldn’t have been there.

                I should have been playing with my daughter. Watching movies. Be running in the sun, frolicking in the rain, camping in the moon. Meeting friends, joking at restaurants, laughing with my parents. Running, jumping, swimming. Laughing, loving, lying.

                I should have been doing all of these.

                But I couldn’t.

                Because of the cave-in of the mine.

                We had been good-naturedly ambling towards the entrance, joking with a light heart and a skip in our step when a sudden roar blasted through the air. Confused, we immediately surveyed the situation. It was not clear that we were in trouble until one of the miners went scouting ahead to analyze our condition and location. Although he returned unhurt, he proved to be the transporter of ill news.

                Our shock and despair upon hearing of the cave-in three miles from our position was tremendous. Many hardy miners fell to their knees crying for their parents and children, and then praying that they should remain alive and unhurt. Around these men, I stood unaffected. It seemed like I was stoic; however, the turmoil inside me was raging far more fiercely than that of many men around me.

                My mind had raced through any possibilities of escape. The mine entrance had been blocked by enormous boulders that would require a hundred men to shift, but our strength lay at only 33. I willed myself to think as I had never done before, scanning each idea and selecting the most practical of them all. The hot and humid air sent my sweat pouring on my skin, and my mind grew fuzzy and sleepy. When I was nearly struck down by fatigue, my mind had a brainwave.

                A ventilator shaft provided us oxygen inside the mine. If it could be broken into, we could escape…

Obese Fatty vs. Bighead

Here is a rather humorous story that I made.......

 

Golden rays of sunshine broke through the ranks of clouds overhead in Paris. The day seemed rather jubilant: birds flew around chirping loudly, cats meowed on the streets, people drank cappuccinos at a nearby café: Le Marche Du Lait.

                Wait. Did I forget something?  I have the feeling that I did. Oh yeah.

                The Eiffel Tower was about to fall on the café.

                Literally.

                There it seemed to hang, three meters from the roof, as time froze.

                Play.

                Men, Women, and rats ran, screaming (and squeaking) in terror. The birds’ chirps changes to warning cries. The cats’ meows turned to howls of pain.

                And amongst this terror stood a huge, enormous, bulbous……

                Boulder.

                Hang on a second. That doesn’t make sense.  How in the name of the headless horseman can a boulder be fat?

                Now I remember.

                And amongst this terror stood a huge, enormous,  bulbous……

                Human. (who was so fat he looked like a boulder)

                His mouth gaped to commence one of his primeval roars that struck fear into the citizens hearts. But he never roared. He shoved doughnuts into his mouth.

                In case you’re wondering, this freakish person-type of thing was called the Obese Fatty. Incredible in size, his main attribute was the fact that he could crush water if he wanted to. Now this guy had heard a rumor from his minions that there was another monster that challenged him to a fight in the Sahara Desert.

                He snorted. Puny little weaklings. Couldn’t even stand a black cat. Even God couldn’t save them. His incredibly large foot hit the ground as he stepped forward.  Flab shook from head to toe, generating winds that scored 14 on the Beaufort scale.

                The death of his enemy had just begun.