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Taking Art and Teamwork to a level beyond compare: Art@Heart

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Following Militvaa , one of the best initiatives I have ever been part of, a year back, I had a chance to participate in an other initiative working for the same cause,  Art@ Heart . Art@Heart is another brainchild of Kaustav uncle and Lily aunty who head the InkLink Charitable Trust. After we made the whooping profit of rupees One lakh Five thousand to help the children from Kannagi Nagar, InkLink hit upon an amazing idea. Instead of using the full profit, they took a fourth of it and invested the money into buying art supplies and materials. The materials were then given to us and the children from Kannagi Nagar to create works of art. These artworks would then be sold in an exhibition, thus giving us more money. The purpose of Art@Heart was to not only make more profits, but for us to learn a new skill as well as to collaborate and make friends with the children from Kannagi Nagar. Every Sunday at 9:00 a.m, my classmates and I would meet at school. The children from the ot...

Bharatham - The Complete Movie

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In this blog, I am going to be writing on my most favourite Malayalam movie, Bharatham . Released in 1991, this musical drama is directed by Sibi Malayil. The plot is about two brothers, Raman(Nedumudi Venu) and Gopi(Mohanlal) who are classical singers. As Raman was senior to Gopi by many years, he taught Gopi to sing from when Gopi was a child; and both were excellent singers with Gopi accompanying Raman on his highly successful concerts. They were also part of a happy family with a deep musical heritage. But then Raman started becoming an alcoholic. He began singing in concerts in an inebriated state until in one such concert, he lost his voice completely. Seeing the crowd's displeasure and the humiliation afflicted on them, Gopi, who had been under his brother's shadow till now, came to the fore and sung breathtakingly in the concert, leading the newspapers to write smashing reviews about his style of singing. Meanwhile, Raman, who misunderstood Gopi's intentions...

Trip to Moriumius, Oshika and Kinkasan - Day 4

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The sounds of the flora and fauna aroused me from my deep sleep as I woke up on the fourth and final day of my school residential trip to Moriumius , Oshika and Kinkasan .  Following an amazing starry night in a tent, we ran helter-skelter in packing our suit-cases, getting ready for the day, and happily munching on a mouth full of breakfast!! After we finally sorted ourselves, we boarded our bus and drove to our activities site in the Oshika area where I learnt that we were going to learn how to decipher maps and compasses!  Using the same groups that we were put into in day 3, we were first given a map with each team having a different trail(route) to follow. The map contained different symbols to represent the landmarks alongside the trail and it was our job to figure them out. Highly enthusiastic about our map skills, we started our walk, only to realise fifteen minutes later, that we had gone the wrong way!! Though we were exasperated with ourselves, a quick...

Trip to Moriumius, Oshika and Kinkasan - Day 3

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  In this blog, I am going to be writing on the third day of my school residential trip to Moriumius, Oshika and Kinkasan. After an amazing two days at Moriumius, we rose up early in the morning and bed a fond farewell to the Moriumius staff and thanked them for the wonderful time we had there. Half-dragging, half-lifting our suitcases behind us, we somehow managed to hop onto our buses and headed out to our next destination, Kinkasan !!. In our three hour drive from Moriumius to Kinkasan, we passed through many mountains situated right next to the sparkling coastline. These mountains contain a variety of flora and fauna. As I casually glanced out of the window, I gasped in awe as I saw a spotted deer with huge antlers running away from us. Though I was sad that the deer did not come any closer, little did I know that I was in for a treat later on in the day.  Kinkasan is a small mountainous island off the coast of Japan. In Japanese, Kinkasan means " The Gold...

Trip to Moriumius, Oshika and Kinkasan - Day 2

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Belinda the Goat The rooster crowed as I slowly stretched my way to wakefulness. It was five in the morning, and I was looking forward to my second day in my school residential trip to Moriumius, Oshika and Kinkasan after an amazing first one (Check out the link!!).  A chilly breeze blew alongside us as we commenced our first activity  for the day, cleaning . It was a wholehearted experience as we used brooms and mops to make the activities centre squeaky clean. Whilst cleaning, we spotted Belinda the goat , who was to my surprise, gigantic !! As she slowly made her way around chewing both grass and cud, we could see an expression of peace and contentment on her face, even allowing us to touch and pat her. After a hearty and sumptuous breakfast made by the Moriumius staff, we grabbed our jackets and towels and headed out to do kayaking in the sea!! I was  very excited as, though I had done kayaking before, this was the first time I was going to do...

Trip to Moriumius, Oshika and Kinkasan - Day 1

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The month of september was a very busy one for me. My sincere apologies for the delay in posting the blog. I had commenced my new school after a five month break; and in the space of four weeks, I have taken part in many activities, the highlight of them being my week long trip to  Moriumiu s , Oshika and Kinkasan . In this series of four blogs, I will be writing on my experience of my first residential trip in Japan. In my school, each residential trip has a unique theme. Each trip focuses on its theme but brings light to it in a fun way. This time the focus of my residential was giving back to the nature . Moriumius, Oshika and Kinkasan are all situ ated in Miyagi prefecture, which is high up in the north of Japan. These places are situated in the area where the 2011 Tohuku Tsunami unleashed its fury. As a class, we were to start our trip on Tuesday and reach back home on Friday. As I am a new student in my school, I did not know what to expect out of this jaunt a...

Splashing and Spluttering: Experiencing White Water Rafting😃

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  In this blog, I am going to write on one of my favourite outdoor activities, " White   Water Rafting". White water rafting takes place on a river which has fast flowing water(rapids) and huge rocks. Sitting on a raft with  each person holding  an paddle, we have to navigate our way through the rocks and occasionally, have to steer away from a mini whirlpool!! As each raft consists about six people and a guide, team-work and alertness is need for safely paddling to the end point. When my parents broke out the news that they had booked White Water Rafting for the three of us, I was overjoyed as I had heard how fun and amazing it is. We were going to raft on the  Tama river  in a town named Mitake in the Chichibu area. Mitake is located on the west of the Tokyo Prefecture and is two and a half hours away from my home. We commenced our journey early in the morning and reached Mitake station at 9 am. As we were walking towards our rafting point, we h...