Meeting of minds at city school fest

Kolkata: A host of city schools participated in 'Milaap', Lakshmipat Singhania Academy's 11th Annual SPICMACAY, Kolkata Chapter fest, on June 17 and 18. The 20 schools included the Apeejay Schools, BDM International, Mahadevi Birla World Academy, Ashok Hall, GD Birla Centre for Education, Sri Sri Academy, St Thomas's Day School, Mahadevi Birla Sishu Vihar, Gokhale Memorial and Future Campus.
The inauguration ceremony of lighting the lamp was accompanied by a welcome speech by principal Meena Kak, emphasizing on India's rich culture that India, followed by a short presentation on SPICMACAY and a Bharatnatyam recital. Chief guests Goutam De, director of ICCR, and Odissi dancer Dona Ganguly emphasized upon the importance of inculcating culture among the youth. De said: "It is sad that children nowadays have no interest in art and culture. It is my humble request to parents to instil a sense of culture in their children."
This was followed by a solo classical dance competition and a vocal music competition. Other on-stage events included story-telling, puppetry, heritage quiz, concert and a folk dance representing the various traditional dances of India. Off-stage events included cardboard craft, pot decoration, wealth from waste, quilling/crochet, jute craft, mask making, tattoo designing, glass painting, flower making, paper folding, alpana drawing and yoga among others.
The chief guest on the second day executive director of Sangeet Research Academy Ravi Srinivasan. Musical and dance performances, along with a regional costume presentation and street theatre, were few of the on-stage events, while off-stage events included salad making, file-cover making, petal and fern arrangement, hair styling, mehendi, sketching and rangoli.
While the principal stressed on "Be Indian, Buy Indian", physical education instructor of LSA Arnab Bhattacharjee felt that appreciating western culture should never come at the cost of forgetting or ignoring our own.