Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Migration in my family

From my childhood in was in Bangalore. But I have experienced it by moving for one hose to another. I felt really sad to leave my house and move. I moved when I was in 4th grade. I missed my friends. That is when I joined Inventure Academy. I had to leave my puppy too. I was in Indiranagar first. It was the centre of the city. I could go to shopping by walk and there were many restaurants, stores, hospitals, and malls. Once I moved to Sajapur road I missed everything. It was almost the outskirts of Bangalore. I had no friends. It was so boring for my brother and me. We were begging our parents to go back to Indiranagar. As days passed I joined a new school. I felt very lonely in school, for the first three months no one use to talk to me but later I got use to them and became good friends. We stayed in an independent house .We had a lot of space near my house so we had a basketball ground. We also got a new puppy. It was a bulldog. We had a large garden. Every day after we came from school we use to play with my dog in the garden. I also celebrated my birthday in my garden. We had lot of fun.



by Gaana

Migration

My father has a transferable job as he works in a hotel. We hardly stay in one place for three years. I have shifted at least seven schools since the first grade!. The last place I had stayed was in Goa which is a beautiful place and very very hot. Bangalore is also a very nice place, but it is more polluted than Goa, but is much more advanced than Goa. Before Goa, I had stayed in the city of Chennai which I detested whole heartedly because the school was disgusting. It was the one place I was happy to be moving from. Goa was an amazing place, but now that I have moved I am getting used to Bangalore. The good part about moving is that I can learn more about other places, I get to meet many new people and learn a new language or some new cultures and many more things. I have learnt many new sports from my in Bangalore. I miss my best friends in Goa a lot, but my friends in Bangalore are awesome.The school in Bangalore is much nicer than in Goa. There is a lot of traffic in Bangalore and in Goa there is literally no traffic. Goa is a much better place for me as it is fresher and cleaner and better for my asthma. the bad part about shifting is that you miss your close friends a lot and it is hard to leave a beautiful place like Goa, but I am getting used to Bangalore with the help of all my friends and my parents and sister. My best friends from Goa visit me sometimes and play with me for a few days and go back. I would love to go back and live in Goa for a few more years, but I am starting to like Bangalore a lot and want to stay and give Bangalore a shot.



by Nilesh Chatterjee

Migration

The 13-24 spaceship headed towards the Earth, this spaceship was equipped with ammunition. We were ready to acquire another planet under our control. Our next target was Earth, one of the only planets, that we did not possess. We got ready with our guns and our Celestial Bronze armour. After and hour, we were very close to the planet. The Earths gravitation pulled us towards the planet, which increased the speed of our flight. The aerial view of the Earth was beautiful, with stretches of water and land. I was extremely glad we came all this way to acquire this beautiful planet. On arrival, we were disappointed with the filth of the planet. We walked down the streets, and, saw some buildings, which were really dirty. We were shocked with the stench, sludge, sewage, contamination and the state of the planet as compared to ours, which was extremely clean.

We walked into a huge anti-alien looking headquarters, it was filled with monsters. They were all locked in cages, one of them was a monster with four legs and it was orange with black stripes on it. There was a small board which read “tiger” on it. It must have been its name. Meanwhile we also saw other scary monsters like the enormous “elephant” and the monstrous “giraffe”. The humans must be using the monsters to assassinate us!

A jolt ran right through my spine when I thought about how to escape these monsters. We ran to a colosseum, where we saw some flying monsters, with beaks. They flew towards us and started pecking us upon our heads. We ran from the monsters searching for shelter. One of my friends was hit by a the bomb, released by the flying monsters, on his head. It was yellow, watery and it also had a bad smell. It disintegrated my friend Bojo’s head-suddenly, Bojo was headless!!

I dived towards the shelter, and sat there for some time. Some of my friends joined me. We decided to ditch all of out teammates, and instead, save our own lives. When we ran out out of the shelter, we found that all of our friends had been disintegrated, and that we were the next targets. We fearlessly dodged the bombs, and ran towards the spaceship. Our pilot told us to hurry and get into the spaceship before we were killed by any other monster. We ran towards the spaceship and fled to our planet


by Tanish Kharab

Migration in My Family

Change is never good or bad, you just have to look at it like a glass which is half- full!
My mother lived in a sweet little home nestled in a quiet Mumbai suburb. It didn’t last for very long as her father received a job offer of big proportions.
She was flown all the way to a whole new continent! For the first time, she saw people of a different nationality and was exposed to a totally new culture.
A big, helpful Punjabi lived in the only, neighbouring house,helping them to get accustomed to the customs and folk of Moshi. She learnt “Swahili”, the
local language so that she could converse with people fluently. The locals found joy in dancing, listening to and even making music while working!
Time flew and her father joined another Tanzanian corporate.Yearly visits to her grandparents in Chennai, caused tears to well in her eyes, each time
so she migrated back. Living in Africa her whole life made it hard to trace back to her Tamilian roots. Moving all her life had its plus points though.
She met so many amazing people, was introduced to unique cultures and learnt to be open-minded! By then, a migrating champ, she moved to USA.
She currently resides very happily with her loving family in Bangalore.A great person once said that life is like a road. When it seems like you’ve reached
the end, it’s just a bend! Migration is a part of her, and will always remain a part of her soul, forever!



by Anusha Ramji 7B

Migration

Migration….

Something which has happened in my family…. 6 times…

I was born in Gwalior (A place in Madhya Pradesh of India) and lived there for three years. Then I moved to Chennai (Another place in India). When I left Gwalior and” Migrated” all the way to Chennai, I cried. Despite the fact that I was small and had no idea on what was happening, I still cried! Then after two years, yet again, I had to move from Chennai to Kolkata (And yet again another place in India!). This time I quiet understood what is happening around me. But still this was something I had no control of… Kolkata was a place in which my whole family found really hard to adjust in. The reason was only and only then people. Kolkata was a place which taught me loads of lessons in life. By loads I mean loads.

How to tackle people, how to stand up in a crowd, to be who you are no matter what holds you back. Emmm……..

All good things must come to an end… And my family was taken aback when, the news came out that, we had now to move to Dubai….

That was the first time I left India and went abroad. I never wanted to move outside India. I used to be scared at first to even go to school! But then everything took its own place over a period of time… Dubai was the place I learnt to live life!!!

Learnt to live every moment of the life I lived!

God…

And there you go again! My life for instance was just that like of a “fly’s”. I kept flying around from one place to another, and another, and yet another!

The after exactly one and a half years of living life in Dubai, I yet again got transferred to Oman. Oman was a peaceful country. Taught ME how to live in peace and harmony. Well that was a lesson I well learnt in living there, I mean what else can u learn in a place like… well let’s just move on as it is getting confusing for me to emphasize more on the “peace” thing!!

And so, moving on…. Emmm….. Where was I? Yes, the whole peace thing.

Two years was the time I spent in Oman. And for those who think how cum there is no “twist in the tale” then here it goes! My dad suddenly comes with this news that… We are moving! Not what I quiet expected, although what I should is yet again… just follow!

And now we are currently in Bangalore (back to a city in India!) and next I am moving to this place called Kuwait (it’s a gulf country somewhere towards the east I suppose).

Every place I have migrated to has only and only taught me more and more lessons in life. Guess that was what life had in store for me. My parents always say that, when one door opens, the other door always closes. Ooops!!! Messed up! I came to say that when one door closes the other door opens! I also know that a lot of people actually day that too! Life always has it, its way. “Destiny” they call it is something which works side by side to this dear life. I guess there is still a lot more of “Migration” to happen in the future……………

Migration

I remember only part of the day we left. At school everyone signed or wrote something to me on a piece of paper- something to remember them by. My best friend, Kunal, gave me his most precious pack of cards. At home, almost every room was empty. Everything we owned that wasn’t nailed to the ground was packed up- in fact some things that were nailed to the ground were packed to- and loaded into a truck. This had been going on for 2 months.

But now everything was done.

There was a plane to catch.

I packed up my things.

We left…

I am not sure whether I cried or was anxious, scared, happy… I was six. One (or two) of the most important days of my life and I don’t remember much of them. I do remember the flight was long and tiring, but the planes had one of those consoles to play with, and I was kept busy. When we reached Bangalore, we stayed at my uncle’s house for a week. It was nice, at first. We then moved in to our new house with our few belongings, made new friends, and coped until the rest of our things came- our furniture, computer, clothes, books, Lego sets (for me), everything. When you move, it’s like god says “You live here now. Deal with it.” And so I did. And so I still do.

The first year was great. I remember loving it here. At age 7, all I saw were the good things about India. The prospect of living in a place with so many kids your age, having so many friends to play with just a block away… I had never experienced that before. I went to a nice international school, a 45 minute drive away, and life was good.

In my second and third years, things got bad. I’d been pretty darn smart, and my parents found the school not challenging or something (its true, Im not bragging) and I was put into a real rowdy school called Shisu Griha, and it was hell. It was rough, for one thing, and I was singled out at first. I was basically some high-class nerd, dropped into the school. I was picked on a lot. I was car-pooling with this huge bully, who contributed to the whole “hell” idea. My kannada teacher was a monster, as were 2-3 other teachers too. 5th grade, my 4th year in India eased up a bit; in fact it got much better.

For the past 2 years I’ve been in Inventure, and now I’m reliving the first year. I’ve made lots of friends, and whether we get along or not don’t matter. I’m happy here, and look forward to staying for at least another year.


Migration in my family

Inventure Academy

Etched in our memory are our childhood, culture, food, family, friends, society and surroundings. Relocating to a new country implies leaving behind all these factors. Here I examine my own family to unravel the migratory occurrences.

My grandpa was the first person in my family to go to Africa looking for greener pastures in the 1950’s. Leaving the comfortable environs of his small town in India, and moving to a big city in Tanzania was overwhelming. He had no support of friends or family. People looked different, food tasted insipid, language was a barrier and the culture was alien. But he didn’t give up. His excellent English impressed the British so much that he was employed by them for 20 years. After his retirement he toured the European countries and North America to experience the diversity of human race. He then came back to his homeland.

My father’s voyage from Mysore to Minnesota was in the 1990’s, when there were multitudes of youngsters migrating to USA in search of a better life. The glitz and glamour of the city excited him immensely. In the land of opportunities, many dreams came true of owning a home, driving swanky cars and living a good life. I was born there in 1998. Despite the assimilation and new connections made in USA, my parents didn’t feel a sense of belonging in a foreign land. They missed the simplicity of Mysore and their family connections that somehow validated their existence.

Amidst all the allure of America, the Starbuck’s coffee couldn’t replace the Mysore filter coffee. We remembered nostalgically the delightful remnants of our identity. The song of cuckoo bird started ringing fondly in our sub consciousness, the smell of curries and the multihued life of India started beckoning us back. We relocated to Bangalore, India again in 2003 to be with family. After all, there is no place like home!!






by Varun Biddanda (13)

This is a story about my family’s journey across continents.

My father was 28 years when he went alone to the USA to pursue higher degree. My grandfather did not have enough money to send him abroad, but he had a house that he decided to mortgage, reluctantly. My father was under tremendous pressure to pay back the loan. If he could not repay the loan, then, his house in India, where everybody lived, would be gone. So, as he was flying to USA, tears were rolling down his eyes. It was the first time he was flying. He had mixed emotions. He had no relatives or friends in the USA, so it would be hard.


In USA, he was pleasantly surprised. He saw all posh stuff and was captivated. He went to his apartment in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He had 3 roommates. Luckily they were all Indians. To save money, they used to cook food at home. After his college he would go to a part time job and earn money to pay part of the loan off.


Then after 2 years, he came to India for a visit, and to get married!! And… he got married to my mom. All this happened in a rush. 10 days after their engagement, they got married. So they hardly knew each other. After the wedding, my father went back to USA and later my mother joined him. It was her first time flying too, and she was scared. She had a hard time with English accent. She had a tough time adjusting to the culture there. During these times, there were many hilarious moments when learning American way of living. My mom, in the beginning, used to get bored, and go through the yellow pages to find people to talk to. Shortly after, she joined university. She took a part time job to pay for her fees. Both my mom and dad lived on bare rice and bread, managed on garage sale clothes and paid the loan back.




After sometime, my father took up a secured job and settled down. They got a car. My mom graduated and got a job in the software field. Then my older brother was born in 1996 and they bought another car then. 3 years later, I was born in 1998. That’s when my parents bought their first home.

My first six years were in USA. We sold our oldest car and got a bigger car. I had finished my kindergarten. My mom had worked for 10 years. My brother was 9 years old. That’s when my father’s company moved out their office to west coast. He had choice to move from Houston, Texas to either California or Pune, India. He badly wanted to come back to India. He wanted us to be in touch with our relatives. He wanted us to have the Indian culture. So he decided to shift to Bangalore, India.


We sold all our stuff and packed the essential ones. My mother, brother and I came to India first. My father sold our house and came to India a little later. He got a job in a company called Netapp (Network applications). My brother and I joined Indus International School. It was oblivious! My mother was upset with the education system in India.

In the beginning, we would see her every day in the school complaining to the principal, literally about everything – food, transport, teachers, homework, uniform, and what not? We had a hard time adjusting to non-punctuality and the maids.

One time, the maid had taken 5 rupees, which my mother had put in my father’s pocket to purposefully test her. Luckily I saw her doing that when I got up, so we could tell her not to do that and kind of give her a warning. The dusty roads and the garbage all around was another thing to get used to. Meanwhile my father was having difficulty in his office, all the co-workers and the managing process.


We lived in an apartment; however, my mother felt we needed to stay closer to school. We found a new house. When we went there, we had a big lawn and it was peaceful. It was a 2 story house. For Diwali all my relatives got together and we had a big party. Slowly, she got in touch with a person called Dr. Karajagi. He was a teacher, and used to conduct training. My mother became part of their institution and started doing free-lance training. Her flex hours allowed her to stay home to look after us most of the time.

Dr. Karajagi was starting a school. My parents thought that it was good for us to move into a mainstream school. So we moved yet again, from southeast Bangalore to North Bangalore – Oh! What a migration within Bangalore. For the first few days my mother and father went around to find the house, and then finally found a house where the owner used to stay on the ground floor and then we stayed on the first floor. They were really nice.


I completed my 5th grade and my brother, Akshay, his 7th in this new school. The school was called Vyasa International School. My mother also worked in the school for one year. Unbelievable, but true, there were only 9 children in the whole school.

My father changed his job to work for an NGO called Arghyam, which helps save water. My mother then took a job with a company called Istar. Akshay was then very interested in cricket. He also went for the state selections, but they did not give him a chance because we had to give them bribes. The school became a total flop. Akshay was in 8th, and it was not going well. His teachers were not good, except some. My mom thought of changing him because this school would not benefit him in any way. So, my mom hunted for other schools. She came across INVENTURE ACADEMY. She asked my brother whether he wanted to change schools.

In Indus, he was good at football, and he wanted to play football again. He felt that Inventure would give him this opportunity. He was keen on changing. Plus, many of his Indus friends were already in Inventure. He has difficult period in the beginning. Now he is on par with his class and is doing well in his tests. I joined 7th grade. I had hard time making friends and adjusting to the culture. I got used to it, and now I have really nice friends.


My father changed his company again to Merittrac. My mom works in a software training centre called ISQT. My mom is no more a complainer of schools. She has realized that all schools have flaws, so instead of complaining about it, appreciate how better it is than other schools. Now she is happy with Inventure. She is okay with all other irritations that exist in our society but she loves the warmth of our relatives. So, do we. We love being in India.





by Nikhita Kulkarni.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Essay: Migration in my family

For generations, my family lived in India. My father’s parents and siblings in Delhi and my mother’s parents and siblings in Bangalore. Until I was two. We had settled down to a simple life in Bangalore, the three of us in a cosy family. When my father told us that we had to move to England because he was transferred there, we thought he was speaking a foreign tongue, because the idea was so strange for us. My mother had lived in Karnataka all her life and the furthest she had travelled was Delhi, to meet my father’s family, while I had stayed within the borders of the southern half all my two years!

But we went, nevertheless, to England…another dimension, it seemed, for us. When we reached, we felt like we were in another world. Everything was so different. The people made us feel out of place, the shops had us in awe, the cleanliness had us blown away.

It was seven years when we finally decided to come back to India. Everything was so different from what we were used to in England. The streets were dirty. Shops sold cheap quality products, the people were vulgar and manner less. I didn’t think I would like living here at all!

But one month into my new lifestyle, I realized something. India had something that no other country had. India gave a feeling of belonging, an atmosphere to show that you had a home, no matter which country you were from, China, America, England…

In India, people care for you, no matter how proud you are, or how rude you are. They will love you for who you are….

England was a wonderful place to live in…but if it was up to me, I would have never migrated there…Home is where the heart is, they say. My heart is in India.

By Deeksha Verender, Grade 7B.

Essay: Migration in my family

There has been a great deal of migration in my family. The migration is both in my direct family and my parent’s family. My family migrated to different cities, states and countries. This is a short piece on my family’s migrations. Their struggles their learning and their gains.

My great grandfather and his family used to live in Lahore. This was the time before the partition of India into Pakistan and India. They were told to move to India as only Muslims were allowed to live in Pakistan and the Hindu and other religions were told to move to India. In India they moved to Luckhnow for 10 years. During this period of 10 years he started The Central Drug Research Institute. Sometime after starting this Research facility they moved to Varanasi. They lived in Varanasi for 5 years.

From Varanasi they shifted to Hyderabad. They shifted their and have been living there for the past 35 years. Hyderabad is where they currently live along with my cousins and their families in Hyderabad. I visit them in my vacations. I visit Hyderabad to meet my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

In the meanwhile my father used to live in Calcutta; he stayed there for 30 years of his life. Then he moved to Hyderabad for 3 years. At the time my mom was in Hyderabad for 30 years. After which my parents and I moved to Singapore for 1 year. From Singapore we returned to India. We stayed in Chennai for 1 year before shifting to Noida. We stayed in Noida for 2 years.

Bangalore was our next shift after Noida we have been in Bangalore for the past 7 years and now it has become my home. There were shifts within Bangalore too. I used to live in Prestige Greenwood, C.V Raman Nagar. From there I shifted to Knightsbridge Apartment, Brookfield. I have even had migrations of schools in Bangalore like first I used to study in Ryan International, from Ryan I shifted to my present school Inventure Academy.

That was the story of my family and my migration.

by Siddharth

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Theatre & Music Camp


For all of you who asked about Summer Camp, here you are!
And for all of you who complained about Cookie Sir not playing guitar the other day, 
he'll be taking Master Classes and One-on-Ones at Camp.
Plus, there'll be music jams every night.
Plus, water balloon fights to cool off
Plus, apple crumble and pasta for all
Plus, all the theatre magic we can pack into 3 days!

Click on the Theatre Lab link below for more info

David's Pictures: A day in our lives at Nrityagram

For all of you interested in theatre and acting, here is what our day at Nrityagram looks like.


This is the Kathak Gurukul in which we began our rehearsals. We've now moved to the Odissi Gurukul.


This is the original sign marking Nrityagram. Protima Gauri, the founder of Nrityagram, would stand here, dressed in a white sari with flowers in her hair and welcome the audience for Vasantahabba.



Here is Sophia, leading the team in an early morning run.


Kathak Gurukul


Starting work on the storyteller's line


Biomechanics


Sculpting Naz's character


Lunch at the dining hall


The lady in blue is Surupa Sen, an extraordinary Odissi dancer. Surupa and fellow dancer extraordinaire Bijoyini Satpathy, make Nrityagram precious



Kirtana, teaching the actors Biomechanics as she was in turn taught by Josefina Baez.


One night, there was no light, but hurricane lanterns made a beautiful picture.



Thursday, March 3, 2011

Finding characters

finding the characters
A working method we have used to find the movements and gestures and facial expressions of the  characters in the play, is a "statue" exercise. Especially for Nikolai, who has about 8 characters in the play with only a few lines for each, this method is very useful. We first read the scene and gather all the factual information that is given about the character. Then we discuss the character and interpret his/ her actions and motivations. Then the actor playing the charatcer is put on a platform and all the others can "form" him or her, move him into different positions, change his costume. Then the actor says what he liked and how he felt and starts moving around with the body positions and gestures given to him.
Today we worked on Nikolai and the shephard. Have a look:


Wednesday, March 2, 2011

More Surprise Prizes!

OK, so the Great Gummi Bear Challenge was won by Group 1 from Grade 7 and Group 4 from Grade 9. Strangely there were only two kids present from Group 4 and one of them was called ISHAN aka BRIJESH aka ROSALYN, so....I dunno, I dunno...hmmm. I can only assume that 700 gummi bears were divided by 2 and consumed on the long drive back home from Nrityagram to Inventure Academy.

The essays have been coming in from Grade 7 (Bangalore) and rumour has it that the prize is steadily growing in size so Grade 9, step up

News from Camp Nrityagram? David Benito Garcia has gone on an investigative expedition of Bangalore by night, Simone and Coordt witnessed a film shoot near Adarsh Film Institute, Nikolai... (oh, where is Nikolai?) and The Indian gang are off to Chennai to get their German visas.

Signing off, folks, it's time for bed. We start training at 7 am tomorrow. Night, night :)