Current Events at Sishya

First Term,1996

January 17,1996 : School reopens for a new year. Some staff changes- Mrs. Leela Mathew - (9/10std English teacher) and Mrs.Maninder Bali (Geography teacher) take an extended holiday of one term. They are expected back next term. We welcome their replacements. Senior English teacher, Mrs. Sarala Unni, takes over from Mrs. Chitra Rengarajan as Senior Mistress. Mrs. Rengarajan takes one month leave, but returns at the end of February, and continues teaching Economics, to 11th/12th std, but she is no longer Senior Mistress.

January 21,1996 : Head Boy and Head Girl nominated and announced - Vivek Venugopal and Anna Mary Mathew.

January 22,1996 : Other Prefects nominated. Elections scheduled for Jan 25. Campaigning goes into full swing.

January 25,1996 : Elections held, amid a flurry of campaigning- see my Prefects page for results. Now, preparation for the 14th Annual Inter-House Sports Meet begins in full earnest.

February 14,1996 : First events begin..

February 24,1996 : Sports Day - a great success,since everything went off well. Narmada cinched the top spot (with Narmada Captain Ajay Thomas sick, vice-captain Shyam Sriram did the honours), followed by Godavari (Amazing,eh?), Cauvery, and finally Sutlej. Not a very good day from my viewpoint, since I go down in history as the first Sutlej Captain to lead the house into last place. If I was making excuses..and I am, :-) I'd say that it's because of the girls os Sutlej, who, due to no fault of theirs, are by far the worst of the girls, indeed, so bad, that the boys couldn't make up for them, despite being the best boy's team. In fact, if you take just the boy's side..Sutlej came first..spurred on by an amazing A division where we had 3 athletes - who placed everywhere,and won nearly everything.

March 1,1996 - ICSE and ISC exams for the 10th and 12th std, commence.

March 8,1996 - Inter House Elocution competition, for 7-9 standards.(I think it was either 8th, or March 1st).Narmada comes out on top again, overall, as well as 1st place in the 3 categories, for each of the classes. Sutlej last again. What's going on??

March 16 - Kiddies sports meet. Another success, this time relocated to the far end of the field. The races and stuff were interesting, especially where the ayahs had their own race!! The rest was fine..

March 18,1996 - ICSE/ISC exams conclude.

March-April 1996 - Throughout these months the interhouse matches in various sports go on for boys and girls. Basketball for girls, still unofficial, despite all our (12th std) efforts, because the Games master seems to have a mental block against it. I don't remember the results..I can find out if anyone is really interested! Boys had Cricket. Narmada and Godavari tie for top spot, followed by Cauvery - guess who's last? Is this some kind of curse? ;-) Actually, although we lost all 3 matches, all could have gone either way - Narmada match lost because of one wayward over,the Godavari match, a real thriller,and the Cauvery match, a batting collapse. I'll give details (of any match) if anyone wants..it's really pretty interesting..

April 12,1996 - Mrs.Rengarajan officially leaves Sishya, after a long career here. Her departure is mourned by all,especially her students, and those who knew her. Latest news (June) is that she will return next month to finish teaching my batch alone. I hope so -and I pity the new 11th Std, without her! School closes for the Summer Holidays.

Second Term,1996

June 3,1996 - School reopens for the Second Term. We welcome back Mrs.Bali, and Mrs.Mathew, after their extended holidays. Also, we have the ICSE and ISC results. ISC Science results are truly outstanding with Aparajit Pratap, topping (I think it was him) with 93.5% overall, and even 99% in Maths! The trend of outstanding marks continuing in Science group. Commerce group has also done well, topped by Sindhura Mommaneni. However, Economics was a disappointment, with the highest only 78, as well as English, with the highest, only 80.Newsflash - Shashi Raaghunandan got into IIT this year from Sishya. Overall, another year of good results. The ICSE results were also very good, with the exception of English, were only one person touched 90 and only two more touched 80. Topper was Charulata Mani. I guess our school's luck in English had to run out sometime..in my batch last year, we had six people over 90..

June 7,1996 - Interhouse sports start again, with Boy's Basketball,and Girl's Throwball. In Basketball, the two top teams are Sutlej and Cauvery,and in the clash, Cauvery wins 45-35 - mainly because, the main Cauvery players are in the same class, and play together, often,as a team, unlike the Sutlej team, which isn't used to playing as a team. In Girls, the Narmada girls beat Godavari. An extensive schedule of matches in Badminton and Table Tennis, is drawn up, as well, beginning on June 10.

June 10,1996 - Narmada girls beat (I think) Godavari girls in Table tennis, while Cauvery defeats Narmada in both boy's singles matches, while Narmada defeats Sutlej, in the Badminton doubles.

June 11-27,1996 - Interhouse Sports continue in Basketball, Table Tennis, and Badminton, but unless anyone is really interested, I'm not going to put up the complete results..it's too much of a pain.

June 21,1996 - Interhouse Quiz competition for Juniors - classes 7 and 8. The points will be added on to the senior Quiz to be held later for the Tiger Trophy. Narmada or Sutlej were favoured to win, but due to various reasons (mainly luck - as in any quiz! ;-)) Cauvery pulled off an upset win, with 85 points, followed by Sutlej with 70, Godavari with 60 and Narmada with 45. It was touch and go between Sutlej and Cauvery in the final rounds, but Cauvery made it. This means, that in the Senior quiz, all teams start from the above points..

June 20,1996 onwards - Hectic preparations for the Sishya Interschool culturals commence, with the 12th std going to various schools for invitations,and so on. The culturals are scheduled for 11,12,13 July. The Annual Fete is scheduled for 6 July, the Interhouse music singing competition is scheduled for June 28,and the new system of Midterm tests, instead of having 2 tests every week, starts from the 1-5 July when the first midterm tests happen. Info on these, as and when it happens!

June 28,1996 - Inter House Music competition took place. Among the judges was Mr. Hensman, former Principal. There were four categories - Western Music, group and solo, and semi-classical , group and solo. No accompaniment, ( but it will be allowed next time), but despite that, the standard was very good. Sutlej WON!!!!! Believe me, after 6 months as Captain, it feels awfully good to win something! We won 3 categories...all except the Western group, where Cauvery topped, with Kalpana leading the singing wonderfully in "River of Dreams". Next up, is the Fete, then culturals, excursions, the interhouse Drama competition, School Day,etc...I'll keep this page updated!

July 6,1996 - The Fete was held. As usual it was a great success, full of fun & frolic,etc,etc. Lots of people from many schools turned up, had a good time,and went home with good memories. A place and time to meet old friends and alumni, who may have left school. The Grand Prize - return tickets to Bombay, in the Raffle, went to Vikram Mommaneni of Class 12, which seemed to have incredible luck,since atleast 10 prizes were won by the 37 people of the class!

July 11,12,13,1996 - The culturals were held on these dates, and were a roaring success. Although slightly smaller than last year's, with 15-20 schools,instead of 26, Sishyamrita '96 went off well, with all events generally proceeding on time, and much hard work from the 12th std, especially Cultural Secretary Kadambari Varma. The quiz was hosted by the same quizmaster who does the Landmark Quiz, which is the largest in South India, with, this year, 430 teams - Naveen Jayakumar, and it was very enjoyable - the Shipwreck was done by A.K.Sriram and Senthil - the well known judges. The quiz was slightly delayed, because the power failing, blew the slide projector, and efforts to repair it proved to be in vain, and the event proceeded without a visual round. Overall, it was congratulations due to everyone - especially Kadambari, since her main job of the year had gone off without a hitch - the smile on her face was difficult to wipe off the rest of the week!

July 17-21,1996 - Immediately after the culturals, the senior classes went off on their excursions - the 12th for a wonderful last excursion to Yercaud (staying at the Sterling Resorts, which were a cut above anything we'd seen before), Mettur and Hogenakkal. We had a fun time,tinged with a little sadness, that it was to be the last. So did the other classes with the 10th going to Kodi,and the 11th to Ooty - and the 9th, (a little later) to Bangalore. We all came back refreshed to (ouch) studies..and the exams..

Early August,1996 - Exam Time - under the new system, of no tests, but midterm tests and exams, all classes sat through exams, emerging in mid August to prepare intensely for School Day, only 2 weeks way.

August 29,1996 - Junior Schoolday was held,and it was the customary success,with all the tiny tots eager to please,and their parents just as eager to see them! The 11th std,as usual,did the legwork, with the 12th std,acting as the Reception Committee - all in "ethnic costume" - Dhotis,Veshties, or kurta pajama for the boys,and sarees for the girls.

August 30,1996 - Senior Schoolday - another successful event carried off, as usual. The usual parents, were there,as well as the students eager to please...first there was the invocation, by the 10th std, followed by various events, dances, like a Rajasthani dance, a Scottish dance,and so on..then the speeches and prizes, followed by the Senior School English Play - "Shakespearana" - tracing the development of Shakespeare as a playwright by performing important scenes from 4 plays - the Witches scene from Macbeth, the murder of Desdemona from Othello, the Taming of the Shrew, and the court scene from The Merchant of Venice. As such, there were a large number of actors, and although we all got laughed at for the very authentic, if rather too brightly coloured costumes, the plays themselves went off well - all credit to Mrs.Mathew and Mrs.Raghunandan who organized it. And then there was the medley of songs sung by class 12 in sarees and pants/ties - after a quick change by those of us in the play,and then finally the School Song by the 12th in an emotional mood as we bid farewell to Sishya after performing there for the last time..

August 31,1996 - School closes for the Second Term. Reports,etc are given out..and we all depart for 2 weeks of well earned holidays,with a smile or frown on our faces,depending on our marks. Also we here news of a new system of "Interim Prefects" to be introduced by the Principal early next term to help the Prefects in their heavy duties, since we have to study as well as organize far more school events than we've ever had before in the school term - the Quiz, the Debate, the new Drama competition, the Exhibition,the swimming competition, after a gap of several years,and so on. No details on this yet. Also, the prelims for the ISC and ICSE batches in Jan, will,from 1997 be mini-board exams in themselves - they will be corrected internally, but the papers will be set, in agreement with all other ISC schools in the state.

Third Term,1996

The term began as usual. ETC exams, kind of like the SATs for Australia were given in school for all classes on Sept 10,11,12. (This page will be updated soon as soon as I get full info on all other developments this term. To come yet: Senior Tiger Trophy Quiz, InterHouse Swimming, InterHouse Hindi Poetry, Debate (On Nov 15) Sports results,etc.)


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Last modified: October 31st 1996
Badri Natarajan
Contact me at MDSAAA17@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in