Hyderabad Public school (HPS) is hosting the Eagles’ Fest as part of its 90 year celebrations. The three-day cultural, literary and creative celebrations which kickstarted on Thursday, will see participation from 24 schools in the city. The flagship event has 1000 students contesting for 45 events.
“The Eagles’ Fest is a powerful medium to express and show your talents and as students you must participate with healthy rivalry and a true competitive but gracious spirit,” advised Major General Cherish Mathson, the chief guest at the inaugural. “As children you must not forget that you are after all children; you must accept uncertainty because from that emerges your true calling,” added the major.
The fest split into three categories – Literary Hub, Cultural Hub and Creative Zone. The Literary Hub began teh festivities with the Turn Coat debate, book review and creative writing events.
“The Turn Coat debate is a different style of debating, where the participant debates both, for and against the theme. It is interesting because it tests the debater’s logical thinking capacity, whether they can differentiate between both the sides,” explained Meera Vedre, teacher and one of the organisers of the Literary Hub. The theme for the debate was ‘The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education’. Contesting students from grades six and 12 debated for three minutes each, throwing light on points like education being the pathway to learning, the marking system creating a rat race thereby removing the joy out of learning and the aspect of commercialisation of institutions where students become literate but not educated.
At the same time, the Cultural Hub hosted a poetry recitation and fancy dress competition. “The participants were very excited and were eager to recite their poems,” echoed a beaming Uma Rani, senior teacher and organiser of the event. Themed ‘Me and Mother nature,’ the fancy dress competition saw participation from nervous and shy yet eloquent tiny tots like Pushti, a class two student who dressed up as a globe and advised the audience to think green and act green. Class one student, Vignesh portrayed a tribal man and asked the audience to not cut his home - the jungle, and try to preserve it. The next two days will see students contest in extempore, quiz, recitation, music and dance events.
Alumnus Shaaz Mehmood, who is also the chief coordinator of the fest, found himself in not so familiar territory. “I miss wearing the uniform and lugging a heavy bag around the campus. Things have changed; today’s kid’s are fast and tech-savy and all the classrooms of HPS have been converted to e-classrooms,” said the 25 year-old restaurateur who left the school eight years ago. “Everything going on around here is very transparent, four different committees are set up in order to declare fair results,” added the alumnus.
As the chief coordinator of The Eagles’ Fest, he is extremely excited and is certain that the event will be a huge success. “After seeing such an immense participation, we may decide to have the fest next year as well,” he added. A valedictory function will be held on November 9 to give away the trophies to the Eagles’ Fest Champion school, cultural championship, literary championship and creative champions.