NEW DELHI: The Covid-19 lockdown was a tense time for Class XI student Vanshika Gupta, but she wanted to do something productive even if she was confined to home. She channelised her positivity into a tale of self-realisation through the journey of Sarah Widdershins’ friendship and love in apocalyptic times. The story has now become a book.Gupta is among the students who utilised the lockdown period for creative expression. At a recent event, the National Progressive Schools Conference (NPSC), a consortium of private schools, recognised the efforts of 24 budding student writers.Sudha Acharya, NPSC chairperson and principal of ITL Public School, said, “The Covid closure allowed students to write stories and poems. Many students wrote beautiful books and got them self-published. We received numerous applications from students, but selected only those that bore the International Standard Book Number (ISBN).”Students have always been creative, said Ashok Pandey, director of Ahlcon Schools, but their number increased because of the time afforded to them by their schools closing down.” From contemporary issues like climate change to biographies, from personal reflections to fiction, these authors from classes IX to XII tackled them all. Others wrote poems, even academic books.Gupta, 16, a science student at ITL Public School, said, “The lockdown period was filled with stress. But I found myself with time on hand and decided to write. My 200-page book took me almost three months to finish. My father helped me to send it to a publishing house, which brought it out as a book.”Among the 24 students honoured was Anusha Garg of Venkateshwar International School, Dwarka. She has five books to her credit. In the list also were two students from Army Public School. Karunya Bisht produced a fictional story of an orphaned boy unravelling his destiny from the city to the jungle. Taanush Kashyap, just 12 years old, came up with a book about his dreams, nightmares and fantasies. It describes the Corona period as the “worst of everyone’s time”.Hansraj Model School too had two students among the felicitated. Both Class XII students, one explored the theme of artificial intelligence and the other subjects like patriarchy, male privilege and woke culture. Paarth Tuteja said, “The main point of my book is that we cannot hold anyone accountable for our behaviour other than ourselves. We cannot blame our culture, government, any other thing. To be responsible members of society, we have to take leadership roles in the family, school, community and at work.”
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/scoring-above-covid-how-these-students-from-delhi-scripted-a-different-tale/articleshow/98288979.cms
