Jharokha

After this very hectic but productive day, I can very confidently say that this year’s Jharokha was definitely an enriching and stimulating event for all the children throughout the grades. As we entered the school building, we could feel the excitement and enthusiasm of teachers and students in the atmosphere, be it in hanging posters to depict history with ‘othering’ or to prepare students for the Hindi skit.

The subjects Economics, Psychology, Business Management, History, Geography and English were all represented in this year’s event and in the classrooms we looked at “othering” through these lenses.

 I, with a group of 8 more students, decided to compose a live-graffiti art piece to convey our understanding by making connections to English as a subject. For the first few days, our form tutor, Ms. Divya Pandanda and the students brainstormed for new thoughts and ideas on how we could depict this year’s theme “othering” through symbols and graphics. We connected it to the literary texts we had studied over the year. After a lot of suggestions, deliberations and a session with Mr Anil Goswami, our art teacher, we came up with a concrete idea of what we wanted to create. This itself was a very enlightening process since we got to know about how one’s thoughts can be interpreted in various mediums, how we ‘other’ people in so many ways without even realizing and also how our own ideas can be formulated and constructed through diverse mediums.

My graffiti depicts a girl weighing herself on scales, which shows 92 kg. It had a banner which said: “In the conquest for perfection..” This depicted how media, ads and society itself has made such an image of a perfect body and perfect skin color that people strive to become ‘perfect’ and in the process, they start losing their own identity. When we asked some parents, what they thought of the image, some of the comments we got from them were:

“I think it shows the girl’s insecurities about her weight and how she thinks low of herself compared to others.”

“Maybe it shows that the golden ribbon is a sash and the girl wants to compete for the miss world/ universe and is struggling to meet her ambitions because of her weight.”

It was so fascinating to watch how the viewers interpreted one painting in so many ways. We realized that no one was wrong or right. They all had thought processes that were practical and eye-opening. I certainly enjoyed the interactions with parents and learned so much through a mere 2-minute talk with them. Some of my classmates from grade 9 also made a movie of freeze frames that showed how “others” are created both consciously and unconsciously. At the end of the day, as a group, we believe that differences exist, but they are there to be celebrated.

All-in-all, it was a very fruitful day that we can add in our ‘Pathways memorable-event list’.

Nehal Agarwal, Grade 9A

Imagine creativity, knowledge, history, and art all coming together to give you something impactful and meaningful! This is this year’s Jharokha, a peak into the vibrant pathways community. This year, the theme was “othering” – A very meaningful topic to everyone. Somewhere or the other, someone is being viewed as alien and different, and that is just helping people establish a wall in their mind and a block towards inclusion. Without even realising, people fix their mindsets with borders everywhere, and that is what we intend to break.

In every topic – from English to Environmental Science - we found deep connections with us as individuals, and this world as a society. We were able to find an “other” in every scenario, but our main aim was to find “who is the other”. With this in mind, students created a display of work connected with the theme, including art music. The journey through time and space took us from Slavery in America to partition in India, all having an “other”, and a “fixed mindset”. It made each one of us question our own mindset.

An Opportunity like this one helps not only students understand this serious issue but also encourages adults to realize and bring a change in themselves and the society.

 Noyonika Gaba, Gr 8