An inter-school painting contest held at Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) 1 had the participants receiving advice from the Prime Minister as prize. The book Exam Warrior, written by Narendra Modi on helping students ace exams and face life, was gifted to them all.
This painting competition was organised in all the KVs and all nearby schools were invited. Five hundred KVs and about 50,000 students from classes IX to XII had enrolled across the nation. A minimum of 100 students took part from each venue.
Schools from around the township like Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (BVB), Narayana, Salt Lake School, Apeejay School and Kalyani Public School had come over and judges for the event were Sonali Chakraborty, associate professor of Sivanath Sastri College; Debkumar Chakraborty, associate professor of Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira and Achintya Kumar Bhattacharya, retired associate professor of Government College of Art and Craft.
As the students got the green light to put brush to canvas, the exctement was palpable and the look on each face was determined.
There were about 20 to 30 topics to choose from and all of them were rather thought-provoking, like “Be a warrior, not a worrier”, “Revise and be wise”, “The answer sheet is a one-way ticket to move ahead”.
The participants were provided with drawing sheets, stationery, water colours, and paintbrushes. It was fascinating to see figures, which looked initially meaningless, turn into a beautiful artform once completed and submitted to Avik Chakraborty .
The most widely-chosen topics were patriotic ones and the most common image drawn was that of freedom fighter Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
Finally, Nibha Kumari of KV 2 finished fifth, following Piyush Pandit of KV 1. Souroviya Das Choudhary of BVB took home the third prize and Arunima Mondal of KV 2, who had shown public servants in the “be a warrior, not worrier” topic, stood second. Nupur Sinha Roy of Apeejay, Salt Lake, was the winner of the competition.