The Lion King

Prologue: Every year, come February and the whole school is excited and eager to know, “What now ?” on annual day! In 2020, we decided to challenge ourselves. Our grade 4 & 5 had done a lot by now, comedy, serious drama, dance, narration and the question to us was also, “What next?”.

So we thought to challenge grade to 3 to do serious acting and challenge our confident grade 4 & 5 to produce, direct, script and manage the whole show and selected their favourite “The Lion King” as the story.

They had 15 working days to put up the show from scratch and were shown rushes of broadway show of Lion King to refer acting, stage set up, make up, lights and whatever else required. We were not sure, if they would be able to achieve it in such a short time! And what a show they came up with! https://www.facebook.com/664385620241324/videos/188129815782989 A small write up on the experience shared by one of the students, Mishika Joisher.

The Best Annual Day

The annual day was near and the whole of Lumens was buzzing with excitement. What would day do this year? Which would be the lead play? A lot of questions were in the minds of about 250 children. That’s when it was announced. “All kids 3- Sr.Kg will do dances and under will do plays. We will be doing the Lion King as the main act. Grade 4 and 5 will mentor grade 3 to do the play. There will be a props and costume team, a light and sound team, and a direction team which will help grade 3 learn their lines and enact the play. There will be a budget team to buy the needed materials for all the team. To make sure all teams work in harmony and on time, there will be a coordinators team.” Kunjal and I immediately signed up for this. Saksham did too. When another boy asked why he said: “With the two smartest girls in school, I need not work.” We both made our minds to give him the most tiring, exhausting, fatiguing, boring, stabbing, wearing, and drilling tasks ever. Boy! He was in for trouble! Our facilitator was Palani sir, and at our first meeting, he gave it to us. “You are coordinators. Your work is to make sure all kids get equal work like…..Hey! Jash!” He ran off to the fourth-grader Jash who had signed up for nothing and was busy hitting junior students with a cricket bat. Sir left him off to the props team. He continued “You must make sure all kids get equal work. You need to have a daily meeting with all teams to help them plan their to do. They have to finish all work by 16 of Feb. You have to make sure they are using the list and following it. At end of the day….! Jash!” The mentor of the props team was holding him and dragging him towards sir. We were painting the zebras when he started taking bottles of paint and playing catch with them. He spilt 3 bottles and spoiled our zebras. Next, sir left him at the light team, which he and Abhishek sir were in charge for. The sound and light guys had access to a pretty little office and we, coordinators had the staff room, whilst the props guys had the art room. After lunch, sir met us in the staff room to continue: “You have to use the big notice board in front of the school where a big excel sheet will be printed. It will have dates in the left-hand corner and boxes after each titled with the team’s name. You have to write the team’s to do for the day there. When done, put a tick to it. Mishika, you will manage to do. Kunjal, you will do the meeting and inform Mishika whatever the team has finished. Saksham you……! Jash!” “This time the sound team mentor came holding him. ” Sir he wasn’t allowing the student to plan the mic to do on the computer and was playing games on it.” “Jash this is your last warning!” Now you come with us and do whatever Saksham says. Okay, so Saksham you……” “Ow!!!!!!” Shouted Saksham. Jash had poked him with a pin and his thigh was bleeding. A teacher took Saksham to tend his thigh. “Jash this is your last warning! Hey Yuval!” Yuval was in the light team and was sir’s assistant. “Take care of Jash!…. And your thighs!” So it went on. Things went as planned and even though Jash was a pain, I would give hats off to Yuval for controlling him. Saksham was our assistant and boy, I gave him work! “Get the pink marker….No, the blue!… Red!…. I care you’re tired!” Kunjal too tired him. “Hey! What’s that? Why are you not noting the exact same word the teacher is saying in the meeting?”. But soon work became easier as many teams were finishing things fast. Only the props team wasn’t getting maks for the lions. That’s when Saturday morning, I and a few people of the props team made a trip to a papier-mache artist. I bought a pretty little tortoise, being the only one with pocket money, but the trip was tiring. It was extremely hot, the van was congested, but to make up for it, the artist allowed us to make some models with him. I secretly made a doll and snuck it to the van, but I decided to leave it to him. We ended up making our own masks, mainly cause the budget team said buying them was too expensive. The day of the drama came. The day before, all the little kid’s dramas were done, but today was our day. After the dances, came the drama, oh! So beautiful! In the end, they called all grade 4 and 5 to the stage. We bowed, and after showing a video featuring the whole Make of the Movie, all the kids left. I ran to my baby brother, and my mom, who was the host, being a teacher, took over him. We all met the principal and his wife and spend time with them in the food court. I had some cooldrinks and had a time of my life! It was the best annual day.

~Mishika Joisher