Two city students answered their way through tricky questions and shone through the events on the main stage, creative zone and fun zone, to bag the Kochi regional title of Horlicks Wizkids 2010, an interschool fiesta. Anand Menon, a Std VI student of Vidyodaya School, Thevakkal, was the topper in the junior category, while Anjana Mohan, a Std IX student of Matha Nagar School, Kadavanthra, won the title among seniors. They will represent Kochi at the national finals in November. Over 1000 students from 50 schools in the district participated in the event.
The main-stage events included musical melody, quizzer kids, Hindi antakshari and mentor minute to fame. The creative zone events included drawing, essay writing, Malayalam story writing, mehendi art and little chef; while there was junk funk, the search and face painting in the fun zone.
Right attitude
In the self-introduction section where one could try out innovations, the winner of the junior title Anand quoted renowned boxer Mohammed Ali — ‘I've wrestled with an alligator, tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone; hospitalized a brick; I'm so mean I make medicines sick.' And so continued Anand, “I'm in no way different from him, except that I don't box. We have the same attitude.”
The judges tried to ‘trick' him in the question-and-answer round by asking what he would do if he and Mohammed Ali were put in a boxing ring. Swift came the reply “I only fight with those my size.” What if Ali shrinks to your size? “I'll beat him black and blue,” said Anand. In the talent round, he repeated the famous speech by Martin Luther King Jr. — “I have a dream…”
“Participating in the event was a great and fun-filled experience and I could make new friends,” said Anjana Mohan. “It also helped enhance my confidence and level of thinking. In the written round, the questions included ones to assess our character and personality, while the interview tested our attitude. There was also a round where the host posed tricky and twisted questions.”
In the story writing event, she wrote on an encounter with a temple elephant that ran amok.
