a two-page Excelsior on the theme or format of their choice. That is something to look forward to , isn’t it ? You can expect the first one in the first week of May!

So, be very patient if you

are asked for contributions

and opinions all through

May!

Keep the creative juices

flowing !Excelsior!

Dear Readers,

Thank you for the tremendous re-

sponse that came through in your

contributions for the Excelsior! Sto-

ries, articles, cartoons, poems, pic-

tures—we got them all.

In this issue you will see the entries

you sent for ‘Create Your Own Super-

hero/heroine Contest !’.

Of course, we look forward to your support in the coming months as well.

As one gets ready for May, one

cannot help but reflect how event-

ful April has been! Competitions,

performances, achievements,

tests, matches… phew… the list

seems a never ending one. But

then again, that is the beauty to

this madness of frenzied activity—

we all get to learn in our varied

capacities.

In addition to that the Excelsior proudly declares that the month of May will be the month of ‘mini Ex-celsiors’ . The editorial team has been split up into six groups and each group has decided to publish

WY

NB

ER

G-A

LL

EN

S

CH

OO

L

E X C E L S I O R

Here are some entries that

came in for the ‘Design Your

Superhero /heroine Contest!

We will keep printing them

as and when we can and

the winners will be an-

nounced on the day of the

Fancy Fair!

For private circulation only

MY LITTLE SISTER RACHEL

My little sister Rachel jumps around,

She jumps so high that she falls to the ground.

She tries to make food when there is nothing in

the bowl,

She paints on paper and ends up making a hole.

She dirties her hands,

And throws rubber bands.

Page 2 C A M P U S R U M P U S !

When she watches a movie,

And a song comes , she gets kind of groovy.

She loves going for car rides.

You should see her eyes shine .

Playing with stones is her favourite pastime.

She is like a little angel without any wings.

And I lover her like anything.

Shania O’ Connor 7A

A VERBAL POWWOW!

APRIL 4

This Wednesday afternoon was privy to the first Hindi debate in the junior division. The topic was ‘ Com-

puter ka gyan duniya ke vikas mein badhak’. Condon house stood first, Powell second, Foy third and Al-

len fourth.

The names of the members of the Hindi Debating Society were also announced.They Are as follows:

President– Akansha Choudhary

Secretary– Jayant Nariala

Timekeeper– Prapti Wylie

APRIL 8

THE JOY OF EASTER!

This celebration was also a beginning—the beginning of a brand new day! The staff and students gath-

ered on the Wynberg field, waiting for the golden rays of the sun to burst forth from behind the hill to re-

mind them of the risen glory of Jesus Christ. Resurrection, regeneration, renewal— all of which could ap-

ply to faith or life came across in the amazing sacrifice of love that was expressed in the sermon, the

hymns and the Bible reading.

SEND YOUR MOTHER A MESSAGE FOR MOTHER’S DAY THROUGH THE EXCELSI-

OR! THE EXCELSIOR IS UPLOADED EVERY MONTH AND OF COURSE YOU COULD

USE IT TO TELL ‘ MUMMY ‘ WHAT SHE MEANS TO YOU! DON’T BE SHY AND GIVE

THOSE MESSAGES TO HARMONY, GANGA OR MALVIKA!

APRIL 11

Tuneful Ties!

A spell had been cast over the

staff and students as they sat

glued to their

chairs totally

transfixed by

the music of Pandit Ronu Ma-

jumdar , the noted Indian

flautist in the Hindustani Clas-

sical Music tradition.

Page 3 C A M P U S N E W S !

ALL FOR A GOOD CAUSE!

The first time in the history of

Wynberg-Allen the staff and

students wield brushes for a

good cause. The brainchild of

Mr Misra— ‘THE-DESIGN-A-

CARD CONTEST’ - was open to

all– the young and the restless

as well as the old and the se-

date. The proceeds of the con-

test will go to charity.

APRIL 16

THE FRANK ANTHONY MEMORIAL ALL-INDIA

DEBATE (CATEGORY 1)

Wynberg-Allen played the host for

the Phase 1, Category 1 of the THE

FRANK ANTHONY MEMORIAL ALL-

INDIA DEBATE . The Sir Kirby Laing

Auditorium echoed with the voices

of the twelve participants from the

six participating schools– St

Mary’s , Nainital, Mussoorie Public

School, Mussoorie International

School, Welham Girls’ School, North

Point Academy, Dehradun and St

Joseph’s ,Dehradun. Bhuvanya Vi-

jay of St Joseph’s Academy was ad-

judged the Best Speaker. Welham

Girls’ and St Joseph’s Academy

qualified for the second round.

A DAY OUT !

It started as a dark windy day , which then turned into a bright

sunny one! All lines of worry disappeared and relief reigned su-

preme! Everyone put on their best clothes , never mind the

weather which, I might add, can be very unpredictable ! The

Class Ten students were finally ready for their walk to Dhobi

Ghat ,many change of clothes and hairstyles later ! We left the

portals of our school, walked through Landour Bazaar , past little

houses , dustbins and then ,many trees and monkeys later, the

realization dawned that we had been walking for an eternity !

Just then a small restaurant called ‘Sugar and Spice’ was spot-

ted by people who could not bear the rumble in their tummies–

in fact the sound was so loud that many thought that the clouds

above were again playing up! This little shop had an amazing se-

lection of cookies and their sugar goodies spiced up our after-

noon. Dhobi Ghat– the intended destination again became an

achievable target but just then Mr Singh reminded us that it was

time to return to school. Oh, no ! We could have walked to the

moon after gorging on those cookies but sadly we had to satisfy

ourselves by just walking back to school, of course, looking for-

ward to the other walks in store for us.

Pavni Aggarwal

10B

April 30

April drew to a close with the most im-

portant event on the school calendar– the

Prefects’ Investiture. Mr Misra had indeed

outdone himself , as the auditorium

looked fit for a king’s coronation . The

prefects’ jaws hung open when they first

viewed it and the level of nervousness

rose .

Staff, students and guests bore witness to

these carefully selected students swear-

ing to serve the school in their various

capacities. That day was made even more

special as the school’s quiz team had won

the quizzing trophy at the IZHAR-E-HUNAR

- the inter-school competition held at

Hopetown School , Dehradun.

Camping With My Family- Lorraine Teron

The day started out like any other. The sun was shining and the birds were singing but something was different. I

had a tingling feeling creeping up my back and as I got out of bed I realised what it was. I was excited. The twenty

fourth had finally come and we were going camping. I had had a bad bout of the flu and had actually planned not

to go but I couldn’t stop myself. I had to go it was going to be so much fun and I couldn’t miss it. I rushed to my

cupboard picked out my most comfy clothes and then packed a small travel bag with everything I could possibly

need and more.

We finally set off after loading the car as we had tons to carry. We had originally planned to go walking and

carry all our stuff but when we put all the stuff together including a very large tent loaned to us very kindly by Mr

Tindale and Mr Champa.We got a terrible shock when we saw the stuff we had collected. Then we planned to

take all the stuff in the car. So we all jumped into the car and set off. It took us ten minutes to get to our

destination as it was just in the valley. We went to Kapoor farm; it is just in the valley below our school. The

Wynberg stream flows through it and it can be viewed from the Science block in school.

As we reached there we found a nice flat place to camp and then unloaded the car. Even though there were

seven of us we had to make three trips to the car and back. Then when we had all our stuff at the camp site we

got down to setting up the tent. It was quite a tough job as we had to cut stakes, drive them into the ground to

keep the tent up. Then we had to put up the poles which would be the foundation of

the tent. Once the tent was up we just lay in it as we were so exhausted. After

about half an hour we began to feel hungry so we got a fire started and cooked

ourselves some Maggi. I don’t think I have ever had better Maggi than that in my

life. It had that beautiful smoky flavour and it was……. it was… just amazing! I

recommend that everyone try it at least once in their lives.

After the Maggi we all decided to go for a walk so we made our way to the stream

which was not very far from our camp site and went downstream. It was quite a

lot of fun skipping from stone to stone, but I almost fell in twice. I did manage to get

a little wet though. On the way we found a lot of interesting things. We found

many mushrooms, some were red and some were purple. We found two large white snail shells, a very interesting

piece of wood that looked like a dinosaur’s skull and an abandoned hornet’s nest. Following the stream we

reached the Woodstock Pump House. It was a pity that we couldn’t enter but we took pictures from outside.

From there we followed a foot path to the burning ghat which was in the adjacent valley. It was very interesting seeing how the people of Mussoorie used to be cremated a few decades earlier as the burning ghat had not been used for a long time. With Haridwar so close it is no surprise that the burning ghat is not being used. After that we started our long and tedious trek back to our camp site and on the way we met the owner of Kapoor Farm. He was overseeing the construction of another green house and when he saw us his face lit up. He had been looking for us. He wanted to show us some of the treasures he had collected over the years living in such close contact with nature.

Page 4 E X C E L S I O R

My family and I went on a five-day trip to Dubai in the month of February. We reached Dubai airport at about eight

in the evening. At that time it must have been about 10.30 in India , as Dubai is two hours faster than India.

Extremely tired, we tried to finish off the formalities so that we could head towards our hotel. It took us ages to

get the formalities done and towards the end of it we discovered that one of our suitcases was missing! We

reported the matter to an Arabic flight attendant , who asked to see our passports again ! We showed him the

passports and then, finally, got into the taxi which took us to our hotel- Royal Ascot. Can you imagine the shock

we received when on reaching the hotel we realised that our passports were missing! We rushed back to the

airport and asked the bewildered flight attendant who insisted that he did not have them. We did find the

missing passports in one of our backpacks, much to our discomfort and disbelief. We returned the hotel and

called it a day!

DAY 1

On the 2nd of February , we were taken on a tour of the city. Later on, we visited gold souks. We also visited the

Dubai Mall which houses the largest underwater aquarium in the world.

DAY 2

The second day brought the highlight of the trip – the Desert Safari. We sat in a car that did not seem to have any

tyres. It seemed to glide on sand .We also saw an Egyptian dance.

DAY 3

On the third day, we went to see the tallest tower in the world- the Burj Khalifa. We saw a manor that belonged to

the Sheikh of Dubai. In the evening we went for a cruise and tasted Egyptian and Arabic food on board the liner.

DAY 4

Our last day was fun-filled as we visited an awesome snow park , which had a temperature of minus two degree C. We spent the day there and later in the evening boarded a flight bound for India. This trip turned out t be a memorable one even though it did not start off well.

MY TRIP TO DUBAI!

He led us to his study and then showed us a showcase which held some of the strangest things I had ever seen. Right at the top he had a large antler, only one. Then the showcase held a monkeys skull which he said he had found the previous year. He said that he was walking through the forest one day when he came across a monkey skeleton. The poor monkey had accidently got caught in a trap that had been set for a wild foul. It had decayed on the spot. He had taken the skull as a souvenir. Then followed the story of how he came to be the proud owner of the large antler. Every year young deer shed their ant-lers and then grow new ones. It so happened that one day he was going for a walk and he came across it. He told us that the other antler was still somewhere in the forest and that we should search for it if we got a chance. Well you know us; we made that the mission of the next day as it had begun to grow dark.

C A M P I N G W I T H M Y F A M I L Y                 L O R R A I N E   T E R O N   ( 1 O B )  

Page 6 E X C E L S I O R

We all made our way back to the camp after that hungry and exhausted.

As we reached there we got a fire going because it had got a bit nippy. We warmed our diner over the fire

and looked at it bubble away. When it was ready we were so hungry that even though it was blazing hot

we wolfed it down without a second thought. When our bellies were full and we were sat sated in front of

a blazing fire we began telling ghost stories. It was quite unnerving sitting there in the dark with the fire

casting strange shadows all around us. After that we were all so scared that we zipped ourselves up in

the tent and didn’t dare come out. My night was quite uncomfortable as I was sleeping on rocks but it

was a lot of fun sleeping out in the wilderness.

I woke up to the sounds of millions of birds singing in harmony. It was so beautiful that I didn’t want

to get out of my sleeping bag. I just wanted to lie there and listen to the beautiful music. “The music of

nature”, I call it! It’s the best music you will ever hear, take my word for it! I didn’t feel like it but I had to

get up some time so I unzipped my sleeping bag and went out of the tent. My mum, dad and sister were

already up and about but Xyla, Jurish and Ma’am were still asleep. I washed and got ready. Then I went

with my sister to go and see the fish which were being cultivated by the owner. They were in a big tank

and there were about twenty of them. They were caller rainbow carp. They were quite interesting. Then we

went to the green houses and saw a lot of amazing plants I think the Strawberry runners were the best

maybe that was because we actually got some to eat. Then we went to see the Kiwi plants. The Strawber-

ries may have been the best but these were the most interesting hands down. They were like brambles

but they were so overgrown that they formed a thicket. They were not like the other plants. They needed

drip irrigation and having studied that last year in Biology it was really interesting actually seeing what we

had studied theoretically it really helped me understand the concept properly.

As we were really getting hungry we made our way back to the camp and were pleasantly surprised to

see that breakfast was waiting for us. After breakfast we were very disappointed to find out that we would

be leaving shortly as my dad had some work in Dehradun. It was quite sad that we had to leave so soon

but at least we enjoyed ourselves for the time that we had. We explored the farm a little more and then

we got down to dismantling the tent. It was much easier than putting it up, that’s for sure.

When the tent had been dismantled and all our stuff had been gathered we started load-

ing up the car. After the car had been loaded, we went to say bye to the owner and then we

all piled into the car and set off. This was one of the best camping trips that I have ever

had and I am so happy that I could share it with all of you.

her using water and

earth. The gods en-

dowed her with many

gifts: Athena clothed

her, Aphrodite gave her

beauty and Hermes

gave her speech.

Zeus presented Pan-

dora to Prometheus’

brother Epimetheus .

On the day of their

marriage Epimetheus

was given a beautiful

container—a pithos as

Prometheus ( son of

Titan Iapetus by

Clemede; one of the

oceanids; brother to

Menoetius , Atlas & Epi-

metheus; the fore think-

er) stole fire from Zeus

and gave it to the mor-

tals, this angered Zeus

and to extract revenge

he asked the gods to

create Pandora– the

first woman on earth.

Hephaestus , the god of

craftsmanship created

dowry. Pandora was asked not

to open the container under

any circumstance , but im-

pelled by her curiosity , she

opened the container and all

the evil contained therein es-

caped and spread all over the

earth. She hastened to close

the box but it was too late.

Today, the phrase ‘opening

Pandora’s box’ means to cre-

ate evil that cannot be un-

done .

Mars has two moons-Phobos

and Deimos.

D I D Y O U K N O W ? S A U M Y A R A N A 8 A In Greek my-

thology , Pho-

bos( the god

of panic) and

Deimos ( the

god of terror)

are sons of

Ares (Greek

name for the

Roman god of

WAR-Mars).

Both of them

accompanied

their father in

wars.

A TREE HOUSE TRYST!

It is dark. It is cold . You are miserable and sleep deprived. Trust parents to come up with strange and

painful punishments just because they received a call from school about their good –for –nothing son .

Fine, maybe I should not have let the bucket of water fall on the English teacher’s head , but he is bor-

ing! He keeps on and on about Shakespeare , like a broken record! My brother thought it was funny but

that is no surprise since he is only six. But dad was furious! “ Lack of discipline,” he said, “ that is why

this has happened!” He gave me this punishment of spending the night in the tree house. It is dark and

cold and I feel scared! I can see the whole neighbourhood from up here, hear all the birds and cats in

the neighbourhood and a ‘darkling thrush’ or something in this tree that seems to be making frighten-

ing sounds. I have a telescope and a pair of binoculars stashed away in the wooden box—if only I had

some popcorn!

It isn’t all that boring at night, lying on the wooden platform gazing at the night sky.I can see some real-

ly nice, twinkling stars and the bright moon! Hey , with the binoculars I can see Mr Smith watching a

movie , Mrs Delacour cooking something delicious in her kitchen and a couple of stray dogs trying to

find something in the garbage can behind Mr Ken’s house. Oh, Mr and Mrs Ketchum are having an ar-

gument of some sort . What! Mrs Ketchum slapped her husband !

I don’t have a watch with me so I don’t know the time . Wait, who is that below the tree house? A bur-

glar? Definitely a burglar , he is climbing up … good lord! I will clonk him on the head with a branch…

yes, that is what I will do! Take that and that you thief! Where is my torch ? I want to get a good look at

his face. Oh, there it is ! He looks familiar … GOD SAVE ME … IT IS DAD! I think I will have to shift to the

SHE IS SAD TODAY

There are no smiles today,

Today her teeth don’t shine,

Her eyes seem dull,

Even the shape of her ear is

sad today !

My boat will not sail today,

Today my kite will not fly,

Bound as a stone I am today,

Because SHE IS SAD …

-Sanya Nayak

8-A

her using water and

earth. The gods en-

dowed her with many

gifts: Athena clothed

her, Aphrodite gave her

beauty and Hermes

gave her speech.

Zeus presented Pan-

dora to Prometheus’

brother Epimetheus .

On the day of their

marriage Epimetheus

was given a beautiful

container—a pithos as

Prometheus ( son of

Titan Iapetus by

Clemede; one of the

oceanids; brother to

Menoetius , Atlas & Epi-

metheus; the fore think-

er) stole fire from Zeus

and gave it to the mor-

tals, this angered Zeus

and to extract revenge

he asked the gods to

create Pandora– the

first woman on earth.

Hephaestus , the god of

craftsmanship created

dowry. Pandora was asked not

to open the container under

any circumstance , but im-

pelled by her curiosity , she

opened the container and all

the evil contained therein es-

caped and spread all over the

earth. She hastened to close

the box but it was too late.

Today, the phrase ‘opening

Pandora’s box’ means to cre-

ate evil that cannot be un-

done .

Mars has two moons-Phobos

and Deimos.

D I D Y O U K N O W ? S A U M Y A R A N A 8 A

POETS’CORNER

In Greek my-

thology , Pho-

bos( the god

of panic) and

Deimos ( the

god of terror)

are sons of

Ares (Greek

name for the

Roman god of

War-Mars).

Both of them

accompanied

their father in

wars.

OUR GIRLS’ CAPTAIN

The boys all had a nice view,

As the girls formed a queue

In their raincoats,

Yellow, red and blue,

The long line of umbrellas grew.

Just then Prakriti Kataria, our girls’ captain

Shouted, “Girls, line up quietly!!”

As she had to make sure

We were all secure.

She counted us all – busy as a bee,

“1, 2, 3, 4……91, 92, 93!!”

-Shreya Agarwal

Across

2. This goddess uses her powers of lust and romance to attract men.

3. This commander led his brother Menelaus into battle during the Trojan War.

6. This god forges weapons for the immortals.

7. This warrior was only stopped by the weakness of his heel.

8. This goddess inspired men to battle and use their wisdom to overcome adversity.

10. This six-headed behemoth is located near Charybdis.

11. This goddess is often jealous of her husband’s affairs.

14. This god released his wrath through whirlpools and tsunamis.

Down

1. This three-headed hell hound guards the gates of the Underworld.

3. This goddess is the twin sister of Apollo .

4. This goddess is known for her "green thumb" and her daughter Persephone.

5. This god is the messenger of the Gods.

7. This god was supreme when it came to the craft of war.

9. This boatman carried the dead across the river Styx in the Underworld.

12. This god is the embodiment of alcoholic pleasures.

13. This sorceress tortured men by turning them into animals.