ഒടുവില്‍.........

(News Paper Documentation is the SUPW Project work for my class,12 arts D.And we were askd to write a report on the same for the school magazine.)

On Friday evenings we smelt paper.

Not the white sort-with pen scribbles,and the unending residue of afternoon lectures.these sheets of paper had a graying tint to it;the whiteness melted into the machine impressions of late night news editions that travelled as far as from Kolkota,New Delhi and Siliguri.

We just smelt paper but the paper smelt a world that we had never been to-St.Petersburg,Seoul,Kinshasa and the country side on the out skirts of Colorado.It smelt of people we had never seen-the shark riders of politics,the limelight queens of the film reel,the shady chill of serial killers,the euphoria of the foot ball stadium,and simple unknown people who became famous just because fame was thrust upon them.

On Friday evenings the world of celebrations and loss,of the victors and the vanquished,lay before us,as sheets of paper.In our hands the stories they had to tel became history.Otherwise,these news sheets would have found its nemesis in the white coldness of doma pani,the red numbness of a chunk of pork,or as toilet paper flushed down in a late afternoon diarrhea call.

But in our hands these sheets of stories were safe.

as fresh men at Ugyen Academy,a year ago,we remember our class teacher,Jessy James walking in one friday evening.She said callously that unlike other students we would spend our SUPW periods in the class room.We remember greeting it with a silent boo from our hearts.Our friends were out,basking in the sun,shouting and enjoying their work........through our windows,we saw them weeding,watering plants and carrying stones.

Instead of fresh air,loud exchange of jokes,and the puna tsang chu breeze,we got news papers,scissors and glue.She divided Us into groups,gave us the copies of The Statesman,The Times of India and the Telegraph.She then started scribbling on our green board different topics like politics,women issues,sports,entertainment,crime etc...For example,a group assigned politics has to identify relevant politics news stories from the three news papers and mark it.Later we would cut it and collect all political news items into a file.

There were occassional Azais,Yalamas and giggles from different groups as we went through different news stories.

We were delving into a world which otherwise we would never have noticed.

One news item we all remember is when the crime group read out about a new born baby's eyes were nibbled by rats in a well known hospital at Kolkota.We still dont know whether to call ita crime it or not.But when some one suffers,can we call it a crime?Who are the criminals?The rats or the hospital authorities?

Such discussions and reflections always followed our SUPW sessions.

If you ask Us if our work was actually useful and productive,we are not sure.It was useful for Us...and it will be useful for our school as this documentation will be a part of our library collection.It is a matter of pride for us and perhaps our school too,as this project was the first of its kind undertaken by any student group in the country.

And was it productive?That's for time to tell.The news of the world we read always prompted us contextualize democratic movements in other countries made us to ponder on Bhutan's journey through democracy.Our focus was to encourage us to read,and our project which becomes a part of the school library will hopefully encourage to become informed citizens .

Our News Paper Documentation project is perhaps the lengthiest SUPW project in our school.We started it while in class 11 and continued it to class12.

Our project raised quite many eye brows,as we were never seen out side the class during our SUPW period.While others could show 'tangible' results of their work,ours was a work always to the making.

We took several weeks to mark the news iteams,then weeks to cut and sort it.More weeks again to paste it on paper and punch it to a file.NPD thus became a long-standing programme bringing the exitement of timely'real-world'to class room activities.Our project engaged us,stimulated our creativity and enhanced our reading skills.We were inspired by our sweet class teacher and she tells she was inspired by an article she read about a programme called News Paper in the Classroom that began at New York city schools.......The idea was to keep students abreast of latest happenings with news papers ....

We are not sure if we can continue similar projects as we go for higher studies .But we will cary these moments in us.Our class teacher used to tel,education is what remains after you have forgot everything that has been taught.We are sure even if we forget all the lessons we learnt,the smell of Friday afternoons and the kind guidence of our teacher would stay,the smell of news clippings being pasted onto paper will stay with us.
can we call this project socially useful and productive work if this smell would take Us back to our Alma Mater and would guide us into the world that lies before us?