English Exhibition

From a small acorn grows the great oak and so does a seed of an idea blossoms into something beyond ones expectation. The English exhibition had a slow start but once things got going there was no stopping, ideas poured in from all sides. This time we took up a genre  which is generally overlooked; this was very aptly put by the testimony of one of the visitors to the English exhibition, Mr. Jayanth Vardineni  ‘ It was an exquisite exhibition. The horror genre of novel is often overlooked but thanks to the wonderful presentation of the students, I will pick up a book’.

The moment students came to know the theme, ‘Gothic Horror’ there was plenty of excitement in the air. Ms. Prashanti came up with the idea that the entire atmosphere should reek of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and witches casting their spells to lure unsuspecting victims. Students were given free rein and they have surpassed all expectations with their imaginative and creative ideas.

Meanwhile word got around and we had students making a beeline wanting to sign up for the English exhibition. We did wonder at this sudden fascination until we realized that English had nothing do with it and it was about ‘Gothic horror’ --with some kids it was horror all the way without the gothic. So now we know why the ‘twilight series’ were and still is so popular with the youngsters.

The gothic atmosphere was created by bats and cauldron made by Sanjana who was helped by Meghana. Akhilesh, Rahath and Mujeeb decide to dress up as ghosts, Dracula and Frankenstein. To this visualize a dead tree with bones hanging from its branches and the cauldron brewing under the tree, truly gave a sinister setting. Since gothic horror is all about atmosphere the students had great fun preparing it.  Grade seven students prepared readers theatre to present the poem ‘Listeners’ by Walter De La Mare. A role play by grade ten based on the scene between Hamlet and his father’s spirit.

Students made a genre tree helped by Ms. Anuradha and Ms. Sunita guided the students to write paranormal poetry which was displayed and duly appreciated by many. Ms. Padmaja and her team of students prepared a crossword puzzle.

Ms. Suchusmita suggested that horror genre can be written as a recipe and when this was put across to the students Jhanvi  and her friend Poornima came with a recipe on ‘how to make a paranormal pie’. Jhanvi and friends followed the exact instructions of the three witches in Macbeth and brewed an excellent concoction.

Sunhith and Ritwik put up a game called ‘gruesome game’ which as the name suggests was gruesome and gory and undoubtedly the biggest attraction.   Girish, Vidhu, Vibhu and Saheb prepared the timeline of Gothic literature and put up displays of the famous writers of gothic Literature. Abhijeet traced the Booker prize winners since its inception to 2010 and this was displayed on one wall.

All in all, the English exhibition was a great success with both the students and the parents.

Those of you who have missed out on visiting the English exhibition here’s the recipe for ‘paranormal pie’.

Recipe to make the perfect paranormal pie!

Ingredients-

·        12 ghostly shadows

·        I kg of high pitched screams

·        A drop of everlasting torture

·        5 plates of eyeballs

·        7 tapestries  made of spider web

·        A bottle of liquid terror

·        A few hundred seeds of guilt

·         hair of werewolves

·        A flask of the cold blood of a vampire

·        3 scoops of Witches’ laughter

·        1 bloodstained soul

PROCEDURE-

1.   Pour the liquid terror into the empty coffin.

2.   Squeeze the eyeballs with the dead human hand and mix carefully with the terror.

Tip: make sure that the pupils are scooped out

3.   Dip the hair into the mixture until tiny explosions occur. Do this repeatedly. This gives your pie the perfect mysterious tang.

4.  Pour the cold vampire blood into the coffin and wait for blue fumes to come. Caution: do not inhale. Very deadly!

5.   Bake 6 ghostly shadows with the seeds of guilt and then leave them to cool.

6.   Carefully, apply the screams to the cool baked shadow and seeds. Drop the torture in also to make the screams more shrill and loud.

7.    Weave the spider’s web, the remaining shadows and the witches’ laughter together. Cautiously stretch it over the baked preparation on the human body.

8.  Pour the mixture on to the baked preparation and deep fry.

9.   Put the newly prepared pie back in the coffin, warily

10. However the pie needs 1 element of spook to make it truly horrifying. Wrap it with the bloodstained soul, make its tight.

You now have your perfect paranormal pie, well seasoned and richly flavored.

 Ms.Nagamani,

IGCSE English Faculty