Date:06/11/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/06/stories/2006110614860200.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

A contest of the imagination

Staff Reporter

Young Author, Artist competition for students

COLOURFUL CHALLENGE: Students of Gill Adarsh School participate in the Young Artist contest organised by ITC Limited on Friday. - Photo: R. Shivaji Rao

Chennai: For about 90 minutes on Friday afternoon, the only sound to be heard inside a hall at the Gill Adarsh Matriculation Higher Secondary School was that of pens and pencils scratching on paper.

Students thought, wrote and coloured furiously for a prize in the Classmate Young Author and Young Artist Contest organised by ITC Limited. Themes were given on the spot. Students competing in the Young Author (classes 9-12) contest were given an option of three genres: thriller, fantasy and mystery. Titles for the stories were provided and students had to use their imagination to spin tales. In the Young Artist contest (classes 5 - 8), students used colours to illustrate the theme: I wish I were...

S. Saradhamani, a soft skills trainer, and Ruby Bhatt, who runs crafts camps, were the judges for the event. Ms. Saradhamani told students to observe natural sounds, smells and sights so they could make their stories more appealing to readers. She also told them to use Indian settings and names as the stories were primarily for Indian readers. The contest is being held in phases in as many as 110 schools in the city.

Winners from each school will take part in a city-level contest. Young authors will also compete in a national-level competition, to be judged by writer Ruskin Bond.

The prize winning Young Author will go on a sponsored literary tour to Paris. Other finalists will win prizes like computers and cameras. The top 16 finalists will have their stories edited by Ruskin Bond and published by Rupa and Co.