Birla High School

Birla High School/Sushila Birls Girls' School
Motto Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamay; Lead Us From Darkness To Light
Type Private
Established 11 July 1941
Location Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Affiliations Central Board of Secondary Education
Website

http://www.birlahighschool.com Boys' School official site

http://www.sushilabirlagirlschool.com/ Girls' School official site

Birla High School in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, was founded by Lakshmi Niwas Birla in 1941. The name of the school was changed from Hindi High School to Birla High School in 1997.

The school is organized into the Junior Section and the Senior Section, in separate buildings. The Girls' Section was earlier a part of this school, but is now affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) under the name of Sushila Birla Girls' School.

Graduates of Birla High School have been admitted into colleges and universities across India such as the IITs, Chennai Mathematical Institute, BITS Pilani, and SRCC; and across the world into universities including Tufts University, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, Indiana University, University of Michigan, Purdue University, Kansas University and Carnegie Mellon University.

Motto

The school motto is Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamay (Lead Us From Darkness To Light).

Co-curricular activities

These include music (vocal and instrumental), elocution, debate, quiz, poster design, chess, creative writing, Shotokan karate and yoga.

School events

Clubs

Chess Club

Founded in 2005, the Chess Club has emerged as the largest club of the school. It is coached by Mr. Bipin Shenoy, who has coached Indian National Champions and Junior World Champions, has been a National Level Arbiter - All India Chess Federation certified, and is the national chess correspondent for The Telegraph newspaper.

The Chess Club is recognized by Grand Master Dibyendu Barua Chess Academy, a nationally recognized chess academy. The team has done tours to International and National Grand Masters’ workshops, and has participated in numerous tournaments all over the nation. In an initiative by Harish D. Gupta in 2008, the Chess Club organized Inter-School and Inter-House Chess Tournaments which are now organized annually. The Chess Team has participated in a number of national and state level tournaments both individually and as a team. The top members of the team are registered with the FIDE, the All India Chess Federation and the Bengal Chess Association.

Grey Matter

Founded in 2000, the Quiz Club of the school, "Grey Matter", was started by Priyodorshi Bhattacharya and Shreyo Sadhu, who took over as president and vice president in its initial year.

The club has produced several top notch 'quizzards', some of whom have featured in the national arena. Laurels earned by the club members include the ESPN Star Sports Quiz, the Calcutta Boys' School Quasquicentennial Quiz, Vibes Brain Storm 2003, and MP Birla Smarak Kosh Quiz 2004.

Intra-school and inter-house quizzes for classes 6-9 are held.

Creative Writing Club

The Creative Writing Club of Birla High School encourages creative thinking in students and develops in them a flair for writing. Students write poems, short stories and articles. These are read out by the writers so that others can comment on their work. The articles are published in the school magazine.

Computer Club

The Computer Club comprises around 40 members. Activities include computer programming, website development, multimedia, presentations and computer quizzing.

Social Service Club

The motto of the Social Service Club is "Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success". The club helps its members by developing in them the virtues of compassion, empathy and fellow feeling. Members visit old age homes, sell cards, raise funds, organize walks promoting communal harmony, run cultural shows and conduct literacy programmes.

Nature Club

Instituted in 2004, with members from the senior secondary section, the Nature Club promotes environmental awareness among the members by activities like excursions to parks, field trips to forests such as the Sunderbans, and campaigns against pollution.

The All India LN Birla Debate

Like every year, the school paid homage to its founder leader, Shri L.N. Birla on his birthday, the 11th of July, by hosting the L.N. Birla Memorial Debate. The day, preceding the finals, had 38 participants from 19 schools in and across the city fighting it out on the topic, "Modern day celebrities make poor role models". The eight teams who made it to the finals included St. Xavier’s Collegiate School, Ashok Hall Girls' Higher Secondary School, The Heritage School, Modern High School for Girls, La Martiniere for Boys, Birla High School, Loreto House and Don Bosco, Park Circus. Two students from each school spoke for and against the topic, "Moral policing of the media in India in injudicious".

The Chief Guest for the occasion was Mr. Dean R Thompson, US Consul General, Kolkata. The judges were:

It was a moment of glory for the host school when amidst strong contenders engaged in a verbal battle, Soumya Sekhar Gangopadhyay of Birla High School lifted the prestigious trophy for the best speaker. St. Xavier’s Collegiate School was adjudged the winning team and Huisha Ganeriwal from Loreto House was declared the runner-up best speaker.

The debate was moderated by Mr. Ashok Viswanathan, actor and filmmaker.

The Tenth Odyssey

The Tenth Odyssey turned out to be one of the best fests the city has seen this year. Students of the +2 section of Birla High School presented this interschool cultural fest to the city of Kolkata after months of elaborate preparations. This year the fest broke all barriers and transcended all expectations. Eleven reputed schools of Kolkata participated in the festival that extended from 23 July to 1 August 2015. There were 9 offstage events and 11 onstage events that took place.

This year, the star attractions were the famous quizmaster Barry O’Brien, Master of Ceremony Shane Hyrapiet and to top it all, the Indian Pop Band Sanam who proved to be a hit with the audience.

Last Odyssey, a new social service event named Spreading Smiles was introduced. This event requires students from participating schools to co-ordinate with a social service organization to stage a performance put up by their representatives. The aim of the event is to promote social service among students. This year too the event Spreading Smiles saw an overwhelming response.

In the off stage events, Birla High School secured the first position in Treasure Hunt, Pool, Basketball, Rock Climbing and Tug of War. The school was placed second in Table Tennis, Lawn Tennis and Bowling and bagged the third place in the Carrom competition.

In the onstage events too, Birla High School was placed first in most of the events like Western Dance, Groove, Band, No Strings Attached, Turncoat Debate, Half A Minute, Sixty Seconds To Fame and Spreading Smiles. Birla High School bagged the second position in Fashion Show and Quiz. The host school was represented by Indranil Bagchhi, Uday Jhunjhunwala, Chirag Basu and Soham Chakraborty in the Quiz. Ritojeet Basu represented the school in the Turncoat Debate , and Varun Agarwal in the Half A Minute competition. The special prizes were as follows:

Ritwik Bhawsinghka (Birla High School) - Best Representative

Ayushi Saraogi (Modern High School) - Best Representative

Aditya Pathak and Ayush Agarwal (Birla High School) - Star of Odyssey

(On the basis of winning in the maximum number of events)

Naman Madhogarhia (Birla High School) - Star of Odyssey

(On the basis of organisational and leadership skills)

The overall winners in the fest were:

Birla High School First Position

Modern High School Second Position

Sushila Birla Girls’ School and Shri Shikshayatan School (tie) Third Position

Many distinguished personalities were present as judges. Ms. Vibha Mitra, Ms. Shuktara Lal and Ms. Suman Sood were the esteemed judges for Sixty Seconds To Fame. In the dance events Mr. Tito Dey, Mr. Anuj Parekh and Mr. Satish Rout were the judges for Western Dance while Mr. Sudarshan Chakravarty, Ms. Bhavna Himani, and Ms. Dorothy Shaw judged Groove. Mr. Ashok Vishwanathan chaired the Turncoat Debate and Ms. Chitra Bhaskar conducted Half A Minute. The judges for Fashion Show were Ms. Vandana Paul, Mr. Saheb Chatterjee, Ms. Jessica Gomes Surana and Ms. Nirali Ganatra. The Band event was judged by Mr. Pradyumna Manot, Mr. Akash Rohira and Ms. Rila Banerjee.

Spreading Smiles was judged by Ms. Sujata Chatterjee, Ms. Indu Gandhi and Ms. Sangeeta Bapuli.

The brilliant performance by the band Sanam left the people wanting more. The success of the entire fest is evident in the unanimous opinion that ‘The Tenth Odyssey is the best fest in town’. Birla High School has indeed made it "The Next Level", surpassed "The Zenith", ascended "Infinity", attained "The Eighth Degree" and made "A Voyage Beyond Nirvana". This year, they set "A Paradigm Of Perfection."

External links

References

  1. ↑ "The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Metro | CHIT CHAT". www.telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 2016-01-16.

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