Bal mela is an event where students from underprivileged sections of society surrounding us are called upon and we teach them the things which we are privileged enough to know. I was not originally part of this but some changes happened last minute and I was able to show up and therefore it was very spontaneous and I had not planned much. I was a part of Graffiti team and we taught children how to create them. They were very excited as they had not painted with spray cans before and this was a like a new doll for them and therefore there was a lot of curiosity and enthusiasm going around. There are a lot of things which I learned from this experience and they are:

• Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

I was able to identify my strength and in this case it was painting on the wall. I have done it before a couple times and have developed an expertise in it. I think it was important that I knew this was my strength because when I was teaching kids how to do it, I didn’t feel under confident which I tend to do when  I don’t have superlative knowledge about something and I have to deliver it.

• Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

A challenging part was resources. Enough resources were not there due to some miscommunications backhand and I did not realise this before as I was not in for Bal Mela earlier. It was challenging because here we had set up everything, children were here and we did not have spray cans to teach them how to paint. It made us look bad and our school because we were representing it. We eventually arranged for the spray paints. Had to run around a little and talk to a lot of people but we managed to get it. It was not enough but it did get us started. We also did a little ‘jugaad’ as we didn’t have all the paints so we mixed two like we sprayed one and then sprayed other on top of it and mixed with brush. I didn’t know this could happen before I tried it out. I guessed my expertise in Arts helped here because we usually mix paints to create new colors so I thought let’s try that here and it worked out well enough. I feel more confident and I am gaining trust in my Arts knowledge and I know I will be a little less panicked when next art crisis shows up. I believe it is important to take up new challenges or learn new skills constantly as it helps you grow as a person and shows your open-mindedness.

      –   Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

Working with others is generally a rather difficult task for me because I am an introvert and this just isn’t my cup of tea. Interacting, during this activity, definitely wasn’t a cakewalk but it was easier compared to before. I am developing these skills, all thanks to CAS. Everybody was friendly and the event went quite smooth. I think it is important to work collaboratively with others so that we can share the creativity and ideas and come up with something which is beyond the capabilities of an individual. Teamwork was important here primarily due to two reasons: first, we were creating a graffiti and had to communicate and work with each other to ensure we all were on the same page and nothing goes out of hand; second, we had to address kids which were basically strangers and we, as a team represented our school. So, it was imperative that we work together to make our school look good.

Bal Mela was lot of fun and the memories I made won’t go away for a long time. Witnessing their smiles was priceless and so was this experience. Hope to have more of these encounters as these are sheer fun and great teachers.