Kalaakar

Fifteen students, when posed with the question of what makes the long, gruelling days of the education system more bearable, found common ground in an identical answer – Art. The possibilities are endless – a new stand-up comedy video, a haiku that hits just the right note or a film that has you spellbound – but its power is unchanging: Art has the ability to empower. Realising that there is a lack of attention paid to such invaluable expression, these fifteen students resolved to create an accessible channel to promote the performing arts within their community – and Kalaakar (Kala-Art Kar-Do) was born.

Kalaakar is an entirely student - run initiative that focuses on encouraging students across the city to participate in several performing arts – spoken-word poetry, stand-up comedy and film. Determined to create a conducive and welcoming platform for students to display their talents and express themselves in front of an audience, we organised Spotlight, an evening of performance. Student competitions were held for Stand-Up Comedy, Poetry, Film-making and Acting, with a number of students from within our school, as well as from other schools in Mumbai, participating. We were fortunate enough to welcome a set of illustrious judges, who were kind enough to perform for us (much to the delight of the audience). This included stand-up comedians Kanan Gill, Jackie J. Thakkar and our very own Mr. Nick Pillow, as well as poets Priya Malik, Nadeem Raj and Aranya Johar. We were able to leverage our excellent panel of performances by our judges to draw large crowds for the event, allowing the student performers a significant audience to perform in front of.

Of course, our overarching goal was to enable underprivileged sections of our society to engage with the performing arts as well. To that end, the sizeable proceeds raised through ticket sales and donations were in turn donated to the Dhenuki Cinema Project, which seeks to empower rural India through the power of Cinema. The evening was a success, and an extremely fulfilling experience for us. Perhaps the most humbling moment was when one student told us that it was his “favourite event in school.”