2,000 students to take part in Indian school cultural fest

Muscat: Two-thousand students and 1,000 teachers from 16 Indian schools across Oman will participate in what promises to be the largest edition of Jhankaar, the annual cultural show organised for students to showcase their creative talents.
To be held on November 1, the event will see students from as far as Buraimi and Salalah come to Muscat to take part in the show.
“Jhankaar is a very respected spectrum and programme of Indian School Muscat. Twenty-eight events will be held at 19 different venues,” said Mohammed Faizi, finance director of the Board of Directors for Indian Schools in Oman.
“More than 2,000 participants are there, along with 1,000 teachers, so it is a big event for ISM and for all the schools here. A total of 16 schools will be participating in this.”
This is the 12th edition of Jhankaar, and will showcase events such as dance, graffiti making, music, miming, stand-up comedy, short movies and ad film-making, as well as photography.
“Nineteen of these will be held in the morning, and the remaining nine will be in the afternoon,” said Eskalin Gonsalves, Vice Principal, Senior Section at ISM, and event manager of the show. “We had 1,600 students last year, and that has gone up by 400 this year. We have introduced three new events, including stand-up comedy and extempore speech for our senior students, and narrating a tall tale for our junior students. The last 11 editions saw the organisation done exclusively by teachers, but this year we are involving students. About 275 students will be involved in organising the show, along with the teachers.
“We would like to train our students by giving them the responsibility in organising these events,” he added. “We have got students who will be functioning as volunteers, and one team of students will help support the organisers. The second team of students will help across the 28 events. This will range from keeping the venues ready for the competition, receiving the judges for the competition, hospitality aspects, welcoming the guests, conducting the competition, calling out the participants, tabulating and declaring results. We are going to have a neutral, trained, qualified jury that will not be connected to any of the Indian schools. None of them will be parents of students at these schools. We also have Omani citizens, as well as Europeans and Americans in different fields who will come as judges. They all reside in Oman and will be adjudicating these events.”
Preparation for Jhankaar started nearly eight months ago.
The 16 schools competing are from Buraimi, Darsait, Al Ghubra, Ibra, Ibri, Jalan, Maabela, Muladha, Nizwa, Rustaq, Salalah, Seeb, Sohar, Sur, Wadi Kabir and Muscat.