Graduation Day 2014
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams
The “Graduation Day” for the class 12 students at Modern School is not only the crunch occasion for the students’ whole school life span but also the most long awaited one. It’s a day of achievement — an occasion to be cherished throughout life for more than 400 students on the new threshold of their lives in the presence of their teachers and parents!
We believe that Graduation is not the end but a new beginning. The exercise therefore, commenced with the customary address by Dr Vijay Datta, the Principal wishing all the students the very best. In his speech, he said, “Graduation is one of the few genuine rites of passage left in our society. You are, individually and collectively, passing symbolically from one place to another, from an old to a new status. And, like all such rites, it is both retrospective and prospective. You are graduating (or being graduated) from college, which is the end of something. But the ceremony we are participating in is called commencement.”
Dr Datta further added, “Perhaps the most useful suggestion I can make on the day when most of you are ceasing to be students, is that you go on being students- for the rest of your lives. Don’t move to a mental slum.
If you go on being students, if you do not consider you have graduated and that your schooling is done, perhaps you can at least save yourselves and thereby make a space for others.”
After the moving address by Dr Datta, in a symbolic gesture, the teachers handed out the’ lamp of knowledge’ to the class of 2015 — almost 400 of them. It was followed by the traditional tossing up of the graduation caps into the air.
Then followed the session of touching mastery of oratory by the students — most with their eyes welled up in tears — the worthy Valedictorians that day. It was perhaps the address of the millennium by Arudhra Rao, also an ace debator who astonished one and all with his command over oratory. The debate in charge, Mr Firoz was ecstatic about the fact that in Arudra, he discovered a Cicero.
Arudra said, “There often comes a moment in a man’s life, only if my teachers allow me to call myself one, where they are forced to look themselves into the mirror, the mirror of reality, the mirror of self-realization and have the courage to judge themselves before waiting to be judged by others. Sadly yet optimistically Ladies and gentlemen for us that time is now.
Shantanu was another masterstroke with his emphatic words, “We stand here today on the precipice of the future. It’s not a distant reality anymore. It begins here. It begins today. We began high school as children, but we’re leaving here as adults.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
Ishaan Madan too was full of ideas, “Take action. Every story you’ve ever connected with, every leader you’ve ever admired, every small little thing that you’ve ever accomplished is the result of taking action. You have a choice. You can either be a passive victim of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life.”
The occasion was graced by the President, Board of Trustees, Modern Schools, Mr. Ashok Pratap Singh, who was the Chief Guest of the Graduation Day Ceremony.
