Standard, did someone say?

Every year Cascade attempts to tap the talent of school kids. To encourage them to participate, and to give them the thrill of winning. Every year we see a new batch of school kids, a bright lot, that seems to be full of energy and zest. But unfortunately that’s about all they seem to be full of. And each year this new batch gives the NBS members reason enough to continue organizing Cascade- the laughs.

I’ll explain.

Despite all the attempts to raise the standard of competition, every single year the standards just keep dropping. I personally think its because the kids are getting dumber. Well what do you expect if you spend all your time numbing your brain from playing on your PS2 or watching absolute crass on television? A brain overflowing with knowledge? I think not.

Any way as I was saying, these kids’ brains seem to be deteriorating with such enthusiasm that it scares me to imagine what my children’s generation will be like!
Well one thing’s for sure, all that these kids lacked in intelligence, they made up for in humour. This year they were an especially funny batch. The only thing was that we were laughing at them not with them.

There were so many instances of dumbness floating around the place; it was hard to keep a record. Allow me to present my case.

Exhibit A: Hollywood, Bollywood, what’s the difference?
4 days before the event, I got a call from one of the participating schools. They had a query. The category for dance this year was Western and the school in question wanted to know if they could do the Salsa. “Of course” I assured them and gave them the go ahead signal. During the course of the conversation they happened to mention they were dancing to the popular track “Right here, right now.” I was aghast. I pointed out that this was a ‘Western Dance’ competition. Of course, how could I be so foolish so as to forget that that this was in fact a rap song with only “two or three lines in Hindi”. Later on they even got their principal to call me and argue their case. I was left speechless.

Exhibit B: Dumb, dumber, dumbest Charades.
Dumb Charades seemed to give NBS member the most laughs this year. Reason being, the school kids had no idea what is was they were to act out. Take for example this, which happened during the finals of the event: The book that was to be acted out was ‘The lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’. To begin with, neither the actor nor the guesser knew what we were talking of. And then to top it off, they somehow managed to get “ The ________, The Witch and The Wardrobe” and still failed to guess the right answer.

Their final guess was: “The Monster rabbit, The Witch and The Wardrobe.”

Exhibit C: Sleuth: Has anyone seen my brains?
Sleuth is one of the most fun events at Cascade. It is a treasure hunt that takes the teams on a chase all around Cubbon Park. Now for this instance I would like to tell you what the clue was and where it leads them. Each clue had a clue to the place they were to go next, and a password they had to say in order to get their next clue. This particular clue said this:

Elvis Presley
Michael Jackson
Mufasa

Password: Who is the Lion King?

Their destination was the King’s statue at the front of the park. This one team decided to come to the bandstand instead. These were their exact words:
“This is the place, the clue has Mufasa and lion king on it and that leads us to The Ashoka pillar that has 4 lions on it. I know it, I just know it!”
I tried explaining to them that, that wasn’t what the clue meant, that there wasn’t even an Ashoka Pillar in that area. Finally I gave up and told them they were to go to the King’s statue. They ran off only to come back 45 minutes later and tell me they had no clue where the King’s statue was.

Exhibit D: Of innovative responses and Creativity.
This one is absolutely priceless. When asked “ What do you think should be the theme foe next year’s Cascade?” for the personality prelims, one especially bright student answered, “Cascade 2007.”

I rest my case.

-Kripa