Child artists jazz up XLRI show

From The Telegraph

A student lets her imagination flow on the canvas during the painting competition that was organised by budding managers of XLRIon Sunday. Pictures by Bhola Prasad

XLRI is truly thinking “beyond conventions”. 

The premier management cradle has come up with a unique idea of tapping the artistic skills of school students for its popular annual event, Ensemble 2012 — an inter-B-school competition involving games and quiz. 

On Sunday, it organised a drawing competition for about 150 students of Loyola School and St Mary’s English High School. The best paintings will be made into a collage and used on the publicity posters for Ensemble scheduled in the second week of November. As such, the participants — from classes IV to VIII — were required to paint anything out of the box in keeping with Ensemble’s theme, Beyond Conventions. 

“Last year’s theme was Bridging the Gap while this year, it’s Beyond Conventions, which is why we decided to do something offbeat and involve schoolchildren in our first-of-its-kind initiative,” said Pratyush Raj, senior executive member, Exlink, XLRI. 

He added that the painting contest gave students a platform to think beyond routine and paint their unique imaginations. “For us, it was the perfect way to involve the community,” Pratyush said. 

A winner was chosen from each class and presented with a certificate and trophy. 

“As of now, the plan is to use these paintings in a collage and send it to various B-schools of the country as promotion posters. This way, the paintings will also find an audience. We asked the participating students to be as unique as possible,” said Anusheel Shrivastava, secretary of Exlink, XLRI. 

Pratyush further said that the practice of involving school students was also part of an initiative to honour the new tagline of XLRI — “for the greater good”. The B-school launched its new logo in Calcutta last week.

Institutes from across the country participate in Ensemble. This year, it promises to go a step further and seeks to inspire and invigorate the minds of leaders of tomorrow to think out of the box. 

The events on cards are from diverse like marketing strategy, business strategy, game theory, competition based on banking sector cases and general quiz. A panel discussion will also be held .