Activity Week Blues

Activity Week. The one week in the academic year that you get some rest and relaxation from the monotonous school days and get to go out and gain experiences that are unique and educational at the same time. Like any other Woodstock student, I had looked forward to Activity Week since the start of the second quarter and had already started making some plans about where to go and what to do in Delhi. I realize that my choice of destination for Activity Week would not be appreciated by most Woodstock students and people reading this article since every Woodstock student has to go to Delhi at least twice every year. Personally, I had been to Delhi on numerous occasions before, but had only haunted many of the movie theatres and malls that now populate Delhi. I had no desire whatsoever to spend even a minute of my hard earned Quarter Break time visiting the historical and cultural locations in Delhi. The closest I ever came to visiting a cultural site was when I was gagged, bound and dragged by my father to visit the National Museum. However, Activity Week seemed to be a good time to visit Delhi as a ‘student of history and culture’ and maybe gain some new insights into Delhi. In addition, I didn’t really want to ‘rough it’ like I did last year on the Corbett/Nainital trip.

However, contrary to my belief, there was a lot of ‘roughing it’ involved in this Activity Week. We stayed in the guestrooms of the headquarters of the Church of North India which is right in the center of New Delhi. The rooms were spartan to say the least, and the beds were not the most comfortable things I had ever slept in; and after spending around 6-8 hours sitting on a bus riding to Delhi, a comfortable bed would have been greatly appreciated by all of us. Moreover, the attached bathrooms we expected were nowhere to be found, at least in my room. After what seemed like a short nap, we were up at 8am to grab a quick, simple breakfast and rush off to the Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential House). After a flurry of other activities, punctuated by massive consumption of fast foods and cold drinks, we returned to the guest rooms at 10pm. As surprised as we were by the number of activities scheduled on that first day, we were even more surprised to learn that this was the pattern to be followed every day!

Although this Activity Week was an extremely tiring experience — not at all the restful, relaxing trip I had first imagined — it was altogether an educational experience. Most of the places we went to were interesting places to go to, even though at most times we were so culturally saturated that we weren’t in a mood to see anything at all. And as much as I complained and grumbled, I have to admit that I did see a lot of things that I otherwise would not have seen. Plus, the additional 2kgs I gained because of the fast food aren’t so bad either.

—Fuser Lama