The Study School at Badi arranged a special assembly session today, November 25, to mark two special events – National Reading Day and National Harmony Week. A few special guests were invited and they introduced the children to various aspects of nature, harmony and reading.

Famous wildlife conservator, Dr. Raza Tehsin and his daughter Arefa Tehsin, who had co-authored the book Tales from the Wild, had introduced themselves and their work for nature and wild life to the students.

While addressing the assembly, Dr. Tehsin articulated the naturally favourable location of The Study, which is situated in the midst of the Aravali range and because of that various species of birds are easily seen here.

He started his speech by quoting a touching phrase “If this world become human-less, the birds will be very happy, but if this world becomes bird-less, then human beings cannot survive.”

Elaborating the phrase, Dr. Tehsin explaining the sensitive relation between man and bird and how important birds are for us humans, said “to understand the above simple phrase, we have to enter into the world of insects, most of the insects have higher breeding power, some even more disastrous than the atom bomb.”

“If there would be no birds, the insects could become a menace for human society” he said.

Pointing out the present scenario where birds are disappearing fast, Dr. Tehsin said, “as birds are vanishing, the insect growth is being mutated by an increased habitual use of pesticides, which in turn harms our environment and health repeatedly. Birds are a natural source to stop such misbalance.”

“The navigation system of birds is a mystery as nobody knows how these migrating birds are traveling from so far and reach at the same place and at the same time every year”, said Dr. Tehsin.

Arefa Tehsin, who had finished her schooling in The Study has expressed gratitude towards her teachers who she give credit for building her foundation. “I am an avid reader and writer; whatever I am today is just because of my teachers in The Study. However, I have learnt a lot from my father and because of him I am so much close to nature and wild life.

Arefa further said, “My father taught me not to be afraid of jungles and animals as jungles are safer than cities and animals are more reliable than human beings.”

Students of The Study, Chaya Rathore and Puneeta Chandwani gave their speeches on National Reading Day and National Harmony Week respectively.

Chaya, in her short speech compared the changing reading habits both online and traditional, but guaranteed the importance of traditional reading over online reading, both in terms of understanding as well as health.

Puneeta expressed the value of communal harmony in a country like India which has hundreds of different communities, religions and people living together.