વિધાર્થી જીવન માં ભગવાન ના આશીર્વાદ પ્રાપ્ત કરવાનો સહેલામાં સહેલો ઉપાય એટલે કે સરસ અભ્યાસ કરવો.

It seems that the 12th standard bhoolkus had already opted this way to get blessings from Swamishree. They had worked extremely hard for the board exams, especially for the last four and a half months before the exams. It was now time to bid a hearty farewell to them and express our love and wish them good luck for their journey ahead. We, the 11th standard students, were fortunate to get the chance to organise this event for our senior brothers and make it a great one. We all were excited not only to organise this event but also to get a chance to explore, learn and play around with new ideas.

A brief meeting with our teachers gave us an idea about the function and the way it had to be organised. We started working together, brainstorming, to come up with something unique and special, yet simple enough to be executed. All of us frequently got together and shared ideas so that we could come up with something concrete that could be presented. Based on the slogan of Udaan, “Soaring new heights”, we came up with a few themes and shared our ideas with our teachers. They helped us filter our thoughts and finally we came up with the theme of Birds and Trees. It conveyed a unique perspective about the event and the journey ahead. The key idea was to depict students as birds and AVM as the “Tree of Life” with other destinations/milestones in life as various other trees. It was the “Tree of Life” to which all the students (birds) were connected to, so that they can lead a positive life despite any negativity that they might encounter on other “trees” in their journey.

Once the theme was set, we then divided ourselves into groups so that we could work together effectively and efficiently. There was no trouble for us as we had our beloved teachers who would always be there to help us as and when required. Normally working late night is a challenging task but during this course of time it became a joyful activity for all of us. It was really amazing to work together as that helped us come closer. Eventually, the days of hard work passed away, but those 15 to 20 days seemed like 15 to 20 minutes.

The big day finally arrived for us on 23rd April, giving us the opportunity to make our brothers feel special and to remind us all how fortunate we are. The graduating students along with their parents settled down in the school prayer hall at their respective places. The hosts came up on the stage with a melodious music accompanying them and started the program with poojan of Thakorji. The celebration began with a very insightful skit which conveyed the importance of being connected to the Tree of Life.

It was followed by the most important event of the celebration, blessings of Swamishree via a video of Him guiding the students regarding the life they should strive to live in order to please God and parents and to become happy.

The glimpses of our brothers cherishing their memories of the time they spent at AVM made the atmosphere nostalgic and it was taken to the next level by a first-time-ever-at-AVM Shadow Act. Manish Sir and his team had worked hard and smart to put up a very creative performance depicting life at AVM. And as if that was not enough to make the students about to go in the uncharted territory, feel special and to further express our feelings, we invited some of our brothers on the stage to outperform Arijit Singh, which they actually did! To add to the liveliness of the event and to give it a humorous touch, we had an interruptive team which showed up in between the programs with some political act.

This year our school initiated a partnership with the National Stock Exchange (NSE) to help for Commerce students excel. To felicitate them for their performances and to celebrate the successful first year of the partnership, they were given their Financial Market Management (FMM) certificates. During the event, all the students were given gifts as a token of love and a mark that they are always connected to the tree of life. It was then time to let our brothers express their feelings regarding the “ecosystem” of AVM and their unique experiences in it. On behalf of all of them, Dinalbhai expressed gratitude towards Swamishree and the school and shared the way in which the tree of life has become an inevitable part of the life. As the “birds” were now about to go to unknown “trees”, they required further guidance from the members of the tree of life. So to fulfil their needs, Pujya Fuvaji and Vijay Sir guided them with some important lifelong lessons which would be helpful for them all the time. They also encouraged the students to walk on the path of divinity shown by Param Pujya Swamiji by reminding them the agnas given by Him.

The aarti marked an auspicious end to the function. After that all of them met each other and took blessings from elders and teachers. The highly appealing exhibition was a tribute to our senior brothers and it also showed the connection of all the students with the tree of life. The portraits of the students were nicely decorated on nests created by the 11th standard students. All the nests were further connected to the tree of life through the branches.

After the majestic end of the event, it was the time for all the parents, students and the teachers to move towards the school basketball court to have a sumptuous dinner together one more time. All of them enjoyed a lot and created lifelong memories.

Celebrating UDAAN as a function was one part of it but for us, the most important part of it was to come closer to each other, to understand each other, and to share our thoughts and feelings with each other. It was a great learning experience for all of us. During the preparation, there were many moments when we had conflicting ideas but we tried and accepted those patiently, we tried and never got angry on others, we understood and helped each other whether we knew anything about the undertaken task or not. Different students had different work load of seva but still no one complained. All of these helped us grow spiritually and gave us a chance to please Thakorji and Swamishree. We all felt the presence of Swamiji with us, who helped us at every moment and took us one step towards Him. We all came one step closer to each other and tried to follow the sutra of “We are ONE”.

It was this due to which UDAAN 2017 was extremely unique, distinctive and amazing. It really helped us soar new heights in our life.

-Pramanik Soni, Pranesh Patel (11 Commerce)