North Point’s Raman spells a winning story

Raman Mohara’s entry, “Abode of Snow”, has won the ‘Spell a Story’, pegged as the “biggest story writing competition for schools in Sikkim and North Bengal, contest. A student of St. Joseph’s School (North Point), Darjeeling, Raman’s effort was given the top ranking by Bangalore Writers Workshop (BWW), a firm which grooms budding writers and provides support in professionally evaluating short stories.
Meanwhile, Anurag Mukhia from Himali Boarding School, Kurseong, came second for his story “Victim” followed by Carmel Sharma of Bahai Senior Secondary School, Ranipul, in third position for her short story, “A Priceless Gift”.
The creative writing competition helmed by lifestyle magazine “Good New Sikkim” in association with 24Hrs Inspired received more than 250 entries from across the region. The entries were screened at the local level and 60 shortlisted stories were sent to BBW for the final evaluation.
The top thirty stories would be receiving cash prizes. The winner takes home Rs. 50,000 in cash with 50 percent of the amount earmarked as development fund of his school.
“When we sat down to decide the judging parameters, we had three essential criteria apart from the other rules. First, the stories had to be creative, second, the stories had to be original, and third, the use of words and sentences had to be appropriate. We are glad that all the participants gave their best shot and that all the stories showed the best effort that the students had put in,” says Dewaker Basnet, Chief Learning Officer, 24hours Inspired.
Speaking on the experience of BWW partnering in the initiative, BWW co-founder and director Bhumika Anand said: “Many of the stories that came for evaluation were marvelous and some of these children are really talented. It was a pleasure working with Spell a Story and we look forward for working together in the times to come.”
Good News Sikkim Chief Executive Editor Ugen T Ladakhi said: “The objective of Spell a Story was to encourage young students from our State and North Bengal schools to bring out their creativity on paper. We are very happy to report that we succeeded in our objective to provide a platform to these next generation writers. We are positive that our initiative has ignited their passion for writing and that they will continue writing irrespective of whether they have won this competition or not.”
Good News Sikkim operations head Thinley Choden Bhutia thanked all the students and their schools for participating in the contest. She thanked Casino Mahjong and other well wishers for coming forward to sponsor the contest. The date for distribution of prizes will be announced shortly, informed the organizers.