The Mayday Story
Shikhar Singh reports on his publishing venture during Exchange

It is never easy to discuss a student exchange. The plethora of experiences and impressions, when recounted, can sound incoherent to even the most interested listener. Anticipating this, I have chosen to focus on a particularly valuable memory - kick-starting a school publication at St. Edwards, my host school.
I will leave out the misery and mismanagement at the Delhi airport and a journey almost entirely spent in slumber as this makes for an uninteresting account. The unpredictable English weather is characteristic to anyone’s stay in England, as it invariably hampers one’s plans and commitments for the day.
While most of my classmates shuttled in and out of the examination halls, my housemaster, a highly articulate, concerned and well-travelled, middle-aged Englishman, advised me to plan my stay so as to accomodate all my interests and make it a wholesome experience. Having taken a tour of the entire campus, situated on the banks of a canal in residential Oxford, I paid a visit to the Warden (quaint though it may sound, he is our Headmaster’s counterpart!). In conversation with him, I explored a possibility that would dominate my stay there, eventually even become one of my most satisfying experiences in the UK. This was the idea of starting a student publication in their school.
The concept was excellent, and the school bought my arguments. However, for a viable project I needed to sell this to the students. In retrospect, I believe, this became a major platform for interaction with my peers. My English lesson worked as a wake-up call for me. It was in one of our ‘A Passage To India’ debates that I stumbled upon the keenness of certain students to start a publication. The rest became history. Samuel Jay and Ione Braddick took the idea instantly and were all up for the scheme, which, in due course, would be entirely dependent on their enthusiasm and willingness.
In a hastily organized meeting in the quiet, old, conservative library, amongst sudden outbursts of ecstatic emotion, the magazine was named Mayday and its first issue reached the readers on the first of May (celebrated as May Day in downtown Oxford with people diving into the Thames from one of the bridges at midnight). Of course this was entirely student-run and it was populous rather than literary. I left the onus of its contents on its future karta-dhartas. Everyone wanted this publication to cater entirely to student interests. So be it! We began rather professionally by taking a detailed survey of ‘who-wants-what’ and on allocating space accordingly. The Sun, it seems, was the most popular newspaper and obviously the regular Page Three gossip topped the popularity charts. And so we inserted gossip, rumours, and sensational revelations on our second page. That agreed, we decided to be magnanimous to our music fans, who constituted a significant chunk of the student population. In the weeks to come, I was made to chase Dave Bayley, who being one of the few students lucky enought to attend the Strokes concert at Hyde Park, had to provide me with a review of the event.

(Contd. on Page 2)

Editorial

The gates to Chandbagh are open…once again. There were many melodramatic moans heard on the buses and trains on the way back to School, as is the case always, but one has to admit that there is some amount of joy as we step through the gates and come back to our home, away from home.
The Doscos came back to a partitioned campus and incessant rainfall. Tragedy for some (Scs being boxed in a dorm instead of a study) and luxury for others as the Eagles perched themselves in Martyn and Foot Houses. Though it must be quite an experience for some who can now proclaim that they resided in Foot, Jaipur and Martyn too, not to mention the five-star amenities now available to them.
The CDH and the Art School have gone under the builder’s hammer as the School’s plans for expansion continue. Are we preparing for co-education? At the same time, the staff can expect grander houses.
There is a lot to look forward to this term. Football, swimming, Chucks, Founder’s, Tata House Pagalgymkhana, basketball, athe and, of course, preparation for the Boards (I’m sure the A and Sc formers are looking forward to it with a lot of enthusiasm!)
And since brevity is supposed to be the soul of wit, I will sign off now and leave you to enjoy this, the first issue of an event-packed term.