"If you want to learn to love, better you should start with a friend who you hate,” believes educationist Rati Wadia. She had heard these words from a "six-year-old girl called Nikah,” and used them to build the theme for an online event for a global nonprofit organization 100 Thousand Poets for Change (100TPC). Titled "Love is a Many-Splendoured Thing,” the event was conducted by the former principal of Queen Mary School jointly with author Katie Bagli on September 20, 2020. 100TPC focuses on poetry, music and the arts to bring about social change and presents a worldwide event each September. This was the ninth event since the organization was set up in Bombay, she wrote in an email to Parsiana. The school children who participated "offered interesting insights into how they view love.” The approximately 30 participants spoke about love for nature, books, poetry, and even basketball and cricket.
Rati Wadia (top, l) and Katie Bagli (above, l): coordinating an online event for children
Participating schools included Fun Ki Pathshaala (FKP), The Cathedral and John Connon School, The J. B. Petit High School for Girls (JBP), Somaiya School and Mahapragya Public School (MPS). "Some of the children were as young as seven; the youngest was in junior kindergarten,” wrote Wadia. The girls from JBP collaborated to present poems with Kathak and Odissi-style dances. A Strange Love, scripted and directed by Bagli, performed by seven students of FKP depicted the compassion of a squirrel towards the young ones of a crow.