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MPA students of grade 9, 10, 11 and 12 visited Khanna Paper Mill on 4th February’2019. It is one of the top ten paper manufacturing companies in India.

About khanna paper mill

Khanna Paper Mills Private Limited, is an ISO 9001:2000 certified company, manufacturing quality paper and board by recycling of waste paper as the feedstock for domestic consumption for a little over four decades.  Although paper is traditionally identified with reading and writing, communication has now been replaced by packaging as the single largest category of paper use at 41% of all paper used. Khanna Paper Mills is the largest paper mill production house of its kind and today produces around 3,30,000 MT of board, writing and printing paper. Khanna has also become the first paper mill in India to produce high quality writing and printing board from 100% deinked wood free recovered paper. Khanna Paper’s presence in the USA strategically enables it to procure high quality recycled fiber from around the world.

Visiting khanna paper mill

During the visit the students observed that the mill was 100% eco friendly. They made recycled paper from waste paper; the majority of it is imported from many different countries, including the USA and Finland. The students had a round table meeting with one of the Board of Directors, Mr. Suneet Kochhar. It was an interactive session in which the director briefed the students about the working and history of Khanna Paper Mills and the students asked many intriguing questions. One of the questions asked by Tashi was “What is the relevance of paper in today’s era of technology?” Another interesting question asked by Harsimran was “What are other ways of producing paper apart from waste paper and wood?”

After this session students were apprised about the different departments of the company starting from the inventory, production and processing unit of three different kinds of paper – writing paper, cardboard and newsprint – to the packaging department and finally the accounting department. A brief talk was conducted by each unit head about the workings of their area.

This trip allowed the students to connect a lot of the theoretical concepts of business that we learn in the classroom to a real life situation. It was a great learning experience for the children. After the visit they were asked to answer a questionnaire, including questions such as:

Q1. What is the type of business? (Sole trader, partnership, public limited or private limited?)

Q3. Is it a capital or a labour intensive business?

Q4. Do they use quality assurance or quality control to maintain the quality of the product?

Q5.Identify the variable and fixed costs of the business as well as the direct and indirect costs of the business.

Q6. Which type of inventory method do they use? Which are the different inventory costs they incur?

Q8. What strategies are followed to keep their workers motivated? Do they specifically follow any of the theorist’s strategies?

Gold House did an excellent job putting their special dinner together. Each house is provided with a fixed menu to prepare, and they had some difficult items on their list. They served ginger ale to drink, French onion soup and a tofu-quiche for appetizers, Russian mushroom julienne with Waldorf salad for the main course and marzipan croissants with hot chocolate for dessert. The croissants were perhaps the most difficult item. After some initial stress and some experimentation, they came out great.

Instead of having one main cook, Gold House divided the labour. Sevak Prem Kaur and Angad Singh made the croissants, Amar Singh and Amarbir Singh made the French onion soup, Sat Kriya made the Russian mushroom julienne, and Vega and Paramjot Kaur made the quiches.

The performances were also delightful. Aloka sang ‘La Vie en Rose’ while Angad, Caterina, Manjot, Sat Kriya and Vega performed a traditional Russian folk dance. They put that routine together in two days and it was a lot of fun to watch. It’s amazing what can be accomplished in just a couple of days when everyone works together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms8IGwNfQzU&ab_channel=MiriPiriAcademy

The Dharmic Knowledge Bowl is the sister game to the General Knowledge Bowl. It’s a Jeopardy-style competition which tests the students knowledge on a wide variety of dharmic and yogic topics. This year’s topics were diet, gurdwaras, Yogi Bhajan quotes, 3HO music, asana, lives of the gurus, kriya, lifestyle and health, santhya, and name that bani.

In ‘Name that Bani’ the students were played a recording of one of the banis which they then had to identify; ‘Santhya’ covered topics included in the humanology course, and ‘Asana’ included yogic postures to be demonstrated. There were two rounds with three Daily Doubles. The first two levels for each category were for the intermediates only.

This year’s dinner competitions have begun!

One of the students’ favourite competitions is the dinner competition. It’s an opportunity for the squad to come together to pull off a great evening. Together they must prepare a meal for the rest of the school, set-up a beautiful dinning room, serve their guests, provide entertainment and clean-up.

This year the competition was set-up differently. Instead of giving the houses unlimited time to prepare, we gave the students just three days. On Wednesday night the house picked a theme and corresponding menu prepared by the staff randomly. They then had just three days to plan how they would set-up the dining hall, make menus, prepare entertainment, buy anything extra or special for the event, try out the menu and then prepare it for the whole school.

As this was a new set-up, we weren’t sure how it would turn out or what to expect with the limited time span. If White House is any indication of what’s to come, it will be great. They did a nice job setting up intimate floor seating in the dining hall. To create this warm space they brought in beds from the dorms to use as tables, carpeted the entire area, and hung curtains and lights to make it cozy. They also bought in table cloths, made an altar, hung paintings, scattered flowers on the tables and lit plenty of candles.

The meal was chosen by staff and included spring rolls with peanut sauce, papaya salad, thai curry with rice and coconut sticky rice with mango for dessert. They also served thai iced tea and mojitos. The highlight of the meal for the table I was sitting as was the spring rolls. For entertainment, Lena, Michèle, Elisa and Akashpreet performed a dance.

Here is another interview conducted by student Hana Goodkind.

Paramjot is from Shenzhen, China. She is the squad leader for Gold house girls and has been at MPA since 2013. In May, she will graduate with her twelfth grade class.

What creative projects are you currently spending your free time on?

I spend a big portion of my free time with my artwork. Doing mostly sketches and watercolor but often I go out on a whim with some inspiration I had, and I try something new, like oil pasteling the wall in our room or designing an art bag for myself. A few years ago I formed a pretty passionate interest in hip hop dance and so lately, I can get pretty engaged in learning and teaching choreography. In addition, I play the guitar and the ukulele and I’ve started to compose my own poems and stories in abundance as well.

How has MPA supported your creative outlets?

Coming to MPA exposed me to a whole lot of enriching, uplifting, sensory and vibrant cultural experiences. Being a part of such a diverse student body, continues, day by day to open my mind in new ways and challenges me to accept new points of view, new ideas and concepts. There are so many little moments and conversations which spark creative ideas for me or inspire me to try and reflect that experience in my artwork.  Something I would really aspire to do is reflect values in my creative expressions – to express virtuousness, presence, purity, grace. I am so joyed to have the space at MPA to connect with peers and teachers who are aligned with these values, open to discussing them and portraying them. Generally, I feel well supported at MPA in my creative endeavours. I was given the time and space to organize and teach dance classes to the students. I am often encouraged to play my instruments in Gurdwara or during our evening meditations. And I am taking Cambridge art in our CPA department.

What are your plans and goals for your post graduation?

After high school, I am going back home to take a gap year. During that year, I will be studying at an art school in my city called XIAOYAN. I would at some point also appreciate the opportunity to work in public service, perhaps to volunteer. And of course, teach Kundalini yoga wherever I go. After my gap year, I’ll move to a University, ideally either in the UK or the USA. My eventual pervading goal has been to make a career as an illustrator.

As the school year is coming to an end, Paramjot expresses feeling grateful, reflective and anxious for her graduation. She is taking full advantage of these last few months at MPA.