Part 2 - Pratham Sopan i.e the First badge

As soon as i completed my Pravesh badge. A new challenge stood forth me. The next test or badge which which challenged me was the PRATHAM SOPAN. This was the next badge for me. This badge included basic tests which i had to undergo like :

1. Rope skills
2. Basic knowledge about first aid
3. Whipping the ends of the rope
4. Conducting Two troop wide games in a troop meeting
5. Conducting a wide game for your patrol
6. Knowledge about your patrol members and the patrol details
7. Cooking for a patrol and the scout master
8. Estimating objects of a small distance
9. Conducting a All faith prayer meeting for your troop/patrol.
10. Maintaining the sanitation of a place in the school for a month.
11. Maintaining the sanitation of a water point in the school for a month.
12. Conducting a discussion about a topic with your troop. 
13. Hand and whistle signals

1. Rope Skills: Reef knot, Bowline, Fisherman's knot, Sheet bend, Sheep shank and clove hitch were the knots/hitches I had to learn for passing in this skill. I had to demonstrate practically on the steps of tieing and the uses of these skills. 
2. Basic knowledge about first aid: The definition I learnt of First-Aid was "First aid is simple medical treatment given as soon as possible before the arrival of a doctor to a person who is injured or who suddenly becomes ill.". Then I learnt it as "First aid is simple medical treatment given as soon as possible before the arrival of a doctor to a person who is injured or who suddenly becomes ill without worsening his/her condition." This definition made our scout troop to excel in whatever tests came on first aid in our testing camps. The syllabus for us scouts in this badge for first aid was 
1. Definition of First-Aid - I have mentioned it above
2. Basic contents of a first aid kit: The basic contents I learnt was cotton, a bottle of dettol, a antiseptic cream and a powder, a ice pack, gauzes, roller bandages, triangular bandages, broad bandages, needles, a pair of tweezers, a pair of scissors, safety pins, few one rupee coins, a few rubber bands, sticking tape etc
1. How to give treatment for burns and scratches and scalds: I had to learn this. Giving treatment for scratches is easy, first wash the wound in water and then in dilute dettol, apply a little anti septic cream or sprinkle antiseptic powder on it, cover it if necessary. Then I had to learn on how to give treatment for burns. First of all I did not know on how to identify a burn. I learnt that there are three types of burns.
2. Burns at the first degree where the skin's color is slightly changed and it becomes pale. Just pour water or immerse the part in cold water. This treatment is the same for scalds. Scalds are caused when you touch something how. Here the skin is only reddened.
3. Burns at the second degree includes the symptom of blisters appearing on the skin. We should take care that we should not burst the blisters. We should cover it with a loose bandage after applying a littel water. 
4. Burns at the third degree makes the skin open and the flesh come out. In these cases we were thought to cover the burn in a clean sheet and rush to the hospital immediately
3. Whipping the ends of a rope: We learnt to whip the ends of a rope to make sure that the ropes won't get loosened.
4. Conducting two troop wide games for the troop:
1. My patrol had to participate with me to complete this test. The fir st game which we decided to conduct was the dog and the bone. We decided that the dogs would be the scouts in two teams standing face to face at a distance in a single file. And the bone was a stick in the middle of the playground. We gave each team a corresponding number and asked them to remember it. Then my friend called out the number and the member of the team who is allotted with the number was to come forward and have a battle among themselves to take the bone and run back to their teams. The team who reaches first without being tagged by the other team member with the bone rewards his team by a few points. We played a few rounds and ended the game.
2. The other game we played was hen fighting. In this game the same two teams were maintained with their respective numbers. And the numbers were called. When the numbers were called they had to come forward. We had marked a huge circle of about three meters radius. These competitors were to step in the circle and a whistle was blown. Oh my God guess what happened?? They had to stand on their legs with their hands locked among themselves behind their backs and fight. And how would you fight in this situation?? This is what they did they started fighting without using their hands and their aim was to bring their opponent down on the ground or make them go out of the circle.
5. Knowing the details of my patrol: This was my next test. If I had to complete this test I had to know the details of my patrols like the patrol name, color, corner, members, symbol, call, details of my members and the patrol song. Well my patrol's name was 'Tigers' at the beginning(I had to change the name for my rashtrapathi testing camp later due to unchangeable developments), My patrol color was yellow. There were 8 members in my patrol. When I was in my primary school my patrol corner was in front of the prayer room and when the scout meetings were held in my high school my patrol corner was in front of the water cooler. My patrol members had to fight just to get this spot as a patrol corner with the other patrols cause we would be getting free and cold water. The patrol symbol was that of an tiger. And we made a song. Well I think we were good poets i think. We made this song  "We are the tigers, We are courageous, as well as heroic, cute and cuddly like a actual baby tiger, but also ferocious as a fully grown tigers, We are the tigers. The patrol call was a roar. So basically if we wanted to call each other to one place we had to literally roar, and they would have to find us.
6. Cooking for a patrol and the scoutmaster: This created some sort of shock or stunning feeling for my mother especially or our patrol members mothers when they heard about our plans. This was ( I think) was the most difficult test for us cause we had to work a lot. So finally the d-day arrived. Deepak, Sanketh, Chris, Josline, Thilak( Deepak's brother) and me were to be found near the dining hall of our school. There was a small kitchen there. I mean it was some sort of an outdoor kitchen. We got the permission from the scoutmaster to begin our grand meal. I decided that I would do some grilled sandwich (my mom calls it dub sandwich) and I would do some lemonade. My friends decided that they would do some 'charmuri'. Charmuri is one of the south indian junk food. This is common especially in mangalore. It consists of puffed rice mixed bit a little bit of oil, onions, tomatoes, salt, coriander leaves, some ground nuts. And also they decided that they would be doing some vegetable salads, and different variety of juices. Well we began our "cooking". I started preparing my ingredients, I had some mashed potatoes mixed with some other veggies (this my mom prepared and gave it to me), some bread and some masalas. I put that mixture in between two slices of bread and put it in a instrument which my mom gave and put it on the fire. To lit the fire was another problem. We just had a match box and some fire wood which we found nearby. It took us at-least twenty minutes to light the fire. Once the fire was lit I had to hold the sandwich on the fire of course with the help of the instrument my mom gave. I think it took 15 minutes to roast one sandwich. I did something like 04 to 05 sandwiches with the fire. And 2-3 dry sandwiches. Then I started to do the lemonade. While making the lemonade a very funny and a very embarrassing incident occurred. I had kept my sandwiches a little far away. And a crow came swooping down and flicked one sandwich and flew away. This gave a very big laugh for my friends, scout master and me especially. Well the food was done. The aroma of food filled the whole place. The scout master took the first bite. You should have been there to see our faces. We were all wondering weather the food we cooked was good. And the SM knew it very well. He kept us in a suspense. And after a few seconds he gave a bright smiling face. And that confirmation on his face gave us a big delight that we had passed the test. Then we served among ourselves. And emptied the place clean (Thats our specialty). Then we took our belongings and headed home after waving a happy goodbye.  
7. Estimation of objects which is at a short distance: Estimation was something new to us. It was a new word which we added to our dictionary. At our regular meetings we had some of our high school seniors used to come and attend our meetings with us and guide us. On one particular day they came to one of our meetings and started explaining us about estimation. Since it was a joint meeting of the pratham sopan and the dwitiya sopan scouts. After the meeting we (that is the pratham sopan scouts) went to the seniors and asked us about the estimation needed for the pratham sopan. So there began the coaching needed for us. He started briefing us with estimation. He told us that we have to work hard for passing this test. He told us that we had to achieve 90% of accuracy. And only 10% of error was allowed. He started us with the "'Pea-Cap method' or the 'Napoleon' method. This method was used to find out the distant of the object which was nearly 10f meters. So we chose the object which was in front keeping our hand just above the eyes in a straight formation. and the tip of our hand had to face the object or the vision of the eyes, the tip of the hand and the marked object were in a single straight line. We had to do this standing in one place. Then we had to turn ourselves 90 degrees without shifting the position of our head. Then make a person to mark an object or you yourself mark an object. Then here comes the main part. From the position in which where you were standing, take proper, decent and equal strides to your marked place. There is one advantage. The advantage is that if you are sure of the distances of your strides, then your estimation will be more accurate. So here we learnt one thing. Be aware of your measurements like the distance of your strides, your height, etc.
8. Conducting a All faith prayer meeting for your troop/patrol: To tell you the truth we were actually afraid of this test. We boys of that age hardly used to pray. (Now we pray, we have realized the value of GOD). So we approached our scout master for his advice. He told us that even if you attend, it is enough. Oh but when we actually participated in the All faith prayer OMG the feeling you get there during the prayer is just too great. Even a person who does not pray will start to pray because here in these meetings all the people participate by singing together. 
9. Maintaining the sanitation of a water point and a place in the school for a month: This was the test which took me a long time to complete. I had to actually clean the whole tar ground of the school every alternate day for a month. And also I had to maintain the cleanliness of a water point. And this water-point was actually a tap near the headmaster's office. Well over here all I did was just pour two to three buckets of water and it used to be spotlessly clean. So me and my friends used to do all these tasks enthusiastically. It was fun for all of us as to how we used to compete with each other as to who would clean their areas first. And of course since we were doing it together some times while we were aiming the bucket to the target we used to miss it by mistake ";-)" (if you know what I mean)...

My first days of scouting....

PROMISE : " On my honor I promise that I will do my best

To do my duty to God and my Country

To help other people and To obey the Scout/Guide Law "

Greetings to you readers.....

I wish to take you through my joutney from the first step as a pravesh scout till i got my president's scout award.

I joined scouting in the fifth standard full of enthusiasm and support from my dad.

My scout master (scout sir) was Mr.Padmanabha Rao, a teacher of St.Aloysius Primary School, Mangalore. To get a membership(Pravesh Badge) into my scout troop (Loyola Scout Troop) i had to undergo several tests. The tests were:

1. To know the history of scouting.

2. To know the Law and Promise and Motto

3. To know the uniform

4. To know the prayer and the flag song

5. To know the significances of flags. The flags were the Indian National Tricolor Flag, The BSG Flag, The World Scout Flag

6. To know the left hand shake and the scout sign and its origins.

I completed those tests by November 2004 and I was invested into the troop on the 2nd December, 2004. That day from my senior and a very good friend Sachin Nayak I received my troop scarf. He tied it around my neck. That feeling was something which you won't experience every day. He then put the membership badge(Pravesh Badge) inside my left chest pocket and the world scout badge inside my right chest pocket. My Scout Master decorated my head with the scout cap for the first time. Before all of this happened. I had to swear that I will follow the promise whole-heartedly and i will abide by the scout law. From that day i was waiting for every other opportunity to wear my scout uniform and flaunt my badges. That is one day i will never forget!!!