It was the week leading up to Independence Day. Every day, Winlab Global School had some programme related to it. When Bharati Sindhuja entered Class 6, the children cheered loudly. She was their favourite teacher for her ‘out-of-the-box’ special sessions, literally and figuratively.Ms. Sindhuja returned their greeting and then said, “Silence in the class, please. Today’s activity involves a hypothetical situation. You have to set off on a long one-way journey to a new land soon, probably never to return. You can take only four or five things that are of utmost importance with you. What would they be? I want you all to think about it, make a list on a slip of paper and put it in this box. You have 10 minutes.”Choices madeSoon the full box was on the table. Ms. Sindhuja picked four slips at random and read them out loud. Zeba had chosen her cat, her favourite comforter without which she couldn’t sleep, a fat book with many stories, some snacks, and Scrabble. Roy’s list had his Nintendo Switch to play video games, his skateboard, his spectacles that helped him see clearly, and his new branded shoes to use before he outgrew them. Ira wanted to take her badminton racket since she was in the school team, her library card, a wallet with as much money as it could carry, and a mobile phone. Shreyash said he wished he could take his five friends instead of things, with him.