Mandeep Singh, a young Delhi entrepreneur, teamed up with sponsors Cherry Blossom and Brooke Bond, to give shape to this venture, where hoardings sized 100-150 square feet were put up displaying aphorisms and adages, in and around school premises. A safe way to get around the directive of the Supreme Court on roadside hoardings, which had become traffic hazards.

``Moulding a young mind takes a lot of effort and these messages touch upon the themes of environment, against smoking, AIDS awareness and plainsermonizing about punctuality or the value of hard work. What makes them unique is that they are interactive. Students can come up with ideas about visuals, graphics, even cartoons, in league with our team, to make the ideas very interesting,'' claims Singh.

For instance, the visual related to pollution shows a student coming to school wearing an oxygen mask and the copy reads--``Will this be the school uniform in the 21st century? -- Committed to serving our future environmentally.'' Or the one on punctuality, which shows a famous cricketer struggling to reach his crease in time, to avoid being run-out and the copy reads--``It pays to be on time, whether it is cricket or in real life.''

The messages, have been classified into the heads of social, moral and educational. Underthese heads, the main themes touched upon are environment, energy conservation, pollution, punctuality, reading habits, saving for a rainy day and those related to important days of the calender. ``For specific periods ranging fromsix to eight weeks, the hoardings were installed at D.A.V. Public School, Vikaspuri, Kulachi Hansraj Model School, Ashok Vihar, Delhi Public School, R.K.Puram and Bal Vikas schools at Trilokpuri and Sunlight J.J. Colony, among others,'' says Singh.

The hoardings are usually in a cartoon format, which young minds can easily relate to. ``Also, we have made a conscious effort toward making them relevant to the everyday life of a youngster. For instance, focusing one's energy is vital in today's competitive world but it was also the attitude of Arjuna, our mythological sharpshooter. So a multi-colour cartoon showing him focusing on the eye of a fish, immediately gets high recall among young minds. Though Shahrukh would have been a better model, but we had to keep in mind the propriety of the academic world,'' says Singh.

``Giving a thought to the commercial interests of the sponsors, 15 per cent of the hoarding space has been allocated to them ( the name of the sponsor is displayed in a vertical strip, on theright of the visual and the copy). However, the content of the message displayed can be modified at the discretion of the school authorities,'' adds Singh.

Humour is an integral part of the campaign. ``Moral Science textbooks are a thing of the past. Instead of forcing down home truths down the throat of students without asking for their opinion, witty messages soften them up and kick-start the thought process. Take, for example, the visual encouraging the nineties `satellite' child to read. Instead of stressing on the obvious benefit of enrichment in knowledge, one could present reading as an alternate source of entertainment. Here the catch phrase is ``Your own private channel. T.V is entertaining, but so are books. Try them,'' avers Singh.

Or take the one against smoking. The visual shows a person smoking and later bed-stricken. Now the crispness of language comes to the fore, ``Smoking is cool. But then, perhaps, falling sick, too, is cool. You decide.''Well, moral science was never so interesting!At least, till corporate sponsorship stepped in. u