One of my didis friends has been a Sathya Sai devotee for a long period, havingpleted his post graduation from the Puttaparthy college run by the trust. Yesterday he offered to take me to the Sri Sathya Sai Lok Seva School, nestled in the midst of Nandi Hills in Muddenahalli in the outskirts of Bangalore. I remember when I was in school we would often be visited by alumni who would get us toffees on R-Day, so I also took along ten packets for the students. The schools sports day and cultural program by the children left me stunned. The trust runs a number of similar schools in other districts of Karnataka, too - five schools participated in this celebration. The children gave mind-blowing performances of dance-skits (bharatnatyam enactment of the Daksha yagya up to Parvati jis marriage to lord Shiv), a bhangra performance, two regional dances from Karnataka, and a beautiful garba. The sports performances, however, were enthralling - gymnastics, martial arts, malla-khambh, rope gymnastics, skating and many more. There were coordinated yoga formations in asanas my yoga class struggles with; kids doing eye-popping consecutive somersaults without breaking into a sweat; doing rope gymnastics at a height of more than 30 feet, and that too on an extremely windy day - upon further enquiry, I found out that the entire preparation was the result of two weeks effort. Now, I am not sure about how the dynamic of a residential school played here, nor do I want to get into a controversy about the person in whose name the trust is run. I do know I was deeply tiuched by what I saw, and if these were the kind of sports activities that had been offered when I was in school I would have lapped them up - we got the standard PT-scouting-football/cricket. I went around the school, and the entire place had a peaceful, happy vibe to it. Of course liberals would object saying that children are almost brainwashed in such religious institutions, that the discipline is extremely severe, and so on. However, these schools do nit charge a single rupee from students. They give them a good education at par with the best in the nation, and moreover, give them a vision of life that though not secular at all, at least has a rounded, deeply edifying core that can guide them later in life. I dont know if it is a comment onother schools or the secular-liberal strain of thought, but I find that they hardly ever leave their students with a sense of being rooted in something larger than themselves (not debating whether that is inherently good or bad) to believe in and turn to when in doubt or despair. In a time when we see such intense erosion of values, I wonder if it makes sense to guve such institutes and the gurukul model of education a little more attention that it gets - I have never read a mainstream media report covering these schools, and never knew they existed. Moreover, the devotees of Sathya Sai and alumni of these institutes and schools learn to give their time and resources to the school and its functioning, which again brings up the question of altruism and philanthropy - many people say that India has no culture of giving or philanthropy or social work, but they conveniently ignore such amazing work as these schools simply because they happen under the umbrella of a religious framework. My didis friend is a senior vice-president working in a mukti-national banks treasury department, and helped clean up plates and distribute food there; many others included MDs and other corporate bigwigs. I hope to see the MSM covering more such institutes, and I also wish I could absorb even a fraction of that culture of #Seva and giving. Have a great weeek, boys and girls :-)
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 02:19:01 +0000
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