Goddess of Knowledge
on Jane in India (India), 09/Feb/2011 14:34, 34 days ago
Yesterday was Saraswati Puja - the day of worship for Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music and the arts. So I went with a few of my colleagues to a Puja at one of the projects run by my NGO - Amo Vidyalaya, a school for disabled kids near Bhubaneswar. There are about 40 students in total, but about 20 regular students, of various ages and with various disabilities - blindness, deafness, movement and muscular problems. They were all very sweet and welcoming, especially Sumi who kept trying to pull everyone down to the mat to sit with her! Everyone gathered in the classroom while the Brahmin priest performing the ceremony carried out a really nice and quite elaborate ritual involving coconuts, flowers, coloured sand, fruit, incense and chanting.The Brahmin carrying out the ceremonyAt the end everyone threw flowers up to the statue of Saraswati, a burning cocounut went round so everyone could bless themselves with the smoke, and the Brahmin tied string on our arms. The main gist as I understood it was offering up all this lovely stuff to Saswarati, so that we'll be gifted with knowledge and learning. It felt a lot more colourful, simple and personal than any religious ceremonies I remember from my childhood in stuffy churches...but then again maybe that's just the novelty factor, the Hindu kids may well be sitting at the back thinking "when is this going to end?!" After the ceremony, we had lunch on banana leaves and off we went.the kids and onlookers at Amo VidyalayaTo continue the day of knowledge, I spent the evening at the Bakul Foundation, a children's library. Bakul is a lovely little haven where kids from any background can come and pick up a book, or come to storytelling sessions. They were holding a "Human Library" and a bunch of us internationals volunteered as "Human Books", the idea being that we represent someone from our nationality and the prejudices often associated with it.I was an Irish Catholic. The other books included a Sicilian Gardener, a Filipino Wanderlust and a Philosopher from Estonia. The young people then had the chance to take out a book on loan and "read it" for 30 minutes. It was a really fun evening. My first couple of readers seemed to know more about Irish history than me, so we spoke more about B*witched and Boyzone - serious prejudices all the same (was there any corner of the globe those denim-clad girls didn't make it to?!). We were having such a good conversation that they re-issued me, but then got fined for being overdue - whoops! Then I had a very eager young reader who took two books out at once (me and the Philosopher from Estonia) and fired questions at us about how we came to be here, and our impressions of India.We also brought "typical food" from our countries, so I made some Boxty (potato pancakes) which was the only thing I could think of that didn't require an oven, it was all eaten anyway. It was a really nice chance to have a chat with some young Indians and share our stories. I'll be back at the Bakul Foundation, to do some storytelling or maybe just to hang out, it's nice there.