Shishubharati, the Indian Language and Culture School held its graduation ceremony on Sunday June 15th, at the Lexington High School in Lexington, MA. The ceremony was an opportunity to recognize all the hard work put in by students and teachers of Shishu Bharathi. This institution continues to remain a great example of volunteerism in the Indian community for almost twenty-five years.

Dioramas detailing aspects of Indian history were displayed as a part of the showcase that exhibited the work that was done during the year. Dressed as a Buddhist nun, Kosha Divatia, a student who has attended Shishu-Bharati for six years presented her diorama. The theme of her presentation was - Life of Ashoka and His Relationship With Buddhism. “The first panel is about Ashoka before he converted to Buddhism. There are pictures of Ashoka, his empire, and the Kalinga War. There is a scene of the Kalinga War on the bottom. The Kalinga War showed Ashoka that war is wrong and helped him convert to Buddhism. The second panel is about what Ashoka did to help spread Buddhism. On the bottom, is Ashoka on a horse, and a statue of Buddha. This panel contains pictures of the Ashoka pillar, a rock edict, a stone Buddha, and the Stupa at Sanchi. The third panel is about where Buddhism is practiced today. It has maps, which have symbols of the Stupa at Sanchi. These are placed in the countries where Buddhism is practiced today. There are also pictures of Buddhist texts, temples, Buddhist monks, and people praying” said Kosha as she presented her diorama.

Dressed in a beautiful silk saree, Gita Ramamurthi, an eighth grader from Lexington, presented her diorama which was on the textiles and dresses of the southern states – Karnataka, Kerala, Andra Pradesh and Tamil nadu. Arjun Ramamurthi presented his research on “Sports and Recreation Through Time”. “I divided up the project into five different time periods: Indus Valley to 500 BC, 500 BC to 500 AD, 500 to 1500 AD, 1500 to 1900 AD, and 1900 to 2003 AD. Some of the sports in my diorama include chess, dice, and marbles (Indus Valley to 500 BC), swimming and Yoga (500 BC to 500 AD), weightlifting and wrestling (500-1500 AD), hunting and playing cards (1500-1900 AD), and cricket, tennis and soccer (1900-2003 AD)” said Arjun.

The official graduation ceremony began with short talks by the students on a wide range of topics related to India. During the ceremony awards were given to recognize certain special efforts.

“Shishubharati was born almost 25 years ago with an aspiration to keep our Indian Culture and Languages alive for our children” says Dilip Gandhi who has been a part of this institution for a long time. "It began with a few enthusiastic parents meeting in their basements to teach Indian Languages and Culture. Soon the student and teacher participation grew and in just one year, it moved to a bigger facility."

Today, Shishubharati has two branches, one in Burlington, Massachusetts and one in Nashua, New Hampshire with a total of 400 students. The students have two one hour classes every Sunday starting at 10:00am. One class focuses on Indian culture while the other is focused on an Indian Language of the student's choice. The languages currently taught are Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Sindhi. More classes will be opened as the need to learn other languages come up. "We also teach the children to sing some national songs. Infact we now have a wonderful CD of the children singing some of these songs" said Kumkum Dilwali, who teaches Hindi at the school.

The entire staff is made up of volunteers that include parents, leading members of the community like Dr. Bijoy Mishra and Alok De and alumni of the program who donate many hours a week to keep the school running. The school has a formal organizational structure. Each branch has a council that oversees the operation. Shipra Shah is the principal of the Burlington branch while Shefali Kadakia is the principal of the Nashua branch. Meena Ramamurti, Sandhya Nadkarni and Vani Thilagar are Assistant Principals. Vinay Ingle and Nikita Shah are Directors of Administration.

How successful is this volunteer run effort? Judging by the parents reaction, it is very successful indeed. "My son Umang loves coming to Shishu Bharati. He looks forward to his culture class with Rajnikanth. I think he knows more about Indian history than I do" says Preeti Jain.

To learn more about Shishu Bharathi please check out their web site http://www.shishubharati.org/

|