Vasant Panchami

Vasant Panchami (वसन्त पञ्चमी) is a Hindu festival celebrating Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, music and art. It is celebrated every year on the fifth day (Panchami) of the Indian month Magh (January-February), the first day of spring. Traditionally during this festival children are taught to write their first words and most educational institutions organise special prayer for Saraswati. The color yellow also plays an important role in this festival, in that people usually wear yellow garments, Saraswati is worshipped dressed in yellow, and yellow sweets are consumed within the families.

Every one pray goddess Sarswati to increase the knowledge of their particular area of work .this is the festival which is celebrated by everyone. Students get the statue of goddess Sarswati in school and they make a special pooja which last for two day.

It is believe that by worshiping goddess Sarswati people gain intellectual power and wisdom. And special kind of prsad is offered to goddess. This is also the beginning of spring

In Varanasi Holika is kept at a place which will be burnt by social community just before the day of  Holi. from this day people get palnts and wood to this place and make it big until the day of burning so this is the a starting part of the Holi.

Goddess Saraswati

Her expression is so serene and calm even as She is majestic. She is seated on a white lotus in Padmasana, adorned by a pure white silk sari, has a book in Her lower left hand, Her lower right hand showing the chinmudra, Aksharamala in Her right upper hand, and Amrithakalasam in Her left upper hand. Both eyes are full of compassion. The vehicle assigned to each of the three goddesses also symbolically represent their special powers.

Goddess Saraswathi is the consort of Lord Brahma (Lord of Creation) and is the Goddess of wisdom and learning. Saraswati is the one who gives the essence (sara) of our own self (swa). She is considered as the personification of all knowledge – arts, sciences, crafts and other skills. She has a beautiful and elegant presence, is pure white in colour, clad in a white sari, seated on a white lotus, representing purity and brilliance. She has four hands representing four aspects of human personality in learning; mind, intellect, alertness and ego. She has the sacred scriptures in one hand and a lotus (a symbol of true knowledge) in the second. With her other two hands she plays the music of love and life on the veena.

She is dressed in white (sign of purity) and rides on a white goose (swan). The swan is known for its peculiar characteristic of being capable of separating water from milk, indicating that we should possess discrimination in separating the bad from the good. The seat being a lotus or peacock implies that the teacher is well-established in the subjective experience of truth. When sitting on a peacock she reminds us that wisdom suppresses ego.

Bharat Vikas Sansthan

June is the student of Anthropology  from Australia .she came to Varanasi to learn about the children Parliament in Varanasi and also for learning Hindi.She was staying in Ganpati Guest House in old city of  Varanasi.

She was in Varanasi for two weeks and  taking two hours of Hindi lessons  everyday.One day during the class she told me that she wanted to visit NGO Bharat Vikas sansthan in sigara area.she was struggling to get  clue for this NGO. however she had a little idea about this NGO.

I had allready taken some students at this NGO  in past so I know the founder Rajeev Srivastav of this NGO. I called him and took appointment for her .Next day we went to Bharat Vikas Sanshthan  where she met the Rajeev Srivastav and other staff.

She had seen on the television in Australia about children parliament election so she was very much interested in talking in Details about this organization.we sat there for a while and had a nice talking with children.The elected member of parliament was on internet.

Meanwhile I had to go to mountain with Bridge Year Princeton Programme so I could not continue with her but she used to come to meet my wife for reviewing Hindi what he learnt with me .

HINDI LESSON

Dariya is a french student working in varanasi as her Dissertation on women in jail.she came in contact with me through the internet.She was also learning kathak with a teacher from Banaras Hindu University.

She started with one hour of lesson everyday but later on she began to do two hour everyday from Monday through Friday.we were doing very intensively from my own mae teaching stuff and we were reviewing through Teach Yourself by Rupert Snell.

Once she was able to read Hindi books I used to give her child

Watson Fellow

Brian Dolphin is a pitzer college student and watson fellow from united state of America.He is travelling many countries and study about the nature of music.He came to India from Nepal and started learning Hindi with me as he could speak a mix language of Nepali with Bhojpuri.

I asked him how many hours in a day you want your lesson he said that he wants three to fours hour a day.we started with two hrs a day .one hour he was meeting with me and for another hour he was meeting my wife as he was very much interested in folk music and devotional bhajan.they used to sing and they were translating the bhajan.he never studied with book as he said that he had never learnt with reading the book and other learning materials.

When ever I was giving the language construction and expression and I was saying him to write  down he used to say in sweet Hindi language “”LIKHNA NAHI PARTA HAI””that means I do not need to write .he used keep in his mind.He promised me if forget then give me the punishment.

Here I would like to say every student and researchers if you have opportunity to interact with locals and other street worker who are not related with tourism activities ,It is really going to work.Brian always in touch with such kind of people.many times I had seen him talking with such people like eggs sellers,Rickshaw repairing man.and other people abstain talking with these people.

Brian adapted indian culture in very lees of time and he practiced Indian way of living like eating habit,greeting in varanasi way saying “mahadev”,chewing world famous beetle of Varanasi.He hardly used to go to eat American food as he became habitual eating indian food.

One day he asked why i have three rings in finger and it was just astrologer advice .I have faith in these kinds of things so he also insisted me to take at astrologer.we went there and greeted him in indian way by touching his feet.by that astrologer got socked as it is not common when a western greets touching the feet of elder.Astrologer told him about his past ,present and future in Hindi mostly he could understand what astrologer and where ever he could not then I was translating for him.