Varanasi children need to learn about Indian culture

Of all the places in India I would never say that Varanasi lacks insights into the rich Indian cultural heritage. But that's my western opinion, and as it turns out things are not quite like this there.

Daily India reports, that as an initiative to inculcate cultural values and allied Indian ethos among youngsters, a special summer camp has been organized for school children in Varanasi.

The children are taught essence of Hindu culture, relevance of rituals and recitation of passages from holy scriptures such as Vedas, Bhagwad Gita, Upanishads and Puranas.

Every day, the teacher conducting the classes fondly applies a paste of sandalwood on the foreheads of the young Vedic 'scholars', incidentally, all studying in English medium and convent schools.

"It is very necessary for today's children because today, children are convent educated, going far from our traditional culture. So, we need to enlighten them about our Indian cultural heritage since during their routine academics, they are unable to concentrate on this aspect. So, this is the right time to give them the right training. That's why in summer camp we are teaching these children Bhagwad Gita and Vedic Mantras among others," said Ishita Saraswat, a trainer at the school.

On their part, the children despite not understanding the Sanskrit language in which most of the Hindu scriptures are written seemed to be curious to learn it.

"My father and mother are very happy to hear my reciting passages from our religious scriptures," said Avantika Kapoor, a student at the summer camp.

"Since many parents are working, both of them don't have time to make their children understand about basic culture. They don't have time even to make their children be aware about certain basic facts of our culture and hence this summer camp for the children," Saraswat said.

She also mentioned that the young children have learnt a lot about Hinduism right form respecting one's parents and teachers to reciting simple shlokas (psalms) from the scriptures.

Probably, being the territory of wisdom, like I stated in the previous post, Varanasi can never find the current amount of knowledge enough for its children. Right?