June 2016

The charm of the Valmiki Ramayana has perpetuated throughout the history and it was rewritten in several localised versions in and outside India.

Rama-katha was incorporated in Buddhist Jatakas. Sanskrit or Pali versions of Ramayana got translated in Chinese. Pali Dashratha Jataka was narrated to a landlord who was mourning his son’s death. Another Jataka, Boddhisatwa replaces Rama and Naga replaces Ravana, but rest is strikingly same. To the extent that Naga comes in sanyasi disguise to take away queen of Bodhisattwa. The Nidana of king ‘Ten luxuries’ refers to Dashratha who ruled in Yen-bu-dai meaning Jambudwip i.e. India. Indonesia had regular contact with the mainland especially since Gupta period around 5th A.D. In Java there are two famous groups of temples, Prambaran and Pranataran. The former is more influenced by Indian style and has many scenes from Ramayana. (Ramayana in Asia, Harish Kumar Chaturvedi, India’s Contribution to the world Thought and Culture, p.181) Indonesia now is a Muslim majority nation, but has Ramayana as national text.

To commemorate World Environment Day, a mass Rangoli Competition was organized on 12 June 2016 in 8000 sq. ft. The 8000 sq. ft. area is divided into 100 blocks and 15 themes related to environment protection were given to participants. Over all of 100 enthusiastic groups consisting of 350 members from all the 21 wards participated. The participants with a great enthuse created Rangolis. The event was inaugurated by the Municipal Chairman Mr. A. Arujunan.

A valedictory was organized to honour the contestants. Cultural programme was staged by school students to cheer the crowd.Dr. Kalpana Sankar, Chairman and Managing Trustee, addressed the gathering. Mr. C. V. Sankar, Additional Chief Secretary, Chief Guest addressed the crowd and congratulated the participants. Best of 10 Rangolis were selected and the team was rewarded with 2 grams gold coins and rest of the team rewarded with 10 grams of silver coins. The municipal chairman, Municipal Commissioner, ward counsellors and other officials from local body, Vivekananda Kendra and Hand in Hand participated in the event. Overall, the event was a huge success and covered in print media as well.

It is a small deciduous medium size tree, bark grey-brown, rough, irregularly flaking; blaze pink-red. Leaves simple, alternate, bifarious on short deciduous branch lets, flowers unisexual, 2-3 mm across, greenish-yellow, densely clustered in leaf axils; male flowers: sepals 6, oblanceolate, obtuse, stamens 3, female flowers: sepals 6, oblanceolate, obtuse; fruit a capsule 1.5-2.5 cm across, subglobose, dehiscing into 6 cocci, disc enlarged to give an appearance of fleshy yellowish-green, indehiscent berry, cultivated in gardens at home. It is native to Sri Lanka and parts of Burma and can grow in different soils.

In India water harvesting has been part of our culture from time immemorial. Each region in India has developed its own local technology suitable to the terrain as well as the rain fall available. Without building costly dams with low efficiency, Indian tradition stores water in eri, kulam, jheel, sagar, johad, talab, sar, madi, khadin, kundcheruvu, kunta, voddu, ketta, kere pukur, bandh, dighi or ahar. Rain water is also stored in irrigated fields especially in paddy fields, within their high bunds. They are for very large part, man-made-lakes. Tamilnadu is famous for its water bodies. As per records there are 39000 water bodies in Tamilnadu. Unfortunately, many of the water bodies have disappeared due to several reasons including the so called development, encroachment etc. Vivekananda Kendra – Nardep is trying to preserve the water bodies of Rameshwaram Island. Renovation of Jnanavapi Teertham is one such attempt.

As a part of Social Engineering, Vivekananda Kendra – Nardep participated in the International Yoga Day which was observed on 21st June all over the world. Even in the small island of Rameshwaram 1500 students took part in it. Our senior worker Shri.Mohan Lal guided the students in performing Yoga. At Dist. Head quarters Ramnad, programmes were organized at different places. Vivekananda Kendra collaborated with Art of Living in organizing the function where 400 people participated. Sis.Saraswathi helped in organizing the programme.