News and new admissions

It is new year in the education world here. Lots of people coming for admissions, enquiries, interviews for new staff. It seems that there will easily be 900 in the school come the 01^st of July.

The 8^th class students had a great result. One of the boys came 15^th in the district (out of 32000 who sat the exam) and one of the girls came 44^th in the district. It sent the whole of Pali into confusion as to how a school of village students can produce such good results (there is a mindset that city children are more intelligent). It is great to see the fruits of the teacher’s labor come so quickly.

For those who are part of the journey on the bus thought you might like to know the current position. Up till now donations for the buses amount to 1, 713, 962 rupees!!!! At the average rate of the dollar during the period that people have been giving (say 34 rupees) it comes to 50, 410 Australian dollars!! Fantastic, unbelievable, how can one express enough thanks for all the support??

We have utilized that money so far as follows:

• 566, 000 went on the purchase and repairing (to get it on the road) of the first bus which we took last year after starting the fundraising.
• 395000 was spent buying the second bus and by the time it is ready (it is under full repairing where we stripped it back to the frame to remove rust, put insulation in the roof and sides to protect from the heat, new wiring, seating, painting, tires etc etc) we plan that it will cost a total of 500000 rupees ( that’s about 14000 aud). ( there is a photo attached of the bus at it’s most naked point)

That leaves us with nearly 650, 000 rupees left.

At present we are looking for one more big bus. If we manage to get it on road for less than 500, 000 then I plan to look for one more small bus with the rest of the funds. I hope to find one for 200-250000 (there will still be a few seats left if someone can help out to reach that target). Then we are really in position to pick up all of the students and get them home without too much waiting.

It is quite complicated to fit in all of the villages (now we have 14) and also to deal with extra villages which are constantly requesting that they also be included on the bus routes (Last night I was invited to one village where the whole village turned up to convince us that their children should also be allowed to come).

Anyhow, I have to go. Tonight we have a meeting with the parents in one of the bigger villages on our route. They have arranged the whole meeting area and all parents are coming. It is impossible to describe just how unique that is in our area where parents normally try to avoid thinking that education is anything other than the schools responsibility.

Enjoy and please keep checking the site as we try and make it a little more interesting.

Ps: Last night we had the meeting and the highlight was one parent who was all teary eyed in gratitude. His daughter had just done the eighth class exams having joined the school this year. When she joined he was quite sure that she wouldn’t pass 8^th class as she had only just scraped through seventh. She passed, actually she scored 76% which is more than double the pass mark of 36% and a super mark by any standards. Now she is starting to dream of going beyond 12^th and even to college – in the college which is also starting in the Ashram this year!! You have to love it when things like that happen.

Enjoy!!

Swami Jasraj Puri

Results of the exams for 8th class for 2007-08

Yesterday they released the results of the Year 8 Government examination which are conducted at the district level. All of the students passed well with our best students coming 15th and 46th in the whole district. It is a fantastic effort considering that more than 32000 students sat the examination!! The students are feeling quite proud of themselves today and rightly so.

The other students also did really well. From 24 students 15 of them got 70% or above and only one student scored below 60%. The pass mark here in exams is 38% so there wasn't anyone coming close to failing.

Colours of Holi

Holi is the festival of colours. Most of the students had gone for holidays but those who stayed had a lot of fun. putting colour on whoever they could find. In the picture they have just got their mathematics teacher after a lot of chasing him around. You can see in the fourth photo that they got me too.

Holi

India is a land of fairs and festivals. The Hindus, the Muslims and the Christians have their own festivals. The Holi is an important festival of Hindus. It is a festival of joy and happiness.

It is celebrated every year in the month of March in the spring season. In India spring is the best of all seasons of the year.

The festival of Holi is celebrated in the memory of devotee Prahlad, who had great faith in God. Hiranyakashyap, who was the king and also Prahlad’s father, tortured him but he did not give up his faith in God. Hiranyakashyap’s ego had become so big that he thought that only he himself should be worshipped. Hiranyakashyap asked his sister, Holika, who possessed a shawl that protected her from fire to sit in a burning fire with Prahlad in arms. As they sat in the flames wind swept away the shawl and Holika was burnt to ashes but Prahlad remained untouched by the flames.

On the day of Holi a bonfire is burnt representing the burning of Holi and Prahlad, who is represented by a coconut is pulled out of the flames unscathed. Men, women and children sing folk songs. They sprinkle coloured water and coloured powder on each other. Even the old people enjoy this festival of colour.

This festival removes social inequality. The rich and the poor, the high and the low, the weak and the strong enjoy this festival together. It creates the feelings of friendliness and mutual relationship among the people and celebrates the victory of humbleness and devotion over rampant ego.

Dinesh Tiwari, class 8th

The New Science Laboratories

A view of our new Science Laboratories. A wonderful facillity.

Happy New Year

It's been a while since the exams. Wishing you all a happy new year and looking forward to putting a lot of new photos on these pages soon.

Exams exams exams

It is exam time in our school

Examination time

Beautiful morning

These are some early morning shots near the ashram. Beautiful local wildlife.

Beautiful morning in Rajasthan

Some of the local wildlife. Special to watch especially early in the morning. This is about 20km from our ashram. One of the boys from school has put together some history about the blackbuck pictured and the trees which are in the scenes. Environmentalists from a different era with a tradition that continues.

In the year 1451 AD during the reign of Rao Jodhaji, one of the bravest of the Rathore kings, an extraordinary child was born in the village of Pipasar. His father was the headman Thakur Lohat and his mother was Hamsadevi. The boy was called Jambaji. As a little boy, he was given the task of looking after his father’s large herd of cattle and sheep. It was great fun to take the animals out grazing, lie in the shade of blackbuck. Jambaji was fascinated by the lithe grace of this handsome antelope, and tought seat there was no sight more enthralling than a fight between two well- grown stags.

When Jambaji twenty-five years old, a great disaster overtook the whole region. The small quantity of rain that used to come regularly ceased altogether. The worst sufferers were the cattle. In the first year of drought, they could eat the bajra straw scored in the houses. The second year was very bad. There was not a blade of grass left standing any where. People hacked at any trees they could find and fed the animals on the leaves, but even so there was not enough browse for all the hungry animals. And the drought continued for eight consecutive years.

The people had hacked and hacked the last bit of foliage from all the trees, which finally began to dry up. When the stored grain was exhausted people ate khejdi pods and the flour of dried ber seeds. When this too was exhausted, they tore the bark off the sangri trees and powdered and cooked it. They hunted every one of the starving blackbucks, and finally they abandoned all hope and migrated in masses. Tens of thousands of cattle perished on the way. By now the whole country was barren. There was not a tree in sight for miles together, nor a single cow, or a blackbuck. The only people to hold on were big landlords like Jambaji’s father with huge stores of bajra that somehow lasted through the difficult times.

Jambaji was much affected by this drought. Many were the nights he spent in wakefulness because of the suffering he saw around him. The dying cattle, the starving children : they haunted him day and night. And finally, at the age of thirty-four, he had a vision. He saw man intoxicated with his own power, destroying the world around him. And he decided to change it all. If life was to flourish again in this desolate land, Jambaji saw that man would have to live in a different way, and according to different tenets and beliefs. Jambaji wanted the earth to be covered once again by an abundance of khejdi, ber, ker and sangria trees, he wanted herds of blackbuck to frolic again, and he wanted men to work for this. Jambaji knew the way to achieve this, and he began to broadcast his message in the year 1485.

His message included twenty nine basic tenets. Its two major commandments were a prohibition against the cutting down of any green tree or the killing of the animal, Jambaji’s message of humanity and respect for all living things was eagerly accepted. His teachings prompted the inhabitants of hundreds of hundreds of villages to reclothe the earth with its green cover.

Jambaji’s followers were called Bishnois or twenty-niners (bis= twenty, nou= nine) because they adhered to Jambaji’s twenty-nine precepts. They preserved the trees around their villages and protected blackbuck, chinkaras, peafowl and all other birds and animals. Gradually their territory became covered by trees, their cattle had abundant browse, their land recovered its fertility and the Bishnois became a prosperous people.

But out side their territory, all continue as before. The land was still being stripped of its green cover and the desert was spreading. The ninth descendant of Jambaji’s contemporary Rao Jodhaji now occupied the throne of Jodhpur.

Two and a half centuries have passed since this episode. Bishnois have now been guarding the trees, giving succour to the wild animals of Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh for nearly five centuries. Everywhere else, green cover of the Indian subcontinent has been ravaged and continues to be destroyed at an ever accelerating pace. The thousands upon thousands of blackbuck that coce roamed the Indian plains have all vanished without a trace. But near the few Bishnoi village the greenery not only persist, but also is ever on the increase and around their villages the blackbuck roam as freely as in Kalidasa’s time near the ashram of sage Kanva. Akbar was so amazed to see these herds of fearless blackbuck near Bishnoi temples that he personally recorded his wonder at witnessing a scene from satyayuga, the age of truth, in this kaliyuga, the corrupt present.

The sight is even more astonishing for us today than it was for the emperor Akbar four centuries ago, for the Bishnois continue to hold on to their magnificent obsession to this day.

Researched by Dinesh Tiwari, 8^th class

Progress report

As of today the number of seats sold for the bus has reached 27. All of the passengers so far are from Perth. Thanks to everyone there who have put together more than 4500aud towards the purchasing of a second bus.

On the first of November 60 of the students went on tour for five days around Rajasthan visiting Udaipur and Mount Abu. We took our buses, a cook and his helpers and hit the road. The students had a ball, when you consider that some had never left their local area it was a pretty big adventure. The highlight was boating on paddleboats, when you live in the desert you don't have a lot of opportunities to go out on the water!!!

Sorry that there are no photos. Some of the teachers took photos but they haven't had them processed yet. It will come.

Thanks again and get your tickets for the bus.

Opening of the new school building

Finally the school is opened!!! It isn't really fully ready, some finishing will be done between classes but the time had come to take the plunge. The opening ceremony was attended by Swamiji and a lot of parents. There were some great performances of plays, singing, dancing, yoga and speeches. In short it was a lot of fun. The building is great, the classrooms are spacious, airy and light, the atmosphere is peaceful, pretty much a perfect place for learning.

Sports "stars"

Some of our students going for competition. The two girls are going to the state athletics tournament having between them won the district titles in triple jump, long jump and hurdles.


The second picture is some of the students with their trophies for athletics, judo and singing.
The third picture is the team that went to the state judo championships, 23 in total of which 13 were from our school. They had a great adventure, didn't win much but didn't lose in the first rounds either and one of our boys got a bronze medal in his division.

Morning prayers

It is so beautiful to hear the morning singing of prayer and the national anthem come floating across the breeze at 0830.

Congratulations

For all those who were a part of raising money for the purchase of the school bus congratulations as according to our calculations last week we past the amount required. Until date we have received 511, 250 rupees which is approxiamately 15492 aud or 9300 euros. The cost of the bus and it's initial repairing came to 505, 000 rupees.

Thanks to everyone for their support which when far beyond our expectations and hoping that you will enjoy being a part of our school in the future.

We are now continuing with raising money for another bus as enrollments have far exceeded our expectations and it is pushing the limits of how many people can fit in our current vehicles. So please share our site with others and keep in touch.

Once again thanks and congratulations to all particularly everyone at YIDL Perth, the friends of Gay and David McKinley in Sydney and those who helped from Luxembourg, Japan, Czech Republic and the US.

Yours
Swami Jasraj Puri

The Classroom

Our classrooms are simple. The teaching should be excellent.

Making the most of the opportunity

The new school building

It is well overdue but the final touches are being added to our new school building at least half of which should open by the end of September. It is simple, spacious, well ventilated and full of light. Although it is not an architectural marvel it is so practical that it will be heaven to teach there. We are so much looking forward to getting the students inside and out of the current building where they are literally sitting in the doorways.

It is planned that the building will have a double use, in the morning acting as a school and in the afternoon there will be College classes (Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science). In that way we can offer our students the chance to have quality education not just until Secondary level but right through until they have a degree.





There are 22 classrooms, 3 science labs (physics, chemistry and biology), a library, a computer lab and a multi purpose hall in the building.

Independence Day 2007

August 15th is Independence Day in India, the day when British Rule ended in 1945. It is celebrated in all schools throughout the country and ours is no exception. Always there is a march past, raising of the flag and speeches remembering the sacrifice of the freedom fighters. Our celebrations also include a yoga display, traditional dances and a volleyball match between the staff of the school and a team made up of our foreign volunteers (we count it as an "International Match"). It was a lot of fun and a great atmosphere all day.

Diksha

On the day of Gurupurnima some of the boys took the initiation of Gurukul Pravesh - entrance into the years of education. It is an ancient tradition going back thousands of years that when the boy reaches the age of seven they are sent to the Gurukul to study. The ceremony involves shaving of the head, fire ceremony and the giving of unsewn cloth to the new initiate. It is a beautiful ceremony that goes for the whole morning. At the end of it the freshly initiated student comes to their Guru and is given a mantra which they should use throughout their studies.
When the head is shaved a tuft of hair is left on the crown of the head which is tied in a knot. This is to stimulate the brain, help maintain concentration and improve memory.
It is not compulsory for the students to take the initiation and is given only with the wish of the parents and the student.
In the photo you can see the boys sitting at the fire during the ceremony.

School Function in Jadan 04th August