Traditional solutions, modern problems

Our school hall suffered from the most severe echo issues, having a tin roof and large bare walls. We looked at many soundproofing options but they were all beyond our budget. Then Swamiji came up with the insipiration to use traditional grass thatched roofing inside the tin sheet roofing that already exists. What a success! It reduced the sound completely, the hall is noticeably warmer in winter and will also be cooler in summer. It was all done by local labour and materials and within a week!

Our meditation hall is made with the same grass and even when exposed directly to the elements it lasts 12 years before needing any repairing. The vibration inside is also completely different to under a cement or steel roof.

Asshirvad

Whilst Swamiji was in Jadan this month He gave blessing to our college girls who won the University Badminton championships. Comsider that our college has 90 students, of which 45 are girls and the College they beat in the final who haven't lost in 10 years have 1800 girls studying there. Great stuff, the whole college was in celebration mode for two days and welcomed the team back at the main road, escorting them into the Ashram. As you can see the trophy is big and although it is a perpetual trophy Swamiji's mood seemed to be that it should find a permanent home in our College!

College tour

Our College students spent three days on tour going to Mount Abu and other tourist places in southern Rajasthan. A lot of fun had by all.

Aids Awareness Lectures

Our college was having an aids awareness day this week, with expert guest lecturers.

Drought relief

Hari Om,

You may know that Swamiji has started a rather large project to support the villages during the current drought in Rajasthan. To stay in touch with what is happening please see www.rajasthan-drought.blogspot.com

Thanks for the support

Durgastau and Chapra

These photos were taken in early November on a trip to the places in Nagaur District, about 20km from Khatu Ashram, where we are delivering water. On this day I visited the villages of Durgastau, Chapra,Rotoo, Dhanani and Setudau. The area where these villages are located has severe problems with the groundwater. It is so salty that animals that drink it immediately get sick. The tankers are putting in various places in and around the mentioned villages in the pre constructed watering troughs.

 
 
 

Oh dear

Oh no, it can't be true. In Rajasthan the English text books are not famous for the quality of proof reading. There are usually a lot of spelling mistakes inside. But the first word! On the cover. Of an English Grammar textbook! That is the work of a GENIOUS!

Swamiji with Swetmani

Whilst in Jadan in October Gurudeva was checking the new addition to the horse stable, Swetmani (the white jewel). Swetmani is 7 months old and has a temperament that has won many hearts.

Janmasthmi

It is a little after the event (it was in September) but I didn't get time to update the blog. Janmasthmi is the joyous celebration of Lord Krishna's birthday. It is celebrated with a lot of dancing and acting out lovingly the events of Krishna's notoriously naughty childhood.

The little boy who played the infant Krishna won everybody's hearts as he patiently sat as the girls danced for him.

The celebration culminated with the making of a huge pyramid to help "our Krishna" (the boy at the top of the third photo get to a pitcher of butter hanging from the roof (also in the photo). The story is that Krishna was extremely fond of butter and whatever butter his mother made he would find and eat. To try to save it she hung it from the roof where he couldn't reach. However in order to reach it Krishna would get all of his friends to "help him up" to the butter and then bring it all down so that they could eat it.

Lots of fun.

Ganesh Chaturti

The boys from the hostel were celebrating today the special day of Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. They are a great bunch of kids this year. Really really special.

Starting young and enjoying it

For some of these kids it is probably the first time they actually saw a computer, let alone used one. It is awesome to watch the computer world unfold before them.

Riding school

The boys who are staying in our Ashram get to go for horse riding in the mornings. Last Sunday they received some extra knowledge about horses, how to handle them and how to treat their ailments from Dr Naveen Parihar, who is a well known vetinary doctor in our area who specialises in horses.

New Year Chaos

We started the new school year on July the first and it has been quite chaotic since. The building works did not get finished as planned and we have been stuck with a few more classes than classrooms (maybe more than a few). There are classes going on in the verandhas, in the hall there are two classes and in some rooms we put two classes inside and faced them in opposite directions. All in all we now have around 1400 students in the school! A fantastic response. Similar to last year it has been very hard to refuse people admission as we are just too full. I think we must have turned away more than 800 people this time.

Now slowly we have adjusted the timings of the school so that we can fit everyone comfortably until the rooms are ready. The school has been split into two shorter school days, one for senior classes and one for primary classes. It isn't a perfect solution but it will do for now.

Meanwhile construction work is going on for the building of the extra rooms. We have had a lot of visitors from overseas here in the last weeks and they have been helping get things going by transporting the bricks on the site. It's inspiring to get such help especially in the heat of the monsoon.

Enjoy
Swami Jasraj Puri

Great interview answers

In the last days we have been having interviews for school teachers. There is always a mix of excellent candidates and people that make you wonder how they got through Uni. This time there were some candidates for our pending book of greatest interview answers. Consider these in the light of the qualifications that the candidate has somehow attained.

1. Candidate having a Masters Degree in Botany

Our Principal: Please explain how does a plant take water from the ground up to it's branches.
Candidate: That is very difficult to explain.
Principal: Please try, I am a layman and I would really like to understand the concept. ( Our Principal is from the Science faculty)
Candidate: (with all seriousness) You see, inside the plant there are hundreds of small plastic buckets, they are connected with strings and there is a wheel at the top of the plant that pulls up the buckets.
WOW

2. Candidate having a Masters Degree in English Literature.

Myself: What was your favorite paper in your Masters Degree?
Candidate: American Poets from 1850-1947
Myself: OK, who was your favorite American Poet?
Candidate: Shakespeare
Oh dear

3. Candidate applying for a job as a Primary School teacher

Panel Member: Can you tell me the vowels of the Hindi alphabet?
Candidate: A, Aa .......................I can't remember
Panel member: OK, what about the consonants?
Candidate: Ka, Kha, ..........I don't know
Oh deary deary me.

In all fairness, allowing for a few doosies like the above, in general the applicants this year were the best we have ever had. Although it was a long grind ( we interviewed more than 200 applicants over 3 days) the reward was that it seems that we will have a really excellent and vibrant group of teachers joining our team for the coming session.

Our school year starts on July the First so the rush is starting to build up.

Enjoy
Sw Jasraj Puri

Mother nature's power

This morning a severe storm blew through the Ashram. The photo shows what happened to our parking shed which is about 50 m away from the scene of the photo. With the storm came rain meaning that today may be the first day with a temperature below 40 since 23rd of April.

12th Class Results

Today we received the results from our 12th class science students. They did excellently, all but one have passed and one girl has come in the top 14 students in the District. It was the first "batch" to sit the 12th class science examinations and they have outshone all expectations.

Breakfast in the cow shelter

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Thanks to Greygum Software

A few weeks ago I was looking for educational software for installing in our school computers. We have some good programs and one of my favorites was called Maths Circus from Greygum Software. I was looking on their site and wishing that we could get everything what they offer but...........it was out of our budget. The Maths Circus which we had originally was sent over by my Mum. Of course Mum is great and always supporting the school but this time I thought it isn't really appropriate to ask her to send over 1000 dollars worth of games software.

What to do? I thought we might try our luck and write to the company . The response was immediate and wonderful. Greygum sent over our order charging only the cost of the blank CDs and the postage, at the same time apologising that normally they would pay the postage themselves but due to the economic downturn things were too tight to offer that.

To Steve and all the team at Greygum thanks a lot. The programs were already installed last week and our students are joyfully discussing the best way to land a hot air balloon, mow the lawn and creating their own worlds in the Land of Um.

The fleet

As it is now holidays for the first time all of the buses in our fleet are together for some weeks. Once again thanks to all who helped us get them.

The long hot summer

School finished for the 2008-09 session on Saturday and the students now have 6 weeks break. It was anyhow getting to hot to expect them to think. We haven’t had a summer like this one for a few years. The last time that the temperature was less than 40 was a month ago and the last five days have been 45 degrees and above. What a corker! The average temperature in the last month is above 43!

We finished the year for our hostel boys with an ice cream party and a game of night volleyball (there wasn’t much light but it’s cooler than playing in the day!)

The enthusiasm of the public continues towards getting admission. In the last two weeks we have had more than 500 applications. Considering that the real “season” for admissions will be in late June it has been surprising to have so many people come so early.

Having purchased two new buses this year we are able to add some more villages on our routes. So far we have added two isolated villages called Surayata and Talka. It takes some planning to take on a village and depends on the enthusiasm of the people, the distances involved and the roads. A big issue is whether the buses will be able to go to the village during the 3 months of the monsoon rains as some roads are not sealed or cut by watercourses in heavy rains.

At present we have a list of 19 villages that have requested that they be included in the Ashram school all within a radius of 20km from the Ashram. For each village that we consider we go first and talk to the villagers, check the roads, get an idea of how many students are interested and explain to the villagers our expectations regarding the studies of the students. It’s a beautiful process involving a lot of sitting, talking, drinking chai and taking in the unique scene that is life in the small Indian village.

Enjoy

It is a long way from home

I was driving along the other day on the way to purchase the buses and saw this sign on a country road. As a Sydneyiite it was appreciated fully.
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School Building Progress Report

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Great Results

Today the board examination results for 8th class were announced. All of the students did well with a lot of them suprising themselves. In total in our District 37176 8th class students sat the examination from more than 5000 schools (it's not a typo - thirty seven thousand students). From our 43 students who sat the examination 5 of them have come in the top 100 students in the district!! I think that they can all take a bow. Really really awesome. We are looking forward to seeing them when they come for their report cards tomorrow.

Nice thought

I read this quote today and enjoyed;

"Do your work where your greatest joy and the world's greatest hunger meet"

Animations on the net

Previously i have blogged about the program of Twin Vision team in our school in January. The animations that the students made during their visit are now up on the web at www.blip.tv on the Twin Vision page. There are four animations and the links and names of all four are given below. Enjoy.


Lila Amrit
http://blip.tv/file/1765845/

Cravat Story
http://blip.tv/file/1765830


Indian in London
http://blip.tv/file/1765854

Water is Life
http://blip.tv/file/1765876

Two gems

Two great stories for the week.

There is one small boy in the hostel studying in 3rd class, Yogesh. As quite a few students have now finished their exams and gone for holidays we were moving the remaining students together to make it easier to watch. We moved young Yogesh from his room three times but he kept moving back to his old room each evening even though there was noone else in that area. Finally we called him and asked why did he keep moving back.

He replied that he wanted to stay in his room because it is the room that faces towards the Bhakti Sagar and as a result when Swamiji is in Jadan and giving satsang it is the best room for listening to what Swamiji is saying. What an awesome reply!

The second story came to me via the husband of one of the ladies who is a cleaner/helper in our school. His wife is illiterate. She can (could) only understand the local Marwari dialect and subsequently can't understand the Hindi that is spoken on the radio etc. He was suprised when she started discussing with him the program that was just on the radio and asked how did she understand the Hindi. She had picked up Hindi from the classes going on in school as she is always working in the hallways outside as the classes are going on. Next day he was suprised that she had got up at three oclock and was sitting with the light on. He checked what she was doing ..........homework! One of our teachers had given her a book and taught her how to write the Hindi alphabet after school and she was "secretly" practicing. Last news she was starting to practice reading. I find that simply beautiful.

New Buses and new enrolments

Hari Om to all,

yesterday I was in a place called Nathdwara about 150kms from Jadan, searching for new school buses. A couple of members of the Ashram were already there since the day before exploring the area which houses the biggest bus industry in the state. It was a great day and we came back from there having purchased two buses for the school. They are in excellent condition and were quite a bargain. All in all it seemed that Guruji's blessings were with us throughout the day as it all went so smoothly. Awesome.

Spare a thought for our young students in Primary School who are doing their examinations this week.

Enjoy

Harvesting time

In the past week we have been harvesting our wheat crop. In the Ashram we grow organic wheat which is used throughout the year in our kitchen and in the school hostel.

 

Happy New Year

Today is New Years Day in India. So our students are wishing everyone a happy new year for the year 2066 in the Vikram Samvat calendar.


 
 

Independence Day Celebrations 2009

 
 

 
 

This year the school celebrated Independence Day with Swamiji in the Ashram's garden area. It was a beautiful setting on a winter's day. Preparations had been going on for weeks with the students preparing dramas, dances, speeches, bhajans, patriotic songs, pyramids, march pasts, yoga displays and a comedy. There was even a special camel race with the students dressing themselves up as camels. It was a beautiful function full of emotion, passion and humour which was topped off by Swamiji giving a beautiful discourse about Indian culture and the importance of the youth maintaining their contact with the wonderful heritage of India.

There are a lot of photos uploaded onto the web album at the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jadanschool/IndependenceDayFunction2009?feat=directlink

Enjoy, we did!

Wedding in the Ashram

 
 
 
 

In December the school played host to a wedding of epic proportions. In order to let the poorer members of their community get married in style the "Soni Samaj" (goldsmith community) of Pali got together and organised a group wedding for people from all over India. There were 22 couples married on the day and they all had gifts donated by the community (for everyone of them exactly the same- ie if you wanted to give something you had to give 22 pieces). The wealthy members of the community paid for the eating expenses and for the arrangements such as the elephants which brought the brides to the wedding area. All in all the heroes pictured from the kitchen produced 16000 meals for the guests which each had at least 10 different items (that is a lot of work!! especially in a kitchen put up in a tent in the middle of our fields). At the height of the function there was probably about 10000 people there at one time. It was...........epic. More photos will be put up in an album onto the net if people want to see, these are just a sample.

To see more see the webalbum at the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jadanschool/CommunityWeddingInJadanAshramSchool?feat=directlink

Animation part 4

In the last phase of production of the animations the filming and editing was done, all coming together to make 4 short animations of 3-5 minutes each.

See below in the blog for the other steps in the animation process. Enjoy

Animation part 3

The process of preparation nears completion and preparations for filming the scenes were undertaken. Then it was time to look to the results on the computer.

 
 
 
 

Animation part 2

After the planning and storyboards it was time to create the plasticine characters and to put the sets together ready for filming. Meanwhile others were working on the scripts and the audio.

Sorry that the sequence is upside down on the blog i can't figure out how to move the blogs around.

 
 
 
 

Future Animation Stars

 
 
 
 

For one week the team from Twin Vision was here in Jadan teaching our students how to do animation. It was an intense week. The students were involved in everything from planning the story, making the script, painting and constructing the background sets, making the plasticine models which were the characters in the story and then shooting and editing the animation. It was an absolutely wonderful week culminating in a function where the students showed their work to the rest of the school. Amazing stuff and thanks to the Twin Vision team for giving our students such a wonderful opportunity.

If you want to know more about Twin Vision their address is www.twinvisionphoto.co.uk . They do projects in countries throughout the world and I can only say if you are a teacher and you get the chance to pull them to your school - DO IT!! Teachers enjoy the project as much and the students!

The photos in this blog show the initial stages of planning the script, making the layouts, storyboards and then the sets.

In a few days the animations will be up on the internet. Stay tuned.

Guruji's blessing

I know it is not the greatest photo of Swamiji that has been taken however the circumstances of the moment make it significant for me. At that moment I was sitting on a chariot with Swamiji as He was being welcomed to a small village in the south of Rajasthan. Having some time to spare I thought I would try and take a photo of Him with a mobile phone and put it onto the blog. To my wonder within two minutes the photo was there to see on the blog via an EDGE signal (how they had that signal in that village i really don't know) !! Perhaps that is normal for some people but here in Jadan we only need to take our memories back 10 years to reach a stage where we had to drive 20 kilometres in order to make an international call or a fax!! It is only four years since we could reliably use email and even then for messages less than 200kb! Times have changed in India, very fast indeed. The logistics of maintaining this blog from Jadan would have been impossible only 1 year ago. In the beginning I used to only update it when visiting to Jaipur. Now......from the mobile phone.

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College Rangoli competition

Our College students have been having culture week. Part of the program is making these decorations out of coloured powder. These two girls won for their design which was really beautiful.
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Volleyball "International"

Today Swamiji organised a volleyball match between our hostel boys and a team from our visitors from throughout the world. It was a pretty good match and in the end to much excitement the hostel boys won in four sets.

A great story

Yesterday we had a small function in school to celebrate a great story. Thomas is a 12 year old boy from Austria who decided he wanted to help the school. He collects chestnuts and then sells them by the roadside. The money that he collects is used to sponsor students in our school under the Gyan Putra scheme.

As if that wasn't enough Thomas got his family together and they decided that instead of giving Christmas presents that the money they would spend on each others gifts they would donate to the school. Incredible.

Such acts are just inspiring. It was a wet eye day for me when I was telling the assembly about Thomas' efforts.

The pictures are of Thomas and his family and some of the 417 students who are sponsored for their studies under the Gyan Putra scheme. Under the scheme students are given free education, books and uniforms. All of the girls studying in our school are in the Gyan Putra scheme as are boys who are unable to pay the nominal fees that are charged in school.

Thanks to Thomas, his family and everyone around the world with equally inspiring stories. If the future generation's all think like Thomas we are in good hands.

New Year in Jadan

Hari Om,

Welcome to the New Year. School has started again here after a short winter “break”. The inverted commas are because our students went on a tour for five days taking in the sights of Ajmer, Pushkar, Jaipur and Agra. They were pretty excited to have seen the Taj Mahal and the big cities of Jaipur and Agra. All in all it was a super adventure with 140 students and 10 teachers setting out in 3 buses. We sent cooks and cooking equipment with so that they could prepare meals at any moment. It was a lot of fun and they all arrived back in Jadan exhausted but extremely satisfied. For a lot of students it is their first time away from home and definitely their first time so far away from home ( Agra is 700 kilometres from here).

The next weeks will be busy in school. The Twin Vision team is coming from England to give a project on animation with clay models. At the end of their program we will have a celebration day with an art competition for all of the school students and also have the students of the Jodhpur school for the Deaf and Dumb as guests for the day. The Twin Vision team is also doing a project with the Jodhpur students before they come here.

The inspiration for the art competition mentioned above is from a Hindi movie called “Tare Jamin Par” – which translates as Stars on the Earth. It is a beautiful movie about dyslexia which, if you can get it with a translation is really worth seeing. A tears of joy movie.

Then the 26th January is India’s national day and we will have a large celebration with parades, yoga demonstrations, plays, singing, dancing and speeches from the students. Swamiji Maharaj will be here and giving His blessings to all the students which is always a cause for excitement for them. Swamiji has an amazing way of conveying His message to the students by having them constantly laughing and enjoying.

The building works are also going on at full speed. At the rate that the work is going on it could be finished by April but………… we don’t actually have funding to pay for the work to go on! If anybody has any ideas of how to help with funding for the building they are most welcome to put them forward. If you know anyone who would be interested in being part of this special experience please let them know.

As January goes on the students will start to get serious as the yearly examinations rapidly approach. The first exams will be for 10th and 12th class in March and early April. They are just getting the results of their half yearly exams which were quite good. There is an air of confidence and excitement about their preparation. In general they will all finish their courses by the end of January and then revise and have practice examinations during February.