Parikrama

Our horses have developed the habit of spending an hour or two per day walking continuously around the Bhakti Sagar, the hall where we have our spiritual programs, yoga,, meditation and prayers. They are free to walk around the ashram, which thanks to the monsoon rains is full of green grass, but they choose to spend their time .............................circling round and round the meditation hall. Special.

Nature

On the day of Gurupurnima one of our mares foaled a beautiful filly called Divya. Her mother was also born here in the Ashram so somehow she is "home grown". At present there are 700 cows, 9 horses and inumerable wildlife living within the Ashram campus. If you look further down the blog you will find Divya's father, he is the horse that carries the milk man.

The helper

This photo is a little old, it is from April this year. After the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar all of the things which we had there for our camp came back in three very big and very full trucks. It was an unloading marathon and Shiv Prem (Callum) was an unstoppable force, pulling far more than his weight. We call it karma yoga in India, in Australia it is getting in and giving a hand. Thanks Cal.

Yoga Asana

On 15th August our students celebrated independence day with dancing, drama, parades, singing and speeches. The yoga display was a highlight this year, especially Kundan, the boy in the top photo who has incredible flexibility. Kundan's story is interesting. He was previously studying in Haryana which is the state north of Rajasthan. I don't know how but he heard of our school but he and his brother Pradeep decided they wanted to study school and yoga here so they enrolled and took a "room" on rent in the local village. The room isn't so good and they don't have electricity, the two brothers cook for themselves and spend the early morning and evening getting water, firewood etc. Yesterday he came quite innocently asking if we can help him to get electricity so he can study. One can't help but be inspired when young boys will go through so much just to get a proper education.

They are back!

The hostel is open, the boys are full of energy, evening satsang is full. The boys are back in town.

Nice one

Sometimes a story comes along that is really touching and makes one feel that something is going right in the school. There is a group of students from a village about 90km from our Ashram. They just passed 10th class and want to continue to study. They have all got together with their parents and arranged to rent and stay in a house in the nearby town of Sojat so that they can have the chance to study 11th class in our school. I guess they could have chosen many places to do their study but the fact that they chose Jadan speaks volumes for the hard work which the teachers are doing.

Today was the first day of the new school year. It is great to have the school come alive again with so many bright young faces.

Books, books, books

Those in Australia probably already know we are having "book week" this week. In our centers throughout Australia people are donating a coin for a book. (Here a library book for the primary school costs on average 80 rupees which is $2). Next week we will see how much is collected and then send the staff shopping.

Enjoy

Even better news than the last blog!!!

The 12th Board Science results have been announced. Our students all passed easily. Three students came in the top 100 in Rajasthan and 16 in the top 100 in Pali district. Enough said, many many congratulations to all of them. It is great to see their hard work and the dedication of the Principal and staff get rewarded. It seems that our 12th class students are leaving with a bright future.

Good news

Great news from school. The results of the 8^th Class Government Board examinations have come. From our batch of 81 students 79 obtained First Division marks, 1 in Second Division and one failed. Even better was that 13 students came in the top 100 merit in the district – not bad for a “village school”. The top student was Pushpa Boyal who scored 90.1% and came 18^th in the District merit. Congratulations to all!!!!

Hari Om,

sorry it has been a while between blogs. The last few months have been busy with events at Maha Kumbh Mela in Haridwar. There somehow my life had an ....................incredible change of direction, but that is another story.

Anyway right now I have the chance to spend 3 days here in Jadan and again enjoy seeing the smiling faces of our students. All are nervously in exam mode. Tenth class started their Board examinations yesterday, 12th are already half way through their exams and the primary students also started yesterday. There is an air of confidence about them, it seems that they have prepared well.

The new school building is getting the final touches of flooring and plastering and will be ready for the new session in July. It has become a fantastic facillity for education.

If anyone has some inspiration to help us continue the development of the school please be in touch. There are still plenty of opportunities to be a part of the project for the development of the sports and play grounds, computers and for the continued support of our girl students who are all attending the school under the Gyan Putra scheme which allows them to study for free. We are also in the process of planning rainwater harvesting tanks to provide sweet rainwater for drinking to the students. It is frustrating to see what salty and over flourided water does to children's development.

Enjoy and thanks to everyone for their support.

Swami Jasraj Puri

The new hockey team

The boys have started to learn how to play hockey. The field is pretty rough but they love it.

Milkman

What a way to transport milk from our animal shelter to the kitchen!!

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

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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