Well today Tejas was presented with a Merit certificate for getting 25 stars . They have a system in his school where they give stars for good performance. For example if they write neatly, or do all their math problems correctly, or do well in any subjects in class they get stars. It is maintained in a slip attached to their communication book. There are stars for participating in extra curricular activities like sports, music etc.
Well he had collected 25 points earlier and was given a Merit certificate last month.
They have another system in his school and each class has its own assembly for which parents are invited. It is called year assembly (like year 5 assembly) . All students participate in cultural activities like music, drama etc. They have some theme also. In this assembly Merit Certificates are distributed. For his year assembly Tejas participated in a drama, and no body got any Merit certificate as it was just held in the year beginning.
Last month it was Year 4 Assembly and I was specially invited as Tejas was getting the certificate. The theme was Greek and there was some Greek skit and some programs related to Greek History.
Today it was Year 3 Assembly and again I was invited as my child was getting the Second Merit certificate.
Today's theme was Deepavali. There was a small skit where an European girl was dressed in a Saree and the kid was looking very very cute and a Boy in a Jubba and pants and they were decorating their house and lighting lamps and inviting people home and were exchanging sweets and putting 'Rangoli' with coloured rice . They even mentioned that 'murukku' is special dish of Deepavali.
This is how Malaysian Indians celebrate Deepavali in Malaysia . Then they said they would like to enjoy the festival with some dance. Music was played and the Hindi song Gunguroo... Gunguro...... was played and the music was catchy and some few kids danced to the tune so nicely. The music was not offensive but very nice and the beat was good. It was nice to watch girls wearing ghagra cholis and dancing away that too nicely. I could see all the parents enjoying the Malay muslims, the Chinese, the Africans the Europeans, American and of course the Indian parents were all clapping away to glory.
Again in the end since all the kids wanted to dance to that song, the whole year group all dressed with jubba and pyjama, Salwar kameez , with some of them even having 'malligai ' on their hair danced really nicely to the song. This time parents and the other class kids who were watching also got up and joined in the fun and were all swaying to the nice beat.
This set me into thinking. Now Indian culture is slowly becoming synonymous with hindi film music. I some how liked it this time, thinking why not? Even Bharatha natyam which is now considered as the epitome of Indian culture was considered as taboo only a century or so back. As long as the gestures are nice and the song good I felt good to be represented as Indian by Hindi Music. I was thinking that we should encourage kids to learn three languages, Mother tongue, Hindi and English and definitely children will be able to do justice to all the languages if they learn from class one. Already Hindi movies are so popular everywhere and even in Malaysia they are very popular. I do see lots of good movies are being made in Hindi. Slowly good movie songs and movies will become part of our culture. Instead of fighting against the language let us slowly integrate ourselves with the national language without forgetting our mother tongues.
I felt elated to see so many kids from other cultures doing justice to Indian Culture and felt good.
N.B. They served each parent with a small packet of 'murukku', Earlier during Tejas's year assembly they distributed ginger bread shaped cookies as they enacted a play by name ginger bread girl. Normally they also arrange a nice snacks and tea for all the parents who attend the Year Assembly.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Sanfransisco
While coming back from Baltimore, Anand asked us to fly to Sanfransisco instead of Los Angeles as he had gone there and said we can all drive back to Santa Barbara. I had heard about this city a lot and was told that it is one of the beautiful cities of America.
Yeah I found it was true and I am impressed how they maintain old buildings about 100 years old or so and maintain it so well. We went to a big botanical garden which was full of flowers and trees that we spent a lot of time there even though we had not planned that way. We could see hundreds of varieties of Dahlias and many volunteers were there maintaining. It is also a kind of social/community service there. I am impressed by the different ways community service these people do and are so proud of their community.
We then went through different bridges (The city is full of bridges) and went in car into the great Golden Gate Bridge. It was so hazy and cloudy and full of mist that I could see the great bridge only bits and pieces and now showing me one girder and then vanishing. Since it is a thoroughfare and many cars were behind us, in just a few minutes the money paid was spent. I mean we had to pay a toll to get on to the bridge . Though the bridge was beautiful due to the vanishing act I could not see the enormity of the great bridge.
This was before we went to the garden . Anand was also visiting the place for the first time and he saw the map and after our visit to the garden took us through different roads where I could see lot of old buildings. When I saw some steps which looked like ladders on the front side of the buildings I wondered aloud how come they have kept such precarious steps outside the house and who will use it. I was told by my sonny dear that those are all mandatory steps as emergency exits in case of fire and they have been installed later on as previously when the building was built there was no emergency escape ways.
He took some turns this way that way and brought us to a place from where 'hey and presto' I could see the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge which eluded me earlier clearly shining in the Sun. He took us by foot near the bridge and we climbed up the pathway on to the foot path of the bridge and I saw many cars fly past us. It is really a marvel of Civil Engineering and my husband explained the engineering part of the bridge. It was worth all the walking climbing up the path way. From here we went to the downtown. Trams are in use till date and it was funny to see the trams moving on the roads slowly along with the cars. There were electrically operated buses also taking the electricity from the wires going up the roads. The same type of buses I had seen in China also. A broad V shaped steel atop the bus taking electricity from the wires. I was told that Californians are very much conscious about the pollution and hence the use of electric buses. By this time it was evening and we started back to Santa Barbara which is around more than 5 hours journey from here. We went to Saravana bhavan which is in a place an hour's drive from Sanfransisco and packed some food and started our journey back. This is one of the most beautiful roads in US as there is mountains on one side and the other side is the Ocean. I had earlier enjoyed a trip to LA from Santa Barbara which is also like this. LA is further South from Santa Barbara where as SFC is to its North. It was quite late when we reached home. It was one memorable trip and yes SFC is definitely a City which has a character of its own.
Yeah I found it was true and I am impressed how they maintain old buildings about 100 years old or so and maintain it so well. We went to a big botanical garden which was full of flowers and trees that we spent a lot of time there even though we had not planned that way. We could see hundreds of varieties of Dahlias and many volunteers were there maintaining. It is also a kind of social/community service there. I am impressed by the different ways community service these people do and are so proud of their community.
We then went through different bridges (The city is full of bridges) and went in car into the great Golden Gate Bridge. It was so hazy and cloudy and full of mist that I could see the great bridge only bits and pieces and now showing me one girder and then vanishing. Since it is a thoroughfare and many cars were behind us, in just a few minutes the money paid was spent. I mean we had to pay a toll to get on to the bridge . Though the bridge was beautiful due to the vanishing act I could not see the enormity of the great bridge.
This was before we went to the garden . Anand was also visiting the place for the first time and he saw the map and after our visit to the garden took us through different roads where I could see lot of old buildings. When I saw some steps which looked like ladders on the front side of the buildings I wondered aloud how come they have kept such precarious steps outside the house and who will use it. I was told by my sonny dear that those are all mandatory steps as emergency exits in case of fire and they have been installed later on as previously when the building was built there was no emergency escape ways.
He took some turns this way that way and brought us to a place from where 'hey and presto' I could see the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge which eluded me earlier clearly shining in the Sun. He took us by foot near the bridge and we climbed up the pathway on to the foot path of the bridge and I saw many cars fly past us. It is really a marvel of Civil Engineering and my husband explained the engineering part of the bridge. It was worth all the walking climbing up the path way. From here we went to the downtown. Trams are in use till date and it was funny to see the trams moving on the roads slowly along with the cars. There were electrically operated buses also taking the electricity from the wires going up the roads. The same type of buses I had seen in China also. A broad V shaped steel atop the bus taking electricity from the wires. I was told that Californians are very much conscious about the pollution and hence the use of electric buses. By this time it was evening and we started back to Santa Barbara which is around more than 5 hours journey from here. We went to Saravana bhavan which is in a place an hour's drive from Sanfransisco and packed some food and started our journey back. This is one of the most beautiful roads in US as there is mountains on one side and the other side is the Ocean. I had earlier enjoyed a trip to LA from Santa Barbara which is also like this. LA is further South from Santa Barbara where as SFC is to its North. It was quite late when we reached home. It was one memorable trip and yes SFC is definitely a City which has a character of its own.
Washington DC
Lincoln Memorial
Washington Monument
Capitol Washington DC
Arlington Cemetery
Aerial view of The Mall
Well I have been wanting to write about the places I visited while in US and only now the 'mood' has come.
My husband joined me in my trip to US in Baltimore where I had gone to visit anu. This place is an hour or so from the Capital of The United States. I had visited DC few years back when anu was in North Carolina. The Smithsonian museums is the greatest attraction in DC. I visited the place around Smithsonian on my earlier visit but could see the Halocaust museum which is set in memory of Jews who underwent the hardships and ordeals under Nazis. It took quite some time to come back to normalcy after seeing the tortures though in pictures and documentaries, they underwent.
This time being so near DC I wanted to see the places in a leisurely pace.
Hubby and me went to the places for three days in a row. It was an hour's journey by train to DC from Baltimore. The places around the Capitol are very near the train station. There is a well connected underground trains to go from one place to another. Capitol is the Parliament of US of A and it is an imposing building. Great architecture. The road which stretches from Capitol to the Washington Memorial is called The Mall and it is a beautifully laid out road which can be seen from both these buildings which are constructed atop hillocks. Both sides of these roads are full of museums which are generally known as Smithsonian's. Lots of trees and water fountains and Statues, flower beds are laid in these areas. We had lot of time and had taken some home cooked food which we ate under the trees which became an impromptu picnic.
This time I decided to get inside those two majestic buildings. When we inquired about that, to my surprise we could get the entry pass to both the places immediately as it was a week day. Every one hour there is a conducted tour and we got our passes for a particular time and we could roam about till that hour around the mall. The best part about this is the whole thing is free of charge including all the museums of Smithsonian's which is very unlike America where even to go near a small waterfall they charge a fee.
Capitol tour was so overwhelming and I could recall seeing the Parliament House in New Delhi. It has beautiful Frescoes on the inside of the circular doom roof . we could go into the gallery where the sessions of parliament are normally held. The House was not on Session and we just sat for a few minutes in the upper gallery.
Washington Memorial is a tall pyramid shaped building which is built in the memory of President Washington. We were taken by lift up the building to the uppermost level from where we could see the views of DC all around us. I could recognize so many places which I had seen earlier including the Potomac river which I had read about in the Tamil comedy drama 'washingtonil tirumanam' by 'Chavi'
I could see the old town ship of Alexandria where we had gone earlier evening and taken a boat ride on the river. It had such a old worldly charm.
I could see the Arlington Memorial Cemetery about which I had read in the books about American Civil war. This I had visited the previous day. This place had belonged to the Confederate Commander General Lee whose house is Arlington House where he lived before the Civil War for 30 years. This is now part of the Arlington memorial park which is the resting place for the soldiers. Every hour in a given place which is called the Memorial of the unknown Soldier, ceremonious change of guard takes place. We sat and witnessed that. Many many rows and rows of crosses can be seen from the bus which we took to go around the park. We saw the resting place of President Kennedy and his family. We were told to maintain the serenity of the atmosphere, as even now there are memorial services/burials are being held there for dead soldiers. This reminded me of the Chinese Cemetery in Malaysia called Nirvana where a beautiful atmosphere is maintained and acres and acres are maintained well and many people reserve there resting place while living. It has a big Dragon shaped building inside which lots of urns are kept under locker as it is a custom for certain Chinese to preserve the remains of dead in urns.
We walked around the Smithosinan's but had time only for the Natural History museum which has the exhibit the Hope Diamond which was found in Golconda. This is the museum which has so much of information about our planet and some how I never get bored even after visiting it twice.
We did not have time to visit the Air and Space museum which is the most popular museum around there. I had seen it on my earlier visit years back and seen the space ship and other exhibits.
The Lincoln memorial has a big Statue of President Lincoln. I just stood looking at it wondering how he managed to bring the Civil War to an end and how he was the starting point of Free America and brought an end to slavery though it was not his intention. He wanted an United America rather than an America free of Slaves.
We just walked near the White house and stood gaping at it. They have stopped admitting public inside the white House.
I vowed to come back to this place again and see as many museums as possible in my next visit.
My husband joined me in my trip to US in Baltimore where I had gone to visit anu. This place is an hour or so from the Capital of The United States. I had visited DC few years back when anu was in North Carolina. The Smithsonian museums is the greatest attraction in DC. I visited the place around Smithsonian on my earlier visit but could see the Halocaust museum which is set in memory of Jews who underwent the hardships and ordeals under Nazis. It took quite some time to come back to normalcy after seeing the tortures though in pictures and documentaries, they underwent.
This time being so near DC I wanted to see the places in a leisurely pace.
Hubby and me went to the places for three days in a row. It was an hour's journey by train to DC from Baltimore. The places around the Capitol are very near the train station. There is a well connected underground trains to go from one place to another. Capitol is the Parliament of US of A and it is an imposing building. Great architecture. The road which stretches from Capitol to the Washington Memorial is called The Mall and it is a beautifully laid out road which can be seen from both these buildings which are constructed atop hillocks. Both sides of these roads are full of museums which are generally known as Smithsonian's. Lots of trees and water fountains and Statues, flower beds are laid in these areas. We had lot of time and had taken some home cooked food which we ate under the trees which became an impromptu picnic.
This time I decided to get inside those two majestic buildings. When we inquired about that, to my surprise we could get the entry pass to both the places immediately as it was a week day. Every one hour there is a conducted tour and we got our passes for a particular time and we could roam about till that hour around the mall. The best part about this is the whole thing is free of charge including all the museums of Smithsonian's which is very unlike America where even to go near a small waterfall they charge a fee.
Capitol tour was so overwhelming and I could recall seeing the Parliament House in New Delhi. It has beautiful Frescoes on the inside of the circular doom roof . we could go into the gallery where the sessions of parliament are normally held. The House was not on Session and we just sat for a few minutes in the upper gallery.
Washington Memorial is a tall pyramid shaped building which is built in the memory of President Washington. We were taken by lift up the building to the uppermost level from where we could see the views of DC all around us. I could recognize so many places which I had seen earlier including the Potomac river which I had read about in the Tamil comedy drama 'washingtonil tirumanam' by 'Chavi'
I could see the old town ship of Alexandria where we had gone earlier evening and taken a boat ride on the river. It had such a old worldly charm.
I could see the Arlington Memorial Cemetery about which I had read in the books about American Civil war. This I had visited the previous day. This place had belonged to the Confederate Commander General Lee whose house is Arlington House where he lived before the Civil War for 30 years. This is now part of the Arlington memorial park which is the resting place for the soldiers. Every hour in a given place which is called the Memorial of the unknown Soldier, ceremonious change of guard takes place. We sat and witnessed that. Many many rows and rows of crosses can be seen from the bus which we took to go around the park. We saw the resting place of President Kennedy and his family. We were told to maintain the serenity of the atmosphere, as even now there are memorial services/burials are being held there for dead soldiers. This reminded me of the Chinese Cemetery in Malaysia called Nirvana where a beautiful atmosphere is maintained and acres and acres are maintained well and many people reserve there resting place while living. It has a big Dragon shaped building inside which lots of urns are kept under locker as it is a custom for certain Chinese to preserve the remains of dead in urns.
We walked around the Smithosinan's but had time only for the Natural History museum which has the exhibit the Hope Diamond which was found in Golconda. This is the museum which has so much of information about our planet and some how I never get bored even after visiting it twice.
We did not have time to visit the Air and Space museum which is the most popular museum around there. I had seen it on my earlier visit years back and seen the space ship and other exhibits.
The Lincoln memorial has a big Statue of President Lincoln. I just stood looking at it wondering how he managed to bring the Civil War to an end and how he was the starting point of Free America and brought an end to slavery though it was not his intention. He wanted an United America rather than an America free of Slaves.
We just walked near the White house and stood gaping at it. They have stopped admitting public inside the white House.
I vowed to come back to this place again and see as many museums as possible in my next visit.
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