Saturday Morning "Baatchit": Meeting the Sindhi Youth at Balvihar

- September 24, 2016, Saturday.

- My Indian friends Jashwin and Jasmine invited me to join their morning balvihar session to talk to some Sindhi teens about one of the topics that I know the most - me. Balvihar is a youth-oriented program with a series of religious classes organized by the Chinmaya Mission center. Being a Hindu mission, the Chinmaya Mission provides classes mainly on Hinduism for people of all ages, although balvihar is specifically for the youth; you can say that balvihar is sort of like "Sunday school" for the Christian youth, although balvihar sessions are on Saturdays. To facilitate balvihar classes, the youth members that are separated into different age groups. Most of the participants are Sindhi youth (one of the prominent groups of Indians in the Philippines). Jashwin and Jasmine are volunteer teachers for the teen group, and these days they have been organizing a series of career talks with Indians or people with India/Hindu-related professions like mine. For this Saturday, I was more than happy to visit balvihar again after my first visit last year (click here) to talk about the field of education and my personal experiences with Hinduism, India, and the Indian community here in the Philippines in my life, my studies, and my career.

- We started balvihar classes after the opening prayer session. For the teen group, we had a cozy group of around 15 Sindhi teens; one of the supervisors, Auntie Usha, also participated. We all sat on the floor and had a rather relaxed chat or "baatchit" in Hindi. According to Jashwin, it was sort of like a "Koffee with Karan" type of chat; "Koffee with Karan" is a famous English showbiz talk show in India with Indian director (among other credentials) Karan Johar as the host.

Doing one of my favorite activities - talking.

They were a bit shy but they were nice.

Jasmine seated beside me (my right side/photo's left side.)

- After answering all of Jashwin's questions and sharing my life and love for all-things Indian, some of the students asked me questions about my work in the university and my encounters with students. Auntie Usha also asked me challenging questions about my thoughts and opinions on some Hindu scriptures like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. (Boy, did those questions really make me think! But I like those kinds of questions.)

- The one-and-a-half-hour balvihar classes ended around 12 noon. We ended the session with a nice class photo before packing up. To be honest I had wanted to stay a bit and probably talk more to the students there (or maybe even play with the Indian toddlers in the toddler balvihar class.) Auntie Usha also thanked me for agreeing to be a speaker for today's teen balvihar class; if only she knew that it was the least I can do for the all the help the Indian community gave me to finish my thesis last year!!

My teen balvihar "class," with Jasmine, Jashwin, and Auntie Usha. 

Happy 100 Years Chinmaya Mission!!

- I realized that just as I was feeling that I was neglecting my "Indian side" these past few weeks, then came a wave of Indian-related activities (click here for Ganesha Chaturthi, and here for Hindi Diwas). I hope that I'll be able to participate in more Indian-related events in the near future - speaking of which, Diwali (the Festival of Lights) is just a month from now!!