Temple Project covered by Adyar Talk

Report in Adyar Talk paper of Newstoday Group (published in Chennai on 23-29 Feb, 2008):

Youth are not useless, but used less

 

Do you know why vibudhi is applied? Why homams (havans) are performed, why circumambulate the peepal tree? Why chant mantras? and the significance of 108?

These are some of the questions answered scientifically by volunteers of Temple Project which is an initiative to increase awareness about Indian culture. The architects of the project are not any religious group, not any NGO, but a group of youth - students from different city colleges.

 

These handful of youth visit temples around the city to spread the rationale behind our daily cultural practices. When questioned on how it all started, a volunteer Bala Ganesh says 'we were inspired by Swami Vivekananda's 'My Plan of Campaign' and decided to bring out the scientific explanation of our cultural practices'

 

They have been doing this for the past one year and have covered quite a few temples in the city. Their modus operandi is very simple - they obtain permission from temple authorities to display their boards which contain the reasons behind our traditional practices.

 

The volunteers explain the reasons to the people visiting temples. "Lot of people said that a small booklet containing this information would be helpful, so we pooled in our own money and came up with a booklet to distribute it free of cost' say Kalidos, a law student.

 

Of late, they have also started cleaning the temples to put in some physical labour in addition to their explanations.

 

Last Sunday, Temple project was held at Shri Sai Baba Temple at Guindy. Also, these youth make sure that they understand the Indian culture in its true dimension and thus spare some time at the temple to discuss about it among themselves.

 

Seeing the impact of these students, many temples have wanted these boards to be permanently kept in their premises. The students are working out an economical way for having their information permanently at the temple premises. But the going has not been that easy for these youngsters, 'Famous temples and those owned by HR & CE have a lot of formalities and do not give permission easily, making it tedious to arrange at those temples in our limited time' says engineering student Shankar Ram.

 

'A bigger problem we face is the burden of funds. Being students, we cannot afford the cost of publishing these booklets. In addition, we do not belong to any organisation and thus we don't get sponsors' says Madhukumar, another engineering student.

 

These spirited youth prove that youth are not useless but used less.