Hindu YUVA, University of Washington

ONLINE TICKET SALES HAVE CLOSED. PLEASE BUY YOUR TICKETS AT THE EVENT ITSELF.

PARKING: The UW Tower  parking is free for the Dandiya Night attendees. Please mention that you are there for this event in case anybody asks you for the parking fee there.

Highlights:

FREE LESSONS by UW’s ONLY Garba/Dandiya team, Dangeraas Dawgs.
An amazing venue that offers an unmatched view of the Seattle skyline
Power packed sound system and awesome Indian tunes (Traditional+Bollywood)
Tasty Indian Snacks included in the ticket
• Prizes over $300
• Online Raffle
• Free gift coupons with ticket
Proceeds go towards supporting projects undertaken by the NGOs Sewa International and Yuva for Sewa

So grab those kurtas and ghaghra-cholis and join us for an amazing night of dancing … Desi style!

Here‘s some more information on Dandiya, a beautiful ancient Indian Dance form.

Date and Time: Saturday, November 5 · 7:30pm - 10:30pm

Venue: UW Tower Cafetaria South

Tickets:

UW Students/Staff: $10 advance, $12 at the door

Others: $15 advance, $20 at the door

Hindu YUVA invites you all to a Lecture-Demonstration of Indian classical music (both Carntic and Hindustani styles) conducted by Dr. Deepak Paramashivan.

Dr. Paramashivan will describe basic concepts of Raga, Tala (beats) and the commonality and differences between the North Indian (Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic) styles. Demonstrations will be given using vocal music and Sarangi (a bowed stringed instrument.)

*** No prior knowledge of Indian classical music is necessary. ***

Time: 5pm to 8pm

Day: Saturday, October 1, 2011

Place: Savery Hall #260, University of Washington (Location on map)

A brief bio of Dr. Paramashivan: Born into a family of musicians, he started his training in Carnatic vocal and Veena at a tender age of five from Vidushi. R. Vasanthalakshmi of Mysore. Later he underwent rigorous training in the traditional Mysore style of Veena under Vid. D. Balakrishna. He is trained in Sitar in Vilayat Khani style for more than 10 years by Pt. Jayant Kumar Das. He learnt Hindustani vocal and Sarangi for 15 years from Ustad. Faiyaz Ahmed Khan of Dharwad. Currently Deepak is learning sarangi under the Sarangi maestro Padma Vibhushan Pt. Ram Narayan.

Dr. Paramashivan started giving public performances in Carnatic music at the age of 8. He has worked as an associate music director for Kannada cinema and tele-serials and extended vocal support and played sitar, veena and sarangi for movies, tele-serials, dance ballets and other musical projects. He has given numerous performances at AIR, and Doordarshan. On sarangi, he has given several solo performances, accompaniment support to leading vocalists and provided lehra saathi for tabla, sufiana and kathak dance shows.

You can also make a voluntary donation to the cause directly or below.  Sponsor one child for a year by making a donation of $90, in which case you’ll get status report of the student twice a year.

Holi Celebration

Holi, the festival of colors is here. Continuing our popular celebration of Holi from past years, we are going to celebrate it once again at the Golden gardens Beach this year on March 20. It’s also the end of the quarter so all the more reason to come and celebrate. We will provide organic colors there only. So just come dressed up properly, ready to face the beach, the colors, and the enjoyment. The program will be followed by a potluck lunch.

Please RSVP on the facebook event page since we will be sending out some final reminder messages and more details there.

Playing with colors

Where: Golden Gardens Beach Park (map location)

When: 10:00am to 12:30pm, March 20, 2011 (Sunday)

Holi Potluck

Where: 7516 Roosevelt Way NE #3, Seattle, WA 98115

When: 1:30pm to 3:00pm, March 20, 2011 (Sunday)

Sangeet Sandhya

The spring break is on and here is a perfect way to enjoy an evening of it through music. Let us all come together, music amateurs or experts, to sing songs and play instruments together. Remember, none of us are professional musicians here; the idea is to have fun! We will have light snacks to go with it.

Where: Radford Court, 6301, 65th Ave NE, Seattle 98115

When:  6pm to 9pm, March 22, 2011

Cost:    Yourself

Here is the link to the facebook event page. Please RSVP there to receive any further messages regarding the evening.

Bouddhik Evening

Continuing our tradition of somebody sharing information about a particular topic, we present a talk on “Understanding Corruption” by Santhosh Narayana.

Where: CSE403, Paul G. Allen Center, University of Washington

When: 7:30pm to 8:30pm, April 2, 2011

Cost:   Nothing, but your inquisitive self

Here is the link to the facebook event page. Please RSVP there to receive any further messages regarding the talk.

Talk abstract: “My topic will be “Corruption in modern India. Political or cultural phenomenon?”. I will talk about the growth of corruption in modern India, discuss some important reasons why it is so rampant, what is being done to tackle it and what can be done further. I will try to analyse if its a political problem, so that a political solution would be enough or is it a deep rooted cultural malaise that would require far greater and tougher solutions.” – Santhosh.

Hindu YUVA organized Ice Skating as its monthly social for February’11. On February 13, 2011, a bunch of us went to the Highland Ice Skating Arena and spent close to 3 hours there falling, getting up, skating and then falling again It was a lot of fun indeed. Here is a short video capturing the fun.

Facebook event page – http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178860962152586

What is a Surya Namaskar?

Surya Namaskar means salutations to sun, traditionally performed at dawn facing the rising Sun. It consists of a set of simple body postures for full body workout and stress relief. Surya Namaskar is an exquisite miniaturized version of all that Yoga embodies.

What is a Yoga Marathon?

Hindu YUVA has been conducting Surya Namaskar Yajna (SNY) for past three years as part of a nationwide yoga marathon resulting in more than 10,000 participants, 250 centers and 1 million sun salutations. The purpose of SNY is to create awareness about yoga and its benefits in achieving a healthy body, mind and spirit – “health for humanity”. The idea of a marathon is of dividing into teams of 4-5 people and at least 2 members of each team are doing Surya Namaskars at any point of time in those 2 hours.

Why should we take part?

The goal of this unique Yoga Marathon is to inculcate yoga practice in our daily lives for physical and mental well being by performing Surya Namaskar together. And what’s better than to start this with your friends!

• Dandiya sticks will be provided.
• Prizes worth more than $200!
• Indian snacks (2 samosas + mango lassi) included in the ticket!

Date: Saturday, 6th November

Time: 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Venue: Room 316, South Campus Center (directions)

Online ticket sales are now closed. You can still buy the tickets at the door.

Sponsors:

Goal of the event: Concord International Elementary School is a unique bilingual school in Seattle: One of the few to offer lessons in all subjects in both Spanish and English to all their students, who comprise a fairly balanced mix of native Spanish and English speakers. The school also caters largely to lower income families, so they rely heavily on grants from various NGOs/local governmental sources for facility upgrades. Many programs that they have match any volunteer hours devoted to the school with an equivalent sum of money, which goes a long way towards providing the school with funds for their expansion plans. On this occassion, the school is planning a major upgrade of their playground, adding a big play area catering specially to older kids. They needed volunteers both to help setup the play area and to help raise the money to pay for it.

On the day of the event: A group of 12 HinduYuva volunteers, reached the school on the morning of the event, around 10:00 am. After the initial introductions, we were all assigned a variety of different painting tasks. Slightly caught off guard, as this was not the kind of work we expected, this led to a different situation for each of us: Some rediscovered the artist within, while others (like me) realized why they never took up painting when they were young . All in all, it was fun to play around with all the paint in a school gymnasium, reminding everyone of their school-days. Post this, we had some pizza/donuts for lunch, after which we got to the real hard work: Shoveling gravel to set the foundation for the play area. There’s no question about it: Shoveling is hard work! But as we discovered to our own surpirse, its a lot of fun too, and working with your hands (an alien experience for most of us!) was really satisfying. The enthusiasm was kept up with chai breaks and enthusiastic naaras, ranging from the shakha naaras to cries of “Mazdoor Union Zindaabad”

Feedback and Take-Home Message: Everyone had a fun time helping out The school authorities were very pleased with our team, they commended us on our enthusiasm and readiness to help out with everything. Again, like the previous SEWA event, quite a few new people got involved with Hindu Yuva through this event. It has only reinforced my belief that having a regular SEWA activity can add fresh dimension to our activities, help involve more people and also strengthen the bond between all of us, especially by working on a common project together. I hope the SEWA program continues to be successful and we continue to get enthusiastic volunteers for all future events.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/hinduyuva.UW/VolunteeringAtConcordInternationalSchool#