Hindu YUVA, University of Washington

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.

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#

Goal of the event: WACAP, the World Association for Children and Parents, is an international adoption agency whose goal is to provide a home and a family for every orphan. They’ve been doing great work in many countries, particularly Russia, China and Ethiopia. They try to find families for orphans in their own home countries, but if this is not possible, they bring them to families in the US who want to adopt kids from outside. Over the years, a fairly large number of orphans have been adopted by families in the greater Seattle area. The WACAP annual kids day aims to bring together all these kids and their families for a picnic, giving them a chance to have fun together, get to know each other, and help the families connect to other families facing similar challenges of raising a foreign child.

On the day of the event: A group of about 20 Hindu Yuva volunteers, reached woodland park on the morning of the event, around 9:45 am. After the initial introductions, we were assigned different tasks, ranging from directing families to the registration desk to setting up tents, play areas etc. At around 11 am, the picnic got underway. There were various fun activities for the kids, including Hula hoops, spin art, tattoos, face painting, magic shows, a jumping jack etc. Our volunteers were involved in all these activites, making sure that the kids have fun and are safe. From 12-1 pm, we organized lunch (sandwiches/chips), making sure all the 300+ kids and their families get enough to eat, and also made and served cool lemonade to give everyone some relief from the summer heat. After that, the activities continued for some time, and we helped make sure that all the leftover food was taken home by someone. Finally around 2pm, we helped wrap things up, clean up the picnic area, take down the tents and transport all the equipment back to the vehicles. We had a final group huddle to celebrate the successful completion of the event.

Feedback and Take-Home Message: Interacting with the orphans of diverse backgrounds/ages and watching their happy faces at the picnic was a memorable experience for all the volunteers, everyone enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The WACAP organizers were very pleased with our team, they commended us on our enthusiasm and readiness to help out with everything. The SEWA event was also a very good platform to get in touch with people who aren’t directly involved with Hindu Yuva. About half of the volunteers were new, and all of them really liked the event and said they’d like to be involved in the future as well. We plan on making this a regular thing, having one SEWA event at least every other month.

Potential Future Project: We also got a good idea for a potential future project: WACAP has a program in India as well, albeit a little smaller, and there are many families in the US who have adopted kids from India. Many of the families, and WACAP themselves, would like the kids to remain connected to their home cultures, and having some platform to do this would be very valuable. I think this is one area where we can help a lot and its worth thinking about, both here and for other Hindu Yuva Chapters across the country.

Pictures of the event