Reported by Madhumitha Sriram, Student, Harishree Vidhyalayam
Dhanur Vaibhav, a festival in significance of the month of Margazhi was celebrated in my school Harishree Vidhyalayam. This is a festival where all the teachers, staff and families get together to celebrate our culture and tradition and enjoy the performances of the students of various classes.
This year we celebrated it for 3 days with many entertaining cultural programs such as music, dance, and drama.
Day 1: Friday
Friday, December 11th,2009, we had the inauguration of Dhanur Vaibhav at 5 pm. Our school was beautifully decorated with flowers and Rangoli and the guests were grandly welcomed by the prefects of our school. The school also provided refreshments for those who attended the events.
The program started with the prayer and an opening song “Nandalala” by students of 4th and 5th grades of our school. The director of our school, Mrs.Geetha Muthiah, our principal Mrs.Deivanai Muthuganesan and the chief guest Ms.Alarmel Valli lighted the lamp to mark the beginning of the 3 day festival. Then, Mrs.Geetha gave a welcome address which made us all stay and watch the entire program.
The students of our school gave wonderful Bharatanatyam dance performances, Pushpanjali and Ganesha Kouthuvam. Ms.Alarmel Valli, the chief guest , a Bharatanatyam exponent, delivered an inspiring speech. She told us to “Be proud of being an Indian and the rich cultural heritage that we have.” She also told us to continue to dance or sing or do anything that we are interested in and do the best we can.
The drama on “How Ganesha Got Elephant’s Head”, performed by the students of our drama teacher, Mr.shyam, was very interesting. Mrs.Anuradha Ganeshan (who teaches Kuchipudi after school for us) along with her daughter gave a kuchipudi performance. She also performed the traditional dancing on a brass plate which was very elegant and made us never want to take our eyes off her.
Day 2: Saturday
Saturday’s events began with a prayer song at 10.30 am. My group and I, performed a Bharatanatyam dance “Jatiswaram.” There were also group songs, fusion music that contained instruments such as Violin, Mridangam,drums and Guitar and a solo Bharatanatyam performance by our principal’s daughter, Valli.
Mrs. Meena Muthiah, a teacher, educator and our director’s grandmother spoke to us about the importance of listening to our parents. She also told us that our parents have given us an opportunity to learn dance, music and anything we want to learn, and the only thing that we can do to make them happy is to work hard and do everything well.
Then the stage was taken by the music troup Aalap including our Math teacher, Mrs.Chitra and they sang melodies from Hindi and Tamil movies. They involved the students by asking them to identify the ragas of the songs they sung. It was very entertaining.
Day 3: Sunday
Sunday’s events began with a song “Kurai Onrum Illai” by our music teacher, Mrs.Kausalya followed by a very enjoyable Odissi dance by Konarak Dance Academy, Chennai. A carnatic recital by students of Bombay Jayshree was very soothing to hear. They involved all of us to sing “Shakthi Sahitha Ganapathim,” with them. The last program of the Dhanur Vaibhav was a folk dance choreographed by our Kuchipudi teacher, Anuradha Ganeshan whose performance we enjoyed at the beginning.
At the end, our Principal, Mrs.Deivanai Muthuganesan, gave a vote of thanks to the teachers, staff , children and parents who put their hard work and efforts into making this Dhanur Vaibhav a grand success.
We concluded with our National Anthem, “Jana Gana Mana”.