30 Years of Hindi at Bellaire High School, Holika Celebration a Huge Success

Hindi in 3

By Ishani Shethia, Cassandra Martinez & Satya Das

HOUSTON: First high school Hindi program of the nation celebrated 30 years of the program on Saturday, March 24 at the Bellaire High School’s auditorium. Almost house full of audience of over 700 guests, parents, and students were entertained with 21 beautiful performances by Bellaire high school Hindi students, school’s e-motion dance team, Spanish department students, classical dances by students of Upasana kaladendra and several University groups of students who competed. Akh mastani and Houston di shaan won first and second place awards. Audience also enjoyed the singing of Houston’s young talent Miss Mallika Ghei. Everyone loved the beautiful rangoli artwork created by Janaki Pathak on the floor in front of the auditorium. Guests were served snacks at the end of the show.

Hindi in 2


Bellaire’s Hindi program is the largest in the nation and has 7 levels of Hindi that includes 4 levels of International Baccalaureate (IB) Hindi taught by well-known Hindi teacher Arun Prakash, who started the program and has the credit of starting Hindi programs at Rice University and University of Houston too. Bellaire High School has Yoga club, Hindu students’ council, South Asian students’ association and Hindi national honor society. Officers and members of all four clubs work very hard to celebrate Diwali, Hindu festival of lights and Holi, Hindu festival of colors that are the largest teenage students organized programs in the nation for the past 30 years. Other than that students also celebrate other festivals, practice yoga every week under the supervision of certified yoga instructor Rupi Prasad. Hindi students have Indian food and Henna tattoo days at school and club members participate in various volunteer activities such as Ram Leela and Thanksgiving at the George R. Brown convention center.

Hindi in 1


Chief guest was Houston’s renowned Cancer research scientist at the MD Anderson Center Dr. Sen Pathak. He told students never to lose hope and surrender to setback, dedicated hard work is the key to success.


All this needs a lot of support from the community shared Arun Prakash. He said, “we are thankful to Dr. Durga Agrawal, Subhash Gupta, Brij Agrawal, Suresh Agrawal, Dr. Urmil Shukla, Dr. Ajay Aggarwal, Raj Seghal, Meera Gidwani, Vivek Israni of Test masters, Dr. Ajit Vyas, Dr. Tushar Sharma, Suresh Shenoy of Kirti Jewelers and many more affluent members of the Indian community for their continued support over the years. Gaurav Sood from Boss and Hughes printed full color program brochure for free. I am very proud of my Hindi students and all the members and officers of the 4 clubs that I sponsor.” He also added, “I want the community leaders to petition area school district to start Hindi in elementary, junior and senior high schools since Hindi is a critical need language in America and there is shortage of Hindi speaking bilinguals. Hindi is the third largest spoken language in the world and India is the fastest growing economy with lot of American companies investing”.