Bharathi Kalai Manram Celebrates Annual Tamil School Year end Program

By Akilan Gopal

HOUSTON: This year marks the 40th Anniversary for the cultural organization Bharathi Kalai Manram (BKM), an organization that provides a forum for cultural and social interaction with special emphasis on fine arts, literature and performing arts of Tamil speaking people from India. Among BKM’s established programs is its Tamil School, educating children as young as 4 years to read, write, and speak Tamil. Founded 13 years ago, the Tamil School was originally taught with only a handful of students in small trailer at the Sri Meenakshi Temple Society in Pearland.  Commensurate with the growth in Houston and surrounding areas, the BKM Tamil School has grown to four locations with aspirations to grow further. Pearland School led by Mala Gopal, Sugarland School led by Chockalingam Solayappan, Cypress school led by Kuzhali Arcot, and Katy School led by Malar Narayanan are the current four locations. From its humble beginning to its widespread success today under BKM President Parthasarathy Krishnaswamy, the BKM Tamil School now boasts around 150 students and 30 teachers, several of them are high school students who are Tamil School graduates.

The BKM Tamil school year end event was celebrated at the Meenakshi Temple Society’s Auditorium. The program commenced by an invocation “Tamil Thai Vazhthu”, a state song of Tamil Nadu sung by students from all four schools followed by an array of cultural performances, in which students displayed their Tamil knowledge and aptitude through a variation of stage acts such as singing Bharathiyar’s (a great Tamil literary figure) songs, acting in Tamil skits, reading Tamil literature, jokes and riddles, and etc.

 Following the entertaining performances, the Award Ceremony commenced for students who officially graduated and students who won in the Tamil School Competition held earlier on April 5th. Several guests of honor who each spent countless hours brining the BKM Tamil School to its current success gave away the awards to the students. These guests included Sam Kanappan, Padmini Nathan, Srikanth Venugopal in lieu of P.V. Vaduganathan, and Giyapuram Prasad. BKM’s Tamil School Year end Program was the most remarkable and splendid it has ever been so far. Sam Kannappan in voicing his congratulations to the children added the importance of fostering the language and requested the parents to spread the word to others who will benefit from attending the Tamil language classes.  Bharathi Kalai Manram’s Tamil School, in light of its current progress, hopes to grow to new heights and continue to spread the Tamil language to next generation of children. For registering into the BKM Tamil school visit BKM website www.bkmouston.org.