Puranava Culture Fest Showcases India – from Ancient to the Modern

Chief guests with Storytelling competition winners.

Chief guests with Storytelling competition winners.

PEARLAND: At a time when most people identify modern India with Bollywood and ancient India with complicated religious practices, the Puranava Children’s Indian Culture Fest brought a fresh experience of both ancient and modern India — the real India with her essentially philosophical underlying way of life coupled with the bright, colorful diversity of her widely different regional cultures.

GOD in 4

Mayors of Pearland and Manvel with winners of the Elementary-Level Quiz Competition.

The event was organized by Global Organization for Divinity, Houston chapter, and was held on April 7 at Rogers Middle School, Pearland. This project was supported by City of Pearland Cultural Arts Grant program from the City of Pearland Convention & Visitors Bureau.

GOD in 1

Art competition participants

The event featured educative, fun, India-themed Quiz and Art competitions; regional exhibits showcasing cultures from northern, southern, eastern and western India; a musical play on the life of Sant Jnaneshwar by children; dance performances featuring the classical dance forms Odissi and Bharatanatyam; an Indian folk Puppet Show by the Dancing Peacock Puppet Company; booths with henna, Indian vegetable and plant saplings and Indian children’s books; Try-a-Sari and photo booths; vendor booths selling Indian saris, jewelry, toys, etc.; raffle door prizes sponsored by numerous local businesses and restaurants; kids art and craft activities, a scavenger hunt, and much more.

Bharatanatyam dance performance

Bharatanatyam dance performance

Special guests at the event were Mayor Tom Reid of Pearland, Honorable Mayor Debra Davison of Manvel, Ranjana Narasimhan and Tupil Narasimhan. All of them addressed the audience and immensely appreciated G.O.D.’s community and cultural service. They also gave away prizes to the competition winners. Ranjana Narasimhan delivered the keynote and spoke encouraging words to the young generation.

The Puranava competition winners were –
Art:Coloring – Shwetha Iyer, Raghuram Ravishankar, Bertina Sarkar;
Color Pencils – Shreshta Pendurti, Issa Sam, Shourya Tehlan;
Water Colors – Smithi Gopalakrishnan, Madhura Sriram, Shruthi Gopalakrishnan;
Doodling – Kishori Prakash;
Digital Art – Shelly Fu and Purush Ram
Storytelling: Ananya Hariharasudhan and Aashita Anand

Quiz:
Grades K-4: Amudhan Madhankumar & Vasundhara Ravishankar, Ananya Hariharasudhan & Nilay Arangil
Grades 5-8: Madhura Sriram & Pavithra Chandrasekar; Krishna Ram & Tapanjyoth Paunarkar

Global Organization for Divinity (G.O.D.) aims to promote peace, harmony and universal love amid cultural diversity through inner transformation. It is a worldwide organization with chapters in several major US cities, and globally in several countries. G.O.D. frequently organizes cultural arts events that encompass performing and visual arts, as well as cultural arts education including year-round children’s/youth cultural and arts events, classes and camps.

G.O.D.’s fun Gopa Kuteeram summer camps with creative workshops will be held on June 4-8 (ages 6-9) – “Vibrant India” and June 11-15 “Fun with Mindfulness”.
For more information about the camps and other activities, please call 281-402-6585, email houston.god@godivinity.org or visit www.godivinity.org.