Sri Meenakshi Temple Vedic Heritage School Celebrates “VHS Day” by Students

By Mahesh Iyer

PEARLAND: The two hundred plus (200+) students from Sri Meenakshi Temple’s Vedic Heritage School (VHS) woke up to a rainy and cold morning, on Sunday, March 1st, but that did not deter them from putting up their best, during a day reverberating with “Slokathon”, speech and group discussions. The younger students were grouped age-wise and came prepared to recite their choice of slokams from Ramayanam and Bhagavatham, to be evaluated by veteran judges. There were also senior students who shared their understanding of Hindutva via speech contests and group discussions. The VHS program, which started in 2000, is in its fifteenth (15th) year at Sri Meenakshi Temple and run by group of volunteers is intended to teach Hindu values, heritage and culture to the younger generation. The VHS has continuously grown in the breadth and depth of its content and in the number of students enrolled which number about 200.

MTS Education committee coordinator Mahesh Iyer started the day’s proceeding.  The VHS coordinators, Mahalakshmi and Padmanabhan (Pat), had meticulously planned the flow of events.  All the hard work put in by the upper and lower assembly teachers Partha Krishnamurthy, Kiran Partha and Nalini Sadagopan came to fruition when the respective students confidently chanted their assigned slokams. Each of the individual class teachers had prepared their students to go on stage, and demonstrate a specific aspect that they had covered in class thus far.  MTS Chairman, Dr. Vaduganathan, and Secretary Srikanth Venugopalan addressed the gathering and promised to continue inculcating Hindu values to the next generation.  The student competition judges gave their time, energy and enthusiastically challenged and encouraged the children during the competition and selected top performers in each category as winners based on their pronunciation and stage presence skills.

An event of such a magnitude is never complete without delicious food and lots of prizes. The event concluded with the award ceremony where MTS board members participated along with VHS coordinators and presented all the children with trophies for their outstanding performance.  The temple cafeteria catered with ease and the prize winners were in fact all of those who participated in the event.

For more information on Vedic Heritage School please check http://mtsvhs.blogspot.com/