Vacation for a cause - Bala Bharati Siksha Samiti Summer Camp 1

A kids' summer camp where as a volunteer you are expected to be up by 4:45 AM, help the 90 odd kids, get up and brush ... get them to drink customary 2 glasses of water, exercise, bath and be ready for flag hoisting in an hour, help them with their yoga and pranayama while Acharya leads the session, help serve breakfast, help kids down the breakfast and funny tasting health drink, take classes on human values, serve lunch and dinner conduct out-of-the-ordinary art classes, drama classes, come up with new and exciting games for the games session, teach bhajan and sloka in the evening bhajan class, organize culturals/daily talent show after dinner and then ensure kids are asleep by 10:15PM, attend volunteer meetings till 11:00 PM and then if some steam is still left, practice the martial art Danda so you are ready for the next day's danda class at 6 AM. In between all this find time to wash urself and your clothes, eat food, document the sessions, practice danda, plan and brainstorm cultural programs for the last day fest, sort out some fights among kids, heal some bruises with love and hugs, some with dettol and cotton, attend a few sick kids, clean the camp and some other stuff I cant think of right now!!! Of course I didnt know any of this before I landed as a volunteer at Ravirala-the summer camp place in Hyderabad, but I cant imagine how easily I fell into this routine and how much I enjoyed the journey of self discovery.

Quite unexpectedly I went to this summer camp for 8-14yr old kids, a vacation of sorts where I chose to be a volunteer while my 5 yr old son could be a participant. Unexpected it was because .. when my friend was extolling the virtues of this particular values-based teaching summer camp,
it never did occur to me that I actually could be a part of all this. It was when I was narrating the conversation verbatim to my husband, he impulsively said why dont you have this experience ... of serving .. learning ... discovering about yourself.

I was bowled over and thought what an experience it would be for me and my son. My friend.. bless her heart did a reality check with me quite often to get me used to the idea of a very basic, rough and brash summer camp where 6 hr sleep is a luxury, mattress is unheard of, and yoga and pranayama are the cure for fever, body aches, etc. Not to mention the language barrier - as most classes, talks, lectures would all be in Telugu. I thought my Hindi and English would come to my rescue while interacting with kids, parents and other volunteers.
The thought of returning back to basics excited me as much as it intimidated me. But the seed was sown and there was no returning back. So pack I did .. as few essentials as I would need because as a volunteer we had to follow the dress code of white salwaar kameez with red bandhni dupatta.

Danda-The Lost Self-Defense Martial Art Form

How many times in your life are you presented with an opportunity inside of an opportunity ? And how many times do you actually grab it?

My opportunity for self-discovery - A residential summer camp in Hyderabad where I volunteered in May 2010; this I will cover in another blogpost.

The opportunity inside the above opportunity - A chance to learn DANDA (pronunced DHANDA) a martial art form lost somewhere among today's more popular Karate, Kung-fu, Taek-Won-Do.

For someone who's generally a little skeptic about new ventures, I cant believe the gusto with which I took to learning Danda. And it all happened by chance.
Volunteers at Bala Bharati Shiksha Samiti summer camp handling 90 kids, my friend Anu and I met Raj Anniya one day and all of a sudden he offered to teach us Danda, so we could teach the older kids in the batch.

Danda - a martial art form uses a staff about 4 ft long, goes through various levels
and finally comes to Danda Yudh. As all art forms it has its own set of Vyayam (exercises, some of them feel like karate chops and kicks)

Day-1 Spent about 4 hrs in the hot sun, learnt the basic movements from Guruji and finished with calloused hands and arms paining from wielding the danda. Nevertheless practiced hard at night and got ready for Day 2 classes.

Day-2 Classes started for the two of us at 6AM and in 1 hr we had to get good at Prahara Maar. The 'zoop' sound of the danda kept us going and we started classes for the kids in the morning.

3 more classes later and having learnt many many more movements and having practiced late nights and early mornings, I left the Ravirala camp ... a changed person.
Oh! Also had the kids perform a demo for their parents on the last day and as Danda teachers .. we looked on proudly ...