Celebrating Pongal, the harvest festival, in college campuses brings together students and also provides an opportunity the students to learn more about Tamil culture. The same holds good for Onam, Christmas, and other festivals that are celebrated in campuses.
Celebrating cultural or religious festivals in academic institutions is a learning experience – students get to learn about the festival, the reason for the celebration and its significance, says a college faculty.
The festivals provide an opportunity for students to respect and participate in events that are not their own. And, they also ensure that students get to showcase talents – for instance, preparing pookalam on Onam eve, rendering songs or staging dance. Coimbatore college sources say this also promotes harmony among different sections of students, bridging the linguistic and regional barriers.
In a few institutions like the Sri Krishna College of Arts and Science, the managements led the Christmas celebrations by sharing the joy with have-nots and organising cake-mixing ceremonies. A release from the college said that 50 students of the Department of Catering Science and Hotel Management participated in the cake mixing ceremony. The Department faculty and cake baking experts from hotels helped the students prepare a 100 kg cake. They also visited the Cheshire Home in Peelamedu to celebrate the festival with the children there.
At the Sankara Institute of Management it was delivering Christmas message and organising dinner. In Karunya University, the students staged a play on the birth of Jesus Christ. About 100 students of the University participated in carols and 500 participated in a play on the birth of Christ. The University management also used the occasion to release stamp on founder D.G.S. Dinakaran.
For Pongal, among the institutes here that celebrated the festival on the campus were the JCT College of Engineering, EASA College of Engineering and Technology and Ranganathan Engineering College.
(Reporting by
Karthik Madhavan)
