The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Students get a feel of natural vegetation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 09, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Students get a feel of natural vegetation

K. Lakshmi

Exhibition gives an insight into nature worship, cultural implications

CONSERVING THE SACRED: Students look at the photographs on display at a `Travelling Exhibition' at Children's Garden School at Mylapore in Chennai. — Photo: K. V. Srinivasan

CHENNAI: The Children's Garden was transformed into sacred groves, literally. The serene atmosphere of the groves with fragrance of medicinal herbs on air and tinged with spiritual values was brought alive on Saturday.

Students who visited the Children's Garden Higher Secondary School, Mylapore, got a feel of the natural vegetation that are dedicated by local communities to their ancestral deities and that are preserved by taboos and entry restrictions.

The `Travelling Exhibition on Sacred Groves' brought to Chennai by Indira Gandi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS), Bhopal, in association with the school and Sharma Centre for Heritage Education, gave an insight into the nature worship, cultural and ecological implications. Inaugurated by M. Saravanan of AVM movie house, the exhibition featured the sacred groves and its various implications, including ecological and political, through a collection of photographs and videotapes. About 50,000 sacred groves, spread across the country, are called in different names in several States. While it is called `Kovil Kadu' in Tamil Nadu, it is known as `Oran' in Rajasthan and `Pavithra Vanam' in Kerala. These groves are maintained either by Government, village communities or even tribal clans and families. The exhibition also had photographs of rituals, which form an important component of groves. While local communities in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka offered terracotta dogs and horses, people in Kerala gave clay bells as offering to the deities. Rare medicinal herbs and species were also conserved in these groves.

This is why the travelling exhibition was developed by IGRMS to interact with local people all over the country about the groves. Shanti Pappu, director of Sharma Centre for Heritage Education, said it was brought to Chennai to educate the children. Rural students, including those from Sholinganallur and Karaipakkam would visit the expo. The puppet show on August 12, which is the last day of the expo, would be a visual treat. The expo, will be open between 8.30 a.m. and 5 p.m. at the school on 7th Street, Dr.Radhakrishnan Salai.

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