Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Beating heat with art and craft

— Photo: K. Ganesan

Useful vocation: T.S. Sridhar, Principal Secretary, Department of Archaeology, giving away a certificate to a participant of a summer camp at Gandhi Memorial Museum in Madurai on Friday.

MADURAI: The valediction of the 25th summer camp of the Gandhi Memorial Museum was held here on Friday with T.S. Sridhar, Principal Secretary, Department of Archaeology and Government Museums, giving away the certificates.

The camp is conducted by the Gandhi Memorial Museum along with Department of Art and Culture. Addressing the gathering, he said that children should learn about culture and history at young age. This would benefit the society as a whole, he said.

Delivering the camp report, T. Ravichandran, museum coordinator, said that the first summer camp of 1983 attracted just around 200 participants. It had grown to 2,187 participants last year and this year the camp attracted 2,787 participants, a record number, he said. The camps began with an inter-religious prayer and the reading of passages from Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography to inculcate Gandhian values of ahimsa, truth and secularism.

For this year’s camp, a few non-resident Indians had turned up along with participants from Mumbai and Bangalore, said Dr. Ravichandran.

The courses held during the summer camp were: drawing and painting, Bharatnatyam, Carnatic singing, flute, chess, karate, gymnastics, ‘varmakkalai,’ silambam, yoga, cloth painting, doll making, glass painting, tailoring and embroidery, oil and canvas painting, Tanjore painting, spoken English and Hindi, cooking skills, HAM radio, vedic mathematics, photography, handicrafts making, first aid, Mehandhi, naturopathy, general knowledge, videography, house hold materials, and fashion jewels making, he said.

The summer camp was inaugurated by N. Mahalingam, chairman of the museum, on April 15. R. Rengasamy, secretary, K.M. Natrajan, Treasurer, R. Jagadheesan, Regional Assistant Director of Art and Culture Department, I. Periasamy, curator, Government Museum, Madurai, and R. Natarajan, Educational Officer of the museum, took part. M. Mariappan, vice-chairman, Gandhi Museum, presided.

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