Cultural Event –Pondicherry, April 2019

Cultural Event –Pondicherry, April 2019

On 24thApril 2019, FSL-India’s Pondicherry coordinator organised a Cultural Event (CE) for our regular LTV volunteers. Every month, we organise a cultural event for our regular volunteers and we take them to any cultural and historical places which are located in and around Pondicherry. This month, the Cultural Event was focused on Religion and the Nataraja temple.

Nataraja temple, also referred to as the Chidambaram Nataraja temple or Thillai Nataraja temple, is a Hindu temple dedicated to Nataraja – Shiva as the lord of dance – in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India. The temple has mythical roots and a Shiva shrine existed at the site when the town was known as Thillai. Chidambaram, the name of the city and the temple literally means “atmosphere of wisdom” or “clothed in thought”, the temple architecture symbolises the connection between the arts and spirituality, creative activity and the divine. The temple wall carvings display all the 108 karanas (dance steps) from the Natya Shastra by Bharata Muni, and these postures form a foundation of Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance.

In the morning, FSL-India’s coordinator and the volunteers started their travel from the meeting point to the place of the cultural event.  In the beginning, the coordinator explained about the activities. Then, she took the 2 volunteers to different places and explained to them about the place. After the visit, our FSL-India coordinator and the volunteers had lunch and discussed about their experience in the host family and project.

Some feedback from our volunteers:

  • The cultural event was very interesting we experienced nature and cultural in Chidambaram
  • Really nice day
  • Thank you for the day
  • Food is also good
  • We learned about Shiva and Shakti stories
  • We have learned many cultural things, e.g. how they are decorating the lord, why people are praying, why they are keeping viputhi on head, why they are giving prasatham, what are all the Indian epics, what is secret in Chidambaram, who are all the kingdoms ruling in the Southern region etc.
  • It was actually a nice journey and had a nice time with our coordinator. The places we went were really amazing and the coordinator explained to me about the temple, who were ruled there, and how it was constructed.
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