Book distribution report by Anita dasi
Archana, the cousin of the family we are staying with, begged us to come visit her at her school. It’s an all girls government school with 3,000 students. We wandered through the halls past girls in neat uniforms, with braids tied with ribbons on the end, searching for the right class room. We narrowed down the wing, then the floor, and after completely disturbing about 3 classrooms found the right one. Archana popped out of her seat like a jack-in-the box. “My friends mam.” We came in and all the girls stood up to greet us.
We introduced ourselves and summarized why we came to India, what we are doing in Vrndavan. It was nearly the end of the day so the teacher let us speak for some minutes about how lucky the students are to grow up in Vedic culture and encourage them to go towards their own culture rather than turning towards western culture. We passed fliers around the room and invited them all to visit us in Vrndavan and to go our website.
After class was dismissed we stopped in the principles office to ask if we could speak to the whole school. She asked what the topic would be, I suddenly felt like a student in the principles office again, “Um . . . stress and unhappiness and how the Bhagavad-gita can help, mam.”
“OK, you can speak at the morning assembly tomorrow for ten minutes.” She replied.
We did out homework and prepared a ten minute presentation about happiness and how we will never find complete happiness in a temporary body. This morning we got ready for school, took the bus, and waited outside the principles office. In the assembly all the girls line up by class and sing the national anthem. The principle came to tell us we could not speak because the power had gone out so the mike would not work. The students would not be able to hear without the mike. What to do? We spoke to some of the students one on one, gave a book to the principle, and made our way home.
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