Welcome Back!
Penn Hindu Students Council/Young Jains of America
- Welcome back!
- No Puja today
- HSC/YJA Election Results
- Student Activities Fair today
- Candlelight Vigil
- Feedback
- Penn Raas Team: Maryland Masti
- This week in Hinduism: Pongal
Happy New Year from HSC/YJA!
||| No Puja Today |||
The weekly OMkar Pujas should resume next Sunday (January 24th), but please double check your email before you go next week!
||| HSC/YJA Board Election Results |||
Each year the board holds closed elections to select next year's leaders. Here are the results:
Co-Chairs: Alok Choksi, Radhika Gharpure
Public Relations: Monisha Chakravarthy
Secretary: Kinjan Parikh
Web Guy: Aaseesh Polavarappu
PRISM Representative/Interfaith Coordinator: Manan Shah
Treasurer: Asha Bhat
Hinduism-Jainism Awareness Weekend Heads: Arun Das, Jan Singaravelu, Kanika Sharma
Diwali Heads: Ishan Asokan, Sejal Shah
Garba Heads: Juhi Heda, Gokul Mohan
Design: Ishan Asokan
CHAC Representative/Service Coordinator: Gokul Mohan
||| Student Activities Fair today 12-4 pm Hall of Flags, Houston Hall |||
Come visit the HSC/YJA table on the balcony of Hall of Flags sometime this afternoon to learn more about the events we'll be holding this semester and how you can get more involved. Also, you'll have the opportunity to give direct feedback on how events were conducted last year, and you can provide input if you have any ideas for new events or programming. If you have any friends who don't know much about HSC/YJA but want to get on our listserv or learn more about it, send them over!
||| Candlelight Vigil Thursday January 22nd 4:30 pm Location TBA |||
Muslim Students Assocation and HSC/YJA invite the Penn community to join it on January 22nd at 4:30 for a candlelit vigil in honor of the innocent people of Israel and Palestine who have lost their lives. We ask that you take a moment of your time, a second out of your busy day, to consider the gravity of the situation unfolding--the sheer loss of human life. Each of us has our own unique perspective on the issue as it unfolds, but there is a time to rationalize and there is a time to pay homage; let us now shed light on the tragedy of death. Check your email closer to the day of the event to find out where this will be held.
||| Feedback |||
Have ideas for how to improve HSC/YJA? Send an email at any time to hsc...@gmail.com to tell us your thoughts.
||| Penn Raas Team: Trip to Baltimore for Maryland Masti! Saturday January 31|||
Please come support Penn Raas!
Penn Raas will be performing at this year's most competitive Raas/Garba competition -- Maryland Masti. The competition is hosted by the University of Maryland in Baltimore, MD on Saturday, January 31, 2009. We will be competing against the nation's best raas teams (BU, Drexel, GW, Penn State, UPitt, UC Irvine, Stanford, NYU, and Virginia Tech), so we would love to have your support! This competition also has a bid for the Best of the Best (BOB) competition at the end of the school year, so it would mean the world to us if you came to cheer us on!
If you are interested in coming (we hope you are!), then please contact Sejal Shah at penn...@gmail.com for more information about transportation and tickets. For more information about the competition, you may go to www.marylandmasti.com.
This Week in Hinduism: Pongal and Sankrati (January 15) (Taken from Wikipedia)
Pongal is a harvest festival primarily celebrated by the people of Tamil Nadu. Pongal in Tamil means "boiling over or spill over." The act of boiling over of milk in the clay pot is considered to denote future prosperity for the family. The festival is usually four days long (making this the third day of Pongal).
The first day, Bhogi, is celebrated by throwing away and destroying old clothes and materials, by setting them on fire, marking the end of the old Thai and the emergence of the new Thai.
The second day, Pongal, is the main day, falling on the first day of the Tamil month Thai (January 14 — 15). Also known as Sarkarai Pongal or Veetu Pongal, it is celebrated by boiling rice with fresh milk and jaggery in new pots, which are later topped with brown sugar, cashew nuts and raisins early in the morning and allowing it to boil over the vessel. This tradition gives Pongal its name.[3]
The moment the rice boils over and bubbles out of the vessel, the tradition is to shout of "Ponggalo Ponggal!" and blowing the sangu (a conch), a custom practiced during the festival to announce it was going to be a year blessed with good tidings. For Tamils, it is considered a good sign to watch it boil over, since it means that good luck and prosperity is forthcoming. Then New boiled rice is offered to the Nature during sunrise, a gesture which symbolises thanks to the sun and nature for providing prosperity. It is later served to the people present in the house for the ceremony. People also prepare savories and sweets such as vadai, murukku, payasam and visit each other and exchange greetings.
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Penn Hindu Students Council and Young Jains of America
Website: http://www.dolphin.upenn.edu/hscyja/
E-Mail: hsc...@gmail.com