That most dreaded staple of camp life, morning reveille, is blown on a conch shell in homage to Vishnu, the Hindu god often shown carrying such a shell. Hindu Heritage Summer Camp’s approach is built around a set of hybrid rituals. This is understood to be all the more important because within the dominant American and Christian culture, Hindus and Hinduism are often exoticized and maligned.” (A swami is a Hindu religious teacher.) “Time and again, parents and community leaders have recounted to me how the American conception of camp offers an opportunity for a cultural, religious and, in some cases, linguistic immersion with other American Hindu children. “I have seen swamis playing games, throwing baseballs, eating ice cream sandwiches with the students and teaching them in very intimate and hands-on ways,” Professor Sippy wrote in an email.
#Rajarajeshwari temple rochester how to
Most of the camps, though, aim to instill cultural knowledge and show children how to be confident in their Indian background and Hindu faith while feeling wholly part of the American mix. camps through Catholic Youth camps through the Ramah camps of Conservative Judaism, there is a long, rich history of religious and ethnic groups using summer camps to strengthen the denominational and ancestral identity of young people in a polyglot nation with an enticingly secular popular culture.Ī small portion of these camps, Professor Sippy noted, espouse the politics of Hindu nationalism - a potentially divisive premise, given the substantial presence of Muslims, Christians and Sikhs, as well as smaller religious minorities, in India. At age 21, entering her senior year at Tulane, she is now the director of the Hindu Heritage Summer Camp, as well as the embodiment of its success in adapting the American tradition of summer camping for yet another immigrant stream.įrom Y.M.C.A. Dhawan stood in the camp cafeteria being serenaded on her birthday. She spoke with her peers and their college-age counselors about dealing with stereotypes and racism. She discovered a favorite bhajan, a Hindu devotional song. She loved doing morning yoga, her hair still cool and damp from the shower. That summer, she says now with retrospection, changed her life. Neha relented and flew off to upstate New York, to the Hindu Heritage Summer Camp just outside Rochester.
![rajarajeshwari temple rochester rajarajeshwari temple rochester](https://templesinindiainfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Ganapathi-Rajarajeswari-Lord-Siva.jpg)
Her mother, detecting the subterfuge, said that maybe Neha was not grown-up enough for summer camp. The night before leaving for camp, she pretended she had seen a ghost in her bedroom and let out a shriek to peel the paint off the wall. She did the only thing she could think of doing. Neha could just imagine them, the girls with nose rings and oily braids, the boys with too-tight jeans and Bata flip-flops. This Hindu camp, she figured, had to be for newbies to America. So the last thing that Neha wanted that summer of 2004 was to be even more identified as an Indian and a Hindu. Worst of all, a pupil at Neha’s middle school produced a “hit list” of students who were supposed to be killed, among them several of Indian descent.
![rajarajeshwari temple rochester rajarajeshwari temple rochester](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_2BqaWYk0UE/hqdefault.jpg)
Classmates routinely asked where she went to church. There were maybe two or three other Indian families in her neighborhood. In the other half of her hyphenated life, she joined her middle school’s pep squad and rarely missed an episode of “Lizzie McGuire.”ĭespite her ardor to assimilate, she felt acutely set apart.
![rajarajeshwari temple rochester rajarajeshwari temple rochester](https://www.mynanganallur.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/temple2.jpg)
As the daughter of two immigrant doctors, she dutifully went with her parents to a Hindu temple and sat through their favorite Bollywood movies. Growing up Indian-American in Shreveport, La., was already a conflicted proposition for Neha. Just before the July a decade ago when Neha Dhawan turned 11, her mother informed her, “You’re going to Hindu camp this summer.” Invoking her most age-appropriate tone, Neha emitted a diffident, “Oh, yeah?”