Sri Ramakrishna Vidyashala

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Sri Ramakrishna Vidyashala is a residential junior college for boys located in Mysore, southern India. It offers a comprehensive education grades eight to twelve.

Vidyashala is operated by the Ramakrishna Mission^[1] as one of its nine centers in Karnataka.^[2] Three of those centers are located in Mysore: The Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama^[3], the Ramakrishna Institute of Moral and Spiritual Education^[4], and Vidyashala.

1 Founder and inspiration
2 Leadership
3 Biodiversity, playgrounds, pool
4 Dorms, labs, observatory
5 Student activities
6 Annual celebration
7 Praise and criticism
8 Famous teachers
9 References
10 External links

[edit] Founder and inspiration

Vidyashala was founded in 1953 by Swami Shambhavananda, a Ramakrishna Math^[5] monk born in Kodagu.

Shambhavananda, who served as an early president of Mysore's Ashrama,^[6] was an educational visionary who sought to offer younger students in their formative years the "man making education" described by Swami Vivekananda as a "total development of man which includes the physical, mental and spiritual." ^[7] Vidyashala would operationalize Vivekananda's calls for a higher intellect through sound health.^[8]

Vidyashala was preceded for at least three decades by the Ramakrishna Students Home, a boarding facility for economically constrained students some of whom, like K.V. Puttappa, went on to become famous writers or politicians of pre-Independence Mysore. Vidyashala began in a small house in the Vontikoppal ward but shifted to its present campus in Yadavagiri after Shambhavananda had transformed the barren wasteland into a verdant green.

In the early 1950s Shambhavananda physically led the building construction despite his advancing age. According to legend, he walked around Mysore's Yadavagiri ward seeking bhiksha on behalf of the new school. Seeking bhiksha is a Hindu tradition of begging for alms with the purpose of self-effacement or ego-conquering.

[edit] Leadership

Vidyashala is managed by a Ramakrishna Math monk designated as correspondent, currently Swami Muktidananda ("Yogesh Maharaj"). Its academic sections are in the charge of principal S. Balaji.

Muktidananda took charge as correspondent in 1997. A botanist and landscape designer, he established in 1998 "Nisarga Niketana," a thatched classroom resembling a traditional gurukul. He initiated a restoration of Vidyashala's aging main building, re-tiled the swimming pool, made several aesthetic additions to the campus, commissioned a new audiovisual theater, and led enhancements for Vidyashala's golden jubilee in 2003. In 2007 Muktidananda's compilations of Swami Achalananda's expositions on puja were published by the Mysore Ashrama as the 213-page book The Meaning and Significance of Worship.^[9]

Much of Vidyashala's reputation as a model educational institution is attributed to the charismatic leadership of Swami Sureshananda ("Hari Maharaj"), correspondent for nearly two decades until 1990 when he succeeded Swami Somanathananda as Ashrama president^[10] to build a public auditorium, renovate the Ashrama building, and construct two floors of quarters for monks. In the late 1990s Sureshananda moved into spiritual practice in B.R. Hills.

Sureshananda helped the campus optimize its productivity, increase its biodiversity and move toward self-sustainability by planting and tending to vast numbers of coconut, arabica coffee, sapota, silver oak and elephant grass (Saccharum ravennae). A popular legend is that he never traveled out of Mysore without bringing back a new variety of flora for Vidyashala. Sureshananda established a biogas facility attached to the dairy, an electric laundry, and well-equipped biological, physical and chemical student-laboratories. ^[11] He took a special interest to build Vidyashala's band troop into one of Karnataka's finest. Sureshananda remained involved in Vidyashala's management even when his successor, the popular Swami Paratmananda ("Gangadhar Maharaj"), served as correspondent from 1990 until 1997.

On April 15, 2008, a 79-year-old Sureshananda had surgery for lower back pain at Lilavati Hospital, Mumbai. Scores of Vidyashala alumni, who had persuaded him to have the procedure, converged on the hospital before and after the successful operation conducted by Dr. Shekhar Bhojraj.

[edit] Biodiversity, playgrounds, pool

The verdant 69-acre campus is flanked on the west by a T-shaped four-storey building whose terrace offers a panoramic view. That main building was declared open in 1953 by the statesman C. Rajagopalachari. The 33.3-meter open-air swimming pool, one of Mysore's oldest and finest, was inaugurated in 1957 by India's first Prime Minister, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, who is said to have, in a moment of epiphany, immediately expressed a desire to swim. ^[12]

There are 22 playgrounds for soccer, hockey, basketball, volleyball, and kho-kho, as well as a relatively new cricket pitch. A couple of small cottages, called kutiras, by a scenic pond in the campus, are used for meditation by visiting Ramakrishna Math monks. In addition there is an automated laundry and a mechanized dairy housing 50 cows.

The campus hosts about a thousand species of flora including rarities such as a relatively young North American Giant Redwood and a Thai tree that blossoms every 12th year, as well as plantations of sapota, arabica coffee, elephant grass (Saccharum ravennae), coconut, and silver oak. The campus is a sanctuary for nearly four hundred species of birds, including migrants such as the cormorant. An index of the campus fauna is available on signs to the left as one enters the gates. ^[13]

On the southeastern corner of Vidyashala's campus is located the Ramakrishna Institute of Moral and Spiritual Education,^[14] popularly called "Vedanta College," which offers a Bachelor of Education program and whose prayer hall is topped by a distinctive Pallava-style gopuram visible from about five kilometers around.

Vidyashala hosts an award-winning company of the Thirteen Karnataka Battalion of the National Cadet Corps (Army wing).

[edit] Dorms, labs, observatory

The students live in dormitory-style facilities each supervised by a warden, often a resident monk. The students have access to a library with nearly 15000 volumes, a 400-seat auditorium with motion picture projectors, a separate digital audiovisual theater, a computer laboratory.

Vidyashala's astronomical observatory is accessible to students of other Mysore schools as well.^[15] The observatory houses two reflecting telescopes, including a 14-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain.

The chemical and physical laboratories are reputed to be among the best-equipped student labs in Mysore. There is also a biological and fine arts section, a sports stadium used as parade ground, an open-air theater, teachers' quarters, an electric bakery, ophthalmic and dental clinics, a dispensary (offering, at various times, homeopathic or allopathic treatments), a two-floor gymnasium with weights and a wooden badminton court, and several table tennis courts.

In 2003 a Golden Jubilee block, comprising classrooms, dormitories, a prayer hall, and a small amphitheater, was constructed about 200 yards south of the main building. The golden jubilee year also saw numerous other infrastructure improvements, including a pagoda-style waiting area for parents, an entry facade, the digital audiovisual theater, and new bathroom tiles in the main building.

[edit] Student activities

Vidyashala's students number about 400 and fall in the age group of 13-18 years. Many of those who hail from outside Karnataka are from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Maharashtra. For several years, Vidyashala actively recruited students from India's northeastern states, particularly from Manipur. The student body's diversity was singular among Mysore's schools.

The students follow a demanding regimen from the rising hour of 5.15 a.m. until they go to bed at about 10 p.m. A typical day is packed with physical exercise, literary activities, hobby pursuits including art and music, participation in a chosen outdoor sport, Vedic (often Upanishadic) chants and meditation, in addition to classroom work. The medium of instruction is English, with syllabi adopted from the state boards of secondary and pre-university education.

Two days a week the students go swimming, a few times a year they perform manual or social work, and two or three times a year they participate in educational excursions to towns of historical or scientific interest. They return home for about three weeks during Dasara^[16] and for about eight weeks during the summer. On one Sunday every month a guardian may visit Vidyashala to take their ward on an "outing."

The students eat four times a day. Meals are lacto-vegetarian, prepared by resident cooks, and had while sitting cross-legged (yoga style) in a vast dining area. Lunch and dinner are preceded by chanting selected verses from the Bhagavad Gita. Many Indian festivals, including Krishna Janmashtami, Ganesh Chaturthi, Upanayanam or Munji, and Christmas, are celebrated with special activities. The students clean their own toilets and participate in extensive voluntary activities coordinated by an elected Students Council comprising a president, a general secretary, a vice president and a joint secretary, in addition to about 20 other secretaries. Students Council officers are typically elected in July via electronic voting.

Vidyashala's students have achieved consistently excellent examination results over two decades. In that time there is no record of failures in the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examinations or in the Pre-university (PUC) examinations. Class averages hover around 85 per cent. The school performed well even in 2004 and 2005 when Mysore district otherwise recorded a relatively poor performance. ^[17]

[edit] Annual celebration

Vidyashala's annual day, typically celebrated in early January, tends to be a spectacular showcase of its students' talents, physical, artistic and intellectual. Actually a two-day event, it attracts parents and others from around Mysore district and outside. Vidyashala's twelve-instrument English band, whose members play English and Indian tunes, is usually a highlight, as is a torchlight parade.

The annual day typically includes an attractive gymnatics show as well as a stage-drama on a classical theme, and is also an occasion when the Old Boys Association conducts an alumni meeting followed by a five-course lunch whose highlight is typically the "Prabhakar rasam" (named after a popular cook) and the "fruit salad" (said to be prepared from campus-grown fruits), all served on leaf plates called patrawallis woven from dry areca leaves.

Every third annual day, Vidyashala announces a recipient of the prestigious Dr. R.K. Narayanan and P. Kousalya Narayanan Memorial Gold Medal for Outstanding Character instituted by K. Sarojini of Chennai. In January of 2008 the medal was presented to G. Suhas of the 2000-05 batch, an academic topper and Sahara India scholar.^[18] Suhas, a student of Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, was handed the medal by chief guest Dr. B. Soma Raju, chairman of CARE Hospitals, Hyderabad.^[19]

[edit] Praise and criticism

Educational institutions run by the Ramakrishna Mission^[20] tend toward being non-profit. They use the Mission's motto of "Atmano mokshartham jagat hitaya cha" (आत्मनॊ मोक्षार्थम् जगद्धिताय च in the Devanāgarī script of the original Sanskrit), which translates as, "For self-realization and for the universal good."

Vidyashala has received praise for its emphasis on personality development, for never demanding donations (dubbed "capitation fees" in Karnataka), for its fee-per-cost model, for the high quality of its teachers, and for offering scholarships to poor and otherwise disadvantaged students. The institution is regarded highly for not encouraging political interference in the admission process. Vidyashala is admired for the guiding presence of Vedantic monks on the campus, including well known scholars and musicians such as the Swamis Shambhavananda, Somanathananda, Sureshananda, Jagadatmananda, Harshananda, Purushottamananda, Venkateshananda, Paratmananda, Atmavidananda, Nityasthananda, and Muktidananda.

Some critics, on the other hand, have accused Vidyashala of elitism because only about a tenth of applicants to the eighth grade receive admission offers. Some eyebrows were raised at Vidyashala's preference to renounce state support rather than accept government intervention in teacher recruitments. Another concern has been that almost all of Vidyashala's students go on to join engineering or medical programs; few take up the arts, the pure sciences, law, journalism, or management.

Recent visitors to comment on Vidyashala include George Fernandes, the former defense minister, who noted that the institution emphasized character and personality,^[21] and A. Jayagovinda, director of the National Law School of India University, who praised its "value-based education."^[22]

On December 9, 2007, Vidyashala made news for a tragic reason. H.P. Nagenda, a visiting parent and formerly a municipal councillor in the nearby town of Mandya, was stabbed near Vidyashala's gates by a suspected associate of his late political rival Jadeja Ravi.^[23] Nagendra died of the wounds in Basappa Memorial Hospital, Mysore, on December 11.^[24]

[edit] Famous teachers

Many of Vidyashala's teachers have earned state award nominations and other accolades. Some are particularly highly regarded in the Mysore region, among them K. Jagannath (now deceased), who served as headmaster, B.S. Srikantiah, who served as social studies teacher, headmaster and later as principal for well more than two decades, G.S. Subramaniam, who taught English for also some two decades, and Keerthi Kumar, who taught mathematics for nearly 15 years and then served as principal for about ten.

Other well known Vidyashala teachers (some now retired) include T.N. Venkateshaiah (mathematics), H.G. Anantharamaiah (science), M. Rama Rao (English), S.V. Ramaswamy (science and astronomy), S.K. Rama Rao (physical science; now deceased), H.S. Srinivasa Murthy (English), M.N. Joshi (Kannada), K. Laxminarayan (mathematics), K.P. Ananthapadmanabha (science), N.N. Chandrashekhara Bhat (Sanskrit), B.S. Venkateshaiah (social studies and drama; now deceased), Ram Prasad (physical science; now deceased), N. Bhima Rao (Hindi), K. Narayana Shastry (Sanskrit), S.P. Suresh (science and English), B.A.P. Bhat (fine art), A. Peter (laboratory assistant), Diwan Singh (bandmaster), K. Narayana Rao (chemistry; now deceased), K.V. Arkanath (physics), M. Rama Moorthy (mathematics), and B.R. Suresh (biology).

In 1990 and in the years following, the institution acquired a new crop of teachers including Rahul S. Kini (English; served as principal for about five years), S. Balaji (chemistry; current principal), Mattur Kumaraswamy (Sanskrit and gamaka), S.S. Ramesh (Kannada), K.S. Murugesh (physics), A. Sudheendra Hebbar (biology), T.K. Chandrashekhar (mathematics), Arun Kutnikar (English), K. Shiva Kumar (Hindi), R.R. Mohan (computers), S.R. Ramesh (English), and Chandra Srinivas Babu (chemistry).

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Sri Ramakrishna Vidyashala

Categories: Schools in Karnataka | Boys' schools in India