English Literatures
We encourage all types of stories, especially any inspiring ones or cultural experiences! When possible, try to include a related picture/sketch drawn or even one or more photos taken with the help of mentors as needed. Incorporating sketches/photos will enhance the story presentation. Then it will be a "Chitrakatha" indeed!
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"Be the change what you want to see in the World"
- Mahatham Gandhi water. We should practice simple ways of conserving water in our daily life.
For example:
1) Turn off water while brushing your teeth.
2) Don't run water
Articles
The Tear-Jerking Rise of Manjamma Jogathi
Tanay Hegde
Tanay Hegde is a 14-year-old boy who resides in Mississauga, Ontario. His parents are Sharada Hegde and Prasanna Hegde. In his free time, he enjoys reading books, watching TV shows and playing sports.
A 57 year old transgender dancer, Manjamma Jogathi, became an overnight sensation across all of Karnataka and India. Her story involves going from severe depression and questioning her existence to winning the Padma Shri award and meeting the President of India. Here is the tear jerking rise of Manjamma Jogathi…..
Bellary District, Karnataka
Early Life
Manjamma was born in a small village called the Bellary district in 1964, located in the Northern part of Karnataka. Her father and mother both had a total of 21 children! Each child in the family had an extremely rough childhood due to cases of poverty and hunger. Being labeled as a boy back then, extra tolls took place on her mental health as her body underwent changes. She did not feel as if she was comfortable in her own gender. While the concept of transgenderism must seem common to us now, it was foreign and seen as murky in India. She then decided to attend a Jogatti Programme and proclaimed herself as a girl. Upon coming back to her family, she was then shunned by her family. Disheartened, she attempted suicide by consuming poison and was later hospitalized. When she returned home however, she was still ostracized by her family. Manjamma Joggati truly started from the bottom.
Ascent to Dance
Shunned entirely from her family and forced out of her household, Manjamma had to wander across the dreary streets of Karnataka. She was used to making a living selling idli chutney to people in the day, and tuition for children in the evening. One day, she coincidentally saw a boy dancing at the Davangere bus stand. She was mesmerized by the way he artistically showed his talent so fearlessly. Little did she know how much impact this one encounter would have on the rest of her life. Life took Manjamma to Hosapete, Karnataka where she hoped to pursue the tiny spark of interest she has in dance. She enlisted under a dance guru who taught her various folk and dance songs (Jogatti Nritya). She did a grueling and tough 20 years of dance practice and was quoted saying: “I played many characters and never complained”. Today, she is the standing president of the Karanataka Transgender Janapada Academy.
Manjamma performing Jogati Nritya
Padma Vibhushan
The Award
Winning a prestigious award like the Padma Shri came even as a surprise to her. Fast forward to this year, she was busy training college students as the head of the Karnataka Janapada Academy. She got an abrupt call after practice saying “Manjamma congrats, aapko Padma Shri mila hai.” She at first thought this was a prank call and hung up the phone completely! But later in the evening, her administrator congratulated her on being seen on TV. She was scared and shivering and didn’t exactly understand what she did to deserve the award. She was called at 1 AM and responded to messages until 5 AM. One must wonder what exactly happened in the years between her sad childhood and winning the Padma Shri award. After enlisting under that dance teacher in Hosapete, it was a non-stop battle of endurance for Manjamma. She trained for years upon years to finally get a hold of Jogatti Nritya and folk dancing techniques. She was required to travel far and wide and to attend dance competitions across Karnataka. All this hard work was just to get noticed and feel like she contributed something in her life. The relief that her struggle paid off would put anyone in tears. The final verdict was that she won the award because of her “impact on the transgender community in Karnataka''.
Manjamma being congratulated by the President of India (Ram Nath Kovind)
Conclusion
On a final note, Manjamma has a little note to say to her community as a whole. She first of all dedicates her entire award to her fellow performing arts (janapada) people. She also made a statement about the view of transgenderism: “My message to people is that when transgenders like me are born in your family, please don't abandon them, instead educate them. This is a free country and you can live freely.”. She begs families to never abandon their child regardless of what their gender is, a statement very much ignored in traditional India. Manjamma brilliantly closes her entire statement with a simple line of “This would mean like Padma Shri for all."
Virtual Reality
Samit Hegde
My name is Samit Hegde. I am a 12 year old boy that is in the Gifted Program. In my free time, I enjoy solving Rubik’s Cubes, reading, and playing video games, like any other kid. Other interests that I have are music and sports (like soccer and ice skating).
VR (Virtual Reality) has been evolving in recent years. Fighting monsters and exploring new worlds is now possible at the comfort of your own home without needing to just use your imagination. Although VR is in a better place than it was 50 years ago, that doesn’t mean that there’s no room for improvement. It also means that VR still isn’t perfectly safe. In this essay, I’ll be discussing the history of VR, the future, and the benefits/side effects of VR too.
The first VR headset ever made was the “Sword of Damocles” (Made in 1968). It was made by Ivan Sutherland and Bob Sproull, and was not mass-produced or put up for sale. The first VR headset that you were able to buy was the Sega VR-1 (1994), which costed $200 USD ($351.26 in 2020 USD). Then in 1995, one of the biggest flops in gaming history was made. Nintendo released the “Virtual Boy” (a.k.a VR-32) the year after Sega released their VR headset, probably to overtake their new competitor. Even though it was first released at $180, it was a commercial failure due to only having 2 display colours (red and black), and it was lacking portability, something that the VR-1 achieved. It was discontinued the following year.
"The Sword of Damocles"
The Oculus Rift
On August 1st 2012, almost 17 years after the Virtual Boy was released, Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe launched a Kickstarter to fund a VR headset project they called the “Oculus Rift” to become a reality. They managed to raise 2.5 million dollars, and on March 25th 2014, OculusVR was bought by Facebook. What was supposed to happen was that Oculus would work separately, but Facebook would give funding and get some of the money that Oculus makes. But Oculus fans thought Facebook would take control of the whole project! People all over the internet (especially on reddit) were trying to convince others to not pre-order the Oculus DK-2 (the Dev Kit-2, which was their newest VR headset prototype intended for game developers), because Oculus is now “owned by Facebook”. Nevertheless, they fought back, and the DK-2 sold 119 thousand units, 63 thousand more than the DK-1.
Cons of Virtual Reality
Although VR has gotten popular in the last decade, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have cons. Most VR headsets are usually pretty expensive, and even if you buy one, playing too much can cause an addiction. Playing for hours at a time can also strain your eyes, as well as cause nauseousness from motion sickness. But just because VR isn’t flawless yet, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t helpful! Like I said earlier, you can explore new worlds and be inside a game while staying at home with a VR headset, and surgeons have started to utilize VR to be more accurate while doing surgery. You can also communicate with others far away while feeling like they’re in the same room as you with apps like VRChat, and if you download the Google Arts and Culture VR app, you can explore different museums and monuments while staying in your living room! You can do the same in Google Earth VR, except you can go almost anywhere around the world instead of just museums and historic places.
The possibilities of VR are amazing, and would seem bizarre to someone from 30 years ago. Even though Oculus was the main reason virtual reality became popular again, many other companies still carry the torch of its success. VR can still cause nausea the first time you use it and strain your eyes if you get addicted to it, that can all eventually be fixed. New VR games and apps are made every day, and there’s no signs of stopping any time soon. Well that’s all for now. See you soon, maybe even virtually!
Hinduism
Anup Shanbag
My name is Anup Shanbhag and I am 11 years old. I live in Sunnyvale, California (CA). I live with my sister Diya Shanbhag and my 2 parents, Shantala Bhat and Ramesh Shanbhag. My hobbies are karate, chess, basketball, and soccer.
Introduction
Hinduism is an Indian religion or dharma. Dharma is the way of life. Hinduism is followed by around 15% of the global population. People who follow Hinduism are also known as Hindus. About 95% of all Hindus live in India.
Worship
In Hinduism many things are worshiped. This includes Gods, Goddesses, cows, your parents, rivers, plants, and many other things. Many Hindus worship Vishnu(the preserver), Brahma(the creator), and Shiva(the destroyer). There are many other Gods and Goddesses Hindus worship like Ganesha, Saraswati, Indra, and Lakshmi. Hindus worship all of these Gods and Goddesses to secure their future and to offer their respect.
Hindus also worship rivers, plants, land, wheat, grains, soil and many other natural resources. Natural resources provide Hindus with what they need to survive. Hindus also show respect to their parents because the person’s mother created him and both of the parents raised him up to be the person he or she is. Finally, Hindus worship cows because Hindus consider cows as a very sacred animal.
Texts
Some Hindu texts are the Bhagavad Gita and the Rig Veda. The Bhagavad Gita is one of the best known Hindu texts. The Bhagavad Gita represents the ethics of decision making in the battlefield of life. The Bhagavad Gita is also known as a spiritual dictionary. It has selfless actions by great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi.
The Rig Veda is the earliest of the four Vedas and one of the most important texts in Hindu tradition. The Rig Veda is a collection of poems in praise of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. It was composed in a language called Vedic. Which later changed to Sanskrit.
Conclusion
To summarize, Hindus worship many things because Hindus consider those things to be divine. They show their respect to things that help them survive and things that help shape their life. Finally, there are two very important Hindu texts; the Rig Veda and the Bhagavad Gita. There is a lot more to Hinduism as Hinduism is a very vast topic. I have included some of the main highlights of Hinduism in this article.
Poems
This Day Is Getting Worse
Viha Bhat
Namasthe!
My name is Viha Bhat. I am 8 yrs young! My parents are Kripa Bhat and Thirumalesh Bhat.
We live in Sammamish, WA. My grandparents live in Mysore and Coorg (Karnataka State). I go to Rachel Carson Elementary school.
I am a 3rd grader. I have been exploring creative works (art, dance, poem, story and article writing etc) since I was 3 years old. I like it because it helps me to express my ideas and share with others.
Masks make me sick,
I’m as bored as a brick.
Everything makes me gloom,
Nothing can make me bloom.
It’s just raining and pouring,
Even I feel like snoring.
Dark clouds in the air,
This day is so unfair.
My pencil is breaking,
And my stomach is aching.
Everything looks so dull,
Annoying stuff in my skull.
This day can’t be better,
I had to write my teacher an apology letter.
Why does it have to be me?!
Couldn’t it have been Jenny.
Now I can finally rest,
Until the day resets.
Tomorrow will be a new day,
But for now, I’ll stay away.