Celebrating Onam

High-spirited people of Kerala celebrate Onam with happiness. The festival is celebrated for a period of ten days, starting from the first day Atham and continuing till tenth and the biggest day called Thiru Onam.
Celebrations of the first day are marked by intricate floral carpets called Pookalam. More flowers of different colours are added to this pookalam on each passing day. Onam is a ten day festival starting from atham to thiruvonam.On thiruvonam people get up at four o'clock in the morning,cleaning up the house,take an early bath and then go to the temple.
Onam is the greatest festival in Kerala.It is the time for harvest.Children eagerly wait for the festival as it is the time they get new clothes and toys as their uncles,aunts grandmother,grandfather and cousins come together to celebrate this traditional festival.
Onam is celebrated on the first day of malayalam calender called chingam.It is celebrated due to an old legend. According to this legend Lord Vishnu took his fifth avatar as vaamana and appeared in the kingdom of king mahabali and sent him to nether land.Lord Vishnu appeared as a dwarf brahmin came to Mahabali after his morning prayers and asked him for boons.He asked for as much land that could be covered with three steps.The king agreed.Suddenly vaamana incresed in size.With one step he covered the whole sky.With the second step he covered the whole earth.Then he asked for place to put his next step.The king realised that he was no ordinary boy.He asked vaamana to put his third step on his head.Lord Vishnu was pleased with him and granted him a boon.He said that he would want to visit Kerala ever year.This homecoming of King Mahabali is celebrated as onam.
Vibrant and joyous festival of Onam is celebrated with lot of happiness in the state of Kerala. Spirit of harmony and brotherhood prevails in the state all throughout the ten days of Onam.  People of all caste, communities and religions actively participate with same excitement. This enthusiasm was the cause of onam being the national festival of Kerala.

Today I wish all my friends a very very joyful onam. May god bless all of us today.Happy Onam...........

A Drawing of Gandhiji

Here is a drawing of Gandhiji on the green board at the school lobby for Independence Day. Can you tell me why he is facing the other way? What do you think is the message of this drawing? Write your answer in the comment box. The student who gives the best answer/message/reflection will be given a gift. ;) 

CWRDM – A water world of its own

CWRDM – A water world of its own

By Sandra Satheesh
Class X B

9^th July is one such day which the students of Std X batch 2012-13 will never forget. We had our first outdoor trip – a study tour to the Centre for Water Resource Development and Management (CWRDM).

We entered the gate and to my right, I could see the famous Kerala School of Mathematics. The CWRDM was a large green and white building and the entire place was filled with greenery. One could point out the glass building tilted “S. Vasudev Block” which consisted of the library too. When we were walking down the slope and on the way we saw the isotope hydrology division, medicinal garden under the National Horticulture Mission, experimental plot of list metric studies, etc. Then, we reached our first site of rainwater harvesting, under construction. It had a concrete layer at the bottom covered with plastic sheets on top of it. Capacity is 1 lakh litre. There was also a fence for protection. White patches were made to plaster cracks caused by the effect of sunlight.

Our next destination was the Water Heritage Museum. The in-charge, Mr. Prasannakumar gave us a lecture and then, we stepped in.

The museum was filled with beautiful structures describing the methods of rainwater harvesting from the ancient times. We also saw a small film created by CWRDM on its efforts at Lakshadweep.

Soon, we climbed back to the old slope after visiting the rain shed and water wheel. Passing through a vast ground, we entered the “P Kumaraswamy Block”. The first room we went to was the section of hydrochemistry where the employees taught us how they check water quality and how distilled water is brought out.

After that, we visited the microbiology lab where we saw how germs were maintained and we also saw how the laminar air flow chamber worked. Our final site was the open-air, meteorological observatory where we saw many types of equipment to check water level, to check humidity and I also got to see the Stevenson’s Screen, a mechanism to measure temperature.

We then thanked our guide, Mr. Unnikrishna Varyar, and came back to school. Thanks to Fr. John, our teachers, especially Ms. Gigi Thomas and Mr. Zacharias, bus drivers and CWRDM!

“May the water from wells give us prosperity.
May the stored water give us prosperity.
May the rain water give us prosperity.

Atharva Veda

The Beautiful Sea

The Beautiful Sea
by Smruthi P. Shaji
Std V B

I often go to the beach where the sea lies calm and quiet. But sometimes it can get angry and would eat everything in greed, which people call Tsunami. Still I like it a lot because of its calm nature.

Even though the sea is having a little bit of greed, its children who are the waves show a lot of respect, which is why they take turns to touch the feet of our beautiful EARTH.