Indian Republic Day - Monday 26th Jan 2015

On Monday 26th January 2015, India celebrates 66th Republic Day.

Independence Day (15th August 1947) was when India got its freedom from the British ruling.
Then, the Constitution was launched on 26th January 1950.  This is the day called Republic Day.
The Constitution is a set of rules to run a country.

On a Republic Day, Indians hoist the Indian national flags in different parts of India, and they also do Parades, where the soldiers, school children and decorated trucks move on long routes and people watch.

On this day, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the President Pranab Mukerji will attend the parade and give a speech. 
For the first time the American President Barack Obama is attending the parade on the Republic Day.

Tenaliraman's Problem solving

Once upon a time, there lived a Vidushak (means Comedy Poet) called Raman from a place called Tenali.  He was very wise and he was part of the King Krishnadeva Raya’s court.  He was more known as Tenaliraman and there are lots of stories about him.

I read one of the stories in which he first gets introduced to the king by solving a problem.

One day, 3 brothers came to the King’s court room with a problem. 

When their father died he had left 17 elephants to be divided between the three brothers.  He wrote a will before he died like this:

·         The biggest brother had to get half (1/2) of the total elephants

·         The middle brother had to get one third (1/3^rd) of the total elephants

·         The smallest brother had to get one third (1/3^rd) of what the middle brother gets.

Nobody could divide 17 elephants by half or 1/3^rd, because it is an odd number.

That time Tenaliraman came and said that he can solve this problem.

·         Tenaliraman asked for 17 toy elephants. 

·         And he asked for 1 more elephant which belongs to the king.

·         The total of that were 18. 

Now, it was easy for Tenaliraman to divide it like this:

A Hectic Day

Today a cousin in India called us and told me that he had a social test. He is my age and we went to the same school in Bangalore. I was just recollecting how my school day in Bangalore would've been.

My father would wake me up at 7 AM and give me a bath. My school van would come at 7:30 AM and within that time, I had to take a shower, get ready, drink milk and have my breakfast. I would reach school by 8 and until 8:30 was playtime for us. The assembly would begin at 8:30 for which we were all made to stand in a line and chant the prayer, after which we were taken to our respective classrooms.

During this time in the year, our tests would be going on. So as soon as we got to our classrooms, we were asked to get our pencil pouches out and ready to begin the test. The teacher would hand out to each of us a question paper with 20 questions in it along with a ruled sheet of paper to write our answers in. We were given exactly half an hour to finish the test.

After the test, we would have a snacks break of 15 minutes. My friends and I would finish our snacks as soon as we possibly could and then rushed out to the field to play. We would go back to our classes again once the bell rang. In a day, we would have 8 periods a day, 40 minutes each. Our main subjects included math, science, social science, English and Hindi. Physical education, computer science, mindspark and music were a few among the others. For each subject, we had a different teacher and a different textbook. I want to talk a little more about mindspark. It was a math tool similar to that of mymaths. It consisted of a lot of chapters and a variety of questions in each chapter. It would also give the solutions to the questions that we answered.

In a week, we had 2 worksheets for each subject and in one academic year, we had 5 tests. My day in school would end at 3 PM and I would come home at 3:40 with a lot of homework to do and a science test to prepare for the next day. When my day ended, I would come back home to my mother waiting at the door with a stick wanting to know how I did in my tests and what I should do for the next day's test. And to top it all off, I also had my table tennis coaching from 4:30 - 8:30! I would reach home at 9 from my coaching class, which was pretty far from where I lived. I would come home tired and exhausted, eat something and get back to finishing my homework again! Then my father would come, we would all have dinner. And then I would trouble my sister until she ran into her room and locked it. After all that, we would all finally sleep after a long, hectic day!

Did I like it? Yes, I liked my school, I liked my subjects except Hindi ( I hated Hindi and never understood how to make a proper sentence till the end!!), I liked the competition, I loved my math teacher who always gave me interesting problems, I liked cricket, I liked my friends, I loved playing under the shadow of huge trees in our school AND I loved my house in Bangalore.

My Trip To India

In my trip to India I had first went to Delhi and in Delhi I met my grandparents, autie, uncle, and my little brother. My little brother's name is Rudrre, and he is 3 years old. Augustia loves playing with Rudrre.

First in India we went to India Gate then to shopping and I ate panipori. Panipori is an Indian food and then in India we did shopping and that's it.

Then I when to Paderona and I went a lot outside in Padrona and I meet my Grandparents
and my grandfather took me out a lot and bought me lots of chocolate and there was a festival coming and it was called Diwali and in Diwali we have lots of fireworks and its lots of fun and I decorated.

Then I went back to Delhi and my mom bought things for France while I was eating ice cream.

This is my extraordinary holiday

ACHUMA AND ACHUGUND

During this summer vacation in India, I bought two love birds and named them as Achuma and Achugund and they were really sweet. I can’t see them anymore but my grandparents can show them to me by skype.

Achuma and Achugund are really really really NAUGHTY! They do things like taking the food we have kept for them and knocking it down and when Achuma is sleeping Achugund pokes Achuma with its beak and doesn’t let Achuma SLEEP!!!!!

Ganesh Chaturthi

Ganesh Chaturthi is a grand Hindu festival in India, celebrated in honour of Lord Ganesha. Ganesh is a hindu elephant headed god.  Ganesh removes all obstacles to people if they pray to him.  Ganesh Chaturthi usually comes during August  - September, and celebrated over 10 days. 

People bring Ganesh idols and statues to their homes, made of mud.  They keep it for 1 or 3 or 10 days at home, they do pooja (prayers) every day by offering lot of flowers, fruits, coconut, and Indian sweets. 

Luckily this year I was in India to celebrate it on the 29^th august.  I also brought a mud Ganesh home.  Here are pictures of what I did.

This is a picture of how we decorated Ganesh and kept for 3 days.

Normally people immerse the Ganesh idols in a water body on the last day like ponds, lakes, wells, oceans, seas, rivers etc.

I immersed my Ganesh idol in the Bay of Bengal ocean which is really near my home in India.

Here are some pictures that me and my father found in the internet about huge Ganesh idols immersion from other places in India.