Honoring Gurus (Teachers) in Nepal

In Nepal, we celebrated Guru Purnima ‘Teachers Day’ July 09, 2017. The word Guru is a Sanskrit word, where Gu means “darkness” and Ru means “to remove”, so the full meaning of a Guru is a person who removes the darkness of life. Thus, a guru is a very significant person in our culture. The teachers of today are our modern day gurus. The importance of Guru Purnima, which is traditionally a Hindu celebration goes beyond religion, and is a very important day for all of us in Nepal. On this day, all students give best wishes to their teachers or Gurus. We know that that the marking of Teachers day is not only important in Nepal, but is being done worldwide.

Guru Girvan Nath being honored

Rukmini Foundation celebrated Guru Purnima on July 10, 2017 at our LitLibrary with Foundation Staff, Scholars and LitClub Shikharapur members. Altogether 40 people gathered, and the main attraction of the program was Guru Girvan Nath Aryal, a pioneer of education in the Pharping community. He is a well-known face of the community for the work he has done over the many decades, and people recognize him as a Guru. He also happens to be the son of the foundation’s namesake, Rukmini, so he is very special to all of us.

Didis Pramila Gajmer and Sabina Bisunke served as the emcees for the day. The program was started with a speech from Sarina Balami, LitClub member who talked about the importance of Guru Purnima and thanked all of the gurus (teachers) in her life. After that wonderful speech, Deepa Basnet and Shraya Maharjan, other LitClub members performed a beautiful dance. The program also included Deeya Basnet and Dipika Balami who presented a poem about teachers. The idea of the poem was about the power teachers have to change our future. They also sang a song for the audience.

The main attraction of the program was a group song about teachers composed by our Music teacher, Indra Balami with lyrics written by Foundation Leader, Kedar Nath Acharya. Our scholars Sabina Rumba and her team sang the song very nicely. The theme of the song is that teachers are guardians outside the family, and they guide us throughout our life. Gurus (teachers) are revered because of this.

We honored teachers and leaders in community education in this ceremony

Mr. Sashi Sharma expressed how important Gurus are to all of us, and he gave a special mention to his first Guru Mr. Grivana Nath Aryal, who is not only his father, but a teacher to him and many others in the community. He asked all of the participants to continue to honor our teachers.

87 year old, Guru Girvan Nath enjoyed cutting the cake like a young child would.

The program was completed by Guru Grivan Nath by cutting a cake. We were also honored that he gave a powerful and motivational speech to our Scholars and attendees. He also blessed the participants with a Tika ceremony, and all of our scholars gave him flowers as our gift to honor this guru.

After closing this program, we asked our participants what the knew about Guru Purnima and how they felt about the program.

We were all very happy with this wonderful program, and we would like to thank teachers (Gurus) everywhere for helping to bring light through education.

Susmita Sunar
Didi, Rukmini Foundation
Mentor, LitClub Shikharapur