Events
Our Ilaignarkal Education Centre hosts many celebrations on our campus each year. We welcome all students, families, and community members to enjoy our festivities through dance, song, and eating good food together.
Krishna Janmashtami
Our Centre celebrated Krishna Janmashtami last August with many of our students and their families. The annual festival commemorates the birth of Krishna (Vishnu’s eighth avatar) and is a traditional Hindu celebration.
Our students helped decorate and place Krishna idols around Ilaignarkal’s campus and offered local flowers of Radha Consciousness, named by The Mother in Krishna’s honour. The event ended with traditional Bhajans being sung, and looking forward to next year’s gathering.
Indian Independence Day and Sri Aurobindo's Birth
Our Centre celebrated the 75th Indian Independence Day and the 150th Anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s Birth on August 15th 2022. Our early morning program welcomed over 25 students, friends, and families.
Eminent Tamil writer, translator, and Sahitya Academy Award winner Sri. Paavannan (Baskaran) hoisted the flag. He has also recently begun work on Forgotten Freedom Fighters’ biographies. A special address was given by Dr. R. Sivakumar, I.I.S., Deputy Director of the FIeld Outreach Bureau and great friend of Auroville. He has been instrumental in teaching our students the importance of Native Siddha Medicine. Both these influential community leaders were an honour to have in attendance for our celebration!
Ganesh Chaturthi
We celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi on our campus on the last day of August 2022. The festival commemorates the birth of the Hindu god Ganesha, remover of obstacles through knowledge. Our gathering displayed various pictures of Ganesha in his many different forms and opened the gallery to the public for the following week. Our students and many other community members came to celebrate with us during this time.
Navratri Kolu
Our Centre celebrated The Festival of Evolution on September 26th, 2022 which lasted for two weeks. Every year, the llaignarkal Education Centre celebrates Navratri and decorates according to the unique theme. For this year, the theme centered on cows and bulls so special honours were given to their image. Our Centre explained their cultural importance to students and guests who attended.
Around 800 clay dolls of Gods, Goddesses, Great Saints, humans, animals, birds, reptiles, plants, and water bodies were displayed in a particular order to depict the process of evolution. The children enjoyed the colourful display of dolls and learned much about the year’s theme while enjoying the Centre’s healthy snacks and herbal tea.
This year, the first celebration held after the pandemic, welcomed many more people than previous festivals. The Centre hosted over ten different partner organizations and outreach schools who brought their own students and staff to enjoy the festival.
Kummi Dance
Our Women and Youth Groups were happy to present some special performances for the 150th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s birth and for the Art for Land initiative at the beginning of September 2011. This late evening program took place in Auroville’s Unity Pavilion where the Women's group performed a traditional Kummi dance.
Kummi dance is one of the most important and ancient forms of Tamil Nadu’s village dance. Through the intricate moves, Kummi reflects the day-to-day life of villagers accompanied by specific Kummi songs.
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We performed a few phrases from Subramania Bharathiyar's poems, "Celebrating Women Liberation" and "The Greatness of Tamil Nadu". Famous local folk singer, Ms. Manimegalai from Achrampattu village, performed live and Ayyanar Sir from our Centre performed Tabla. There were some additional performances by the folk singer of Meenakshi Akka's poems and the youth team performed a classical dance.
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