rocksea

Namaste.

Yesterday I had gone to talk about India at an English Seminar for
high school students at SIT school.

Quote:

One of my friends asked me why I am keeping my hands in my pocket while they’re all doing namaste (reasonable question). We say namaste when we meet another person, another soul. Here, in this English seminar, I taught them what India is, and one of our basic greetings, namaste. Facing the camera, they are demonstrating what they learnt from me. I don’t need to demonstrate namaste when I face the camera.

Thought I would share the slides and some info with you as well.


The slides have been made as simple as possible, for the students
to digest and may be I will append some extra info for you.
Will put one or two slides per day.



Namaste:
In Sanskrit "Namas" means, "bow, obeisance, reverential
salutation." It comes from the root Nam, which carries meanings
of bending, bowing, humbly submitting and becoming silent. "Te"
means "to you." Thus "namaste" means "I bow to you." the act of
greeting is called "Namaskaram," "Namaskara" and "Namaskar" in
the varied languages of the subcontinent.

In simple language, namaste is "a hello with a respect".
Namaste can be related to the Japanese bowing.
In both, we don't touch the other person as in the western style
of shaking hands of each other. Both gives respect and means
"I bow to you"

In my state, Kerala we say 'Namaskar' instead of Namaste.

rocksea

Yeah. The country is so diverse! Many languages, religions, costumes
flourish in India. Even the division into states are basically according to
this cultural/language diversity. Most of the states have its own
language. eg: Language of the state of Kerala = Malayalam.
Hindi is the national language. English has associate status and is
widely used.

Herez a list I got from Wikipidea, on the major languages:

Official languages (Central administrative)

1. Hindi
2. English (associate official)

Recognized national languages of India (Scheduled list for official use)

1. Assamese (official language of Assam)
2. Bengali (official language of Tripura and West Bengal)
3. Bodo (official language of Assam)
4. Dogri (official language of Jammu and Kashmir)
5. Gujarati (official language of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, and Gujarat)
6. Hindi (official language of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bihar, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal)
7. Kannada (official language of Karnataka)
8. Kashmiri
9. Konkani (official language of Goa)
10. Maithili (official language of Bihar)
11. Malayalam (official language of Kerala and Lakshadweep)
12. Manipuri (Meithei) (official language of Manipur)
13. Marathi (official language of Maharashtra)
14. Nepali (official language of Sikkim)
15. Oriya (official language of Orissa)
16. Punjabi (official language of Punjab)
17. Sanskrit
18. Santali
19. Sindhi
20. Tamil (official language of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry)
21. Telugu (official language of Andhra Pradesh)
22. Urdu (official language of Jammu and Kashmir)

Other popular languages of India

(over 5 million speakers but no official status)

1. Awadhi (often considered a sub-variety of Hindi)
2. Bhili (Bhil tribals)
3. Bhojpuri (language of Bihar, often considered a sub-variety of Hindi)
4. Bundeli (often considered a sub-variety of Hindi)
5. Chhattisgarhi (language of Chhattisgarh, often considered a sub-variety of Hindi)
6. Gondi (Gond tribals)
7. Hariyanavi (Haryanvi) (language of Haryana, often considered a sub-variety of Hindi)
8. Hindustani (A mixture of Hindi and Urdu. Spoken largely in the Northern part of India.)
9. Kanauji (language of Uttar Pradesh, often considered a sub-variety of Hindi)
10. Kodava, spoken in the Kodagu district of Karnataka
11. Kutchi (language of Kutch, a region in Gujarat)
12. Magadhi (language of southern Bihar, often considered a sub-variety of Hindi)
13. Marwari (language of Rajasthan, often considered a sub-variety of Hindi)
14. Tulu (spoken by Tulu people of Karnataka and Kerala)

Let me tell about the Indian flag shown above.
The orange (deep saffron) symbolizes courage and sacrifice (saffron is the
sacred color of Hinduism). The white stands for peace, unity and truth. The
green stands for faith (Islam) and fertility. The wheel in navy blue indicate
the Dharma Chakra, the wheel of law in the Sarnath Lion Capital. The blue
symbolizes the sky and the ocean. The 24 lines inside the chakra (wheel)
symbolizes 24 hours of the day.

Euphoria

It's interesting to know about all those facts...keep them coming

rocksea

As mentioned before, there are 29 states and 6 union territories.
Border disputes are there with Pakistan and China and this
is an outline map and shouldnt be seen as one conclusive.

Geography and climate across the country is varied.
In the north, near the himalayas, it is mostly cold with snow at many
of those regions.
In the north west, by Rajasthan we've the deserts like Thar desert.
Far north eastern states receives heavy rainfall.
The town of Cherrapunji, south of capital Shillong holds the world
record for most rain in a calendar month while the village of Mawsynram,
near town of Cherrapunji holds the distinction of seeing the heaviest
yearly rains.
South west of India, Kerala gets heavy rainfall.
but south east, Tamil Nadu gets scanty rainfall.

rocksea

namaste eu-san, have you been to india?

Euphoria

Namaste Rocksea san...i haven't been to India...But have sufficient knowledge about India..after all India is a good neighbouring country of Nepal

sas

great informations!!!

i have been to india twice (not counting the number of times i crossed border just to see the border town).
first time i went i was in class 8 (middle high school 2nd year). i went to nanital with my father.
second time was a longer trip and i started from sunauli, the border between india and nepal and went to vanarasi, calcutta, puri, bhuwaneshwor, nagpur and ended the trip in delhi before coming back to japan. though i was mostly in north India, i could see quite a lot of diversity. i can only imagine how different the south is.
thanks for all the informations and slides. keep up the good work!!

rocksea

is it easy to cross the border?
do you need special permission? may be passport is not needed?
hey, therez a guy from nainital here. he was there for the autumn tour.

dhanyawad (thank you) eu-san, yes we are all brothers and share similar
sentiments.

sas

for people from nepal or india it is quite easy to cross border. you need to show either your passport or your nationality card.