Hari Om All,
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Thank you to all the sixth graders who volunteered at the Pongal Event last week! I heard that they were very helpful.
This week, we began class with the regular opening prayers. We reviewed the Lakshmi Ashtakam as a class, and then moved onto the Bhagavad Gita. Some of the students who felt comfortable chanting the first seven slokas recited them for the class. As always, we encourage all students to practice at home to either chant with the paper or memorize. We then continued to learn Mahishaasura Mardini, where we finished up to the fourth part.
We continued the Mahabharata story. Last class, we had finished up to the fall of Bhishma, so we continued to learn how Dronacharya became the new commander for the Kaurava Army. In order to try and capture Yudisthira, the king of the Pandava Army, Dronacharya and Duryodhana made sure to wait until Arjuna and Krishna were away from the battle, and formed the Chakravyuha battle formation, an incredibly deadly battle formation. Abhimanyu, Arjuna's son, was the only other person who knew how to enter the formation, but he did not know how to leave. The Pandavas promised to stay right behind Abhimanyu as he leads them inside the formation, but were stopped by Jayadhratha on the Kaurava side, leaving Abhimanyu alone. Within the Chakravyuha, Abhimanyu fought valiently and bravely, defeating every person on the Kaurava side until almost sundown. Finally, Duryodhana asked Karna to do whatever means necessary to kill Abhimanyu, and, breaking the rules of the war, Karna killed Abhimanyu from behind.
We will continue the story next class.
On a separate note, as I mentioned in our Whatsapp group, I am moving to Florida for a job. Sadly, I won't be teaching Balavihar anymore this year, but Thejasvi will be filling in, and she will send the weekly updates from now onwards. Thank you all for a wonderful year!
Hari Om,
Sruti
Sruti Madhusudhan
Mechanical Engineering | Class of 2018
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
