Indian immigrant parents in the Washington area have found a way of occupying their children during summer vacation that is both fun and spiritually uplifting. Let's visit the Chinmaya Mission?s summer camp, where Indian-American children learn some basic principles of Hinduism while also participating in sports and games and field trips to interesting places.
The kids attending the camp range in age from five to fifteen. They sign up for two or three or however many weeks of the summer-long program. The director of the camp, Sethuraman Balan, says parents, most of whom are immigrants from India, send their American-born children to the Chinmaya Mission camp to expose them to their traditional customs and values.
Mr. Balan believes that the United States is the one country in the world where you can retain those aspects of your ethnic heritage that you value while integrating fully into American society. He says his camp?s mission is to help the children who attend achieve this harmony in their lives.
In addition to religious chanting, prayers, and inspiring stories from scripture, the camp?s program includes yoga, classical and folk dancing, vocal and instrumental music, arts and crafts. There is time for sports, indoor games, swimming and socializing. Thirteen-year-old Tarang Bapna, who is attending the camp for the second year, is quite clear about which parts of the program he likes best.
He is not as enthusiastic about the spiritual teachings that are part of each day?s program, but admits that they may be of some value.
Tarang says he likes coming to the summer camp because here he meets friends who are more like him than most of his American schoolmates.
Tarang Bapna was born in America to Indian immigrant parents. His parents speak Hindi at home, while Tarang speaks mostly English. He says that when visiting India he feels at home there, but intends to live in the United States when he grows up -- his dream is to work for the CIA. Meera Puri, the administrator of the Chinmaya Mission camp, says that in the ten years of its existence the camp has helped many young people like Tarang Bapna come to terms with straddling two worlds.