Junior welcomed differently by seniors

Tiruchi:Senior students of Cauvery College for Women welcome freshers with prayers in Tiruchi. This is the time for Freshers’ Day celebration in Arts and Science colleges; the time when the senior students welcome the newcomers to make the latter feel at home and prompt them to accord the academic year a head start.

At the Cauvery College for Women, the celebration turned out to be a la prayer service – almost an all-religion prayer service at that – much to the delight of the crowd of parents of 1,002 first-year students.The college has been doing it for 23 years now, ever since its inception, at the initiative of the Founder Principal Shakuntala, who was a witness to such a practice at Fatima College, Madurai, her earlier place of work, where the blessings of Goddess Saraswathi was invoked at the start of the academic year.

The college improved on the practice six years ago by invoking the blessings of deities cutting across religions. It is not just that the verses from the holy books of Hindus, Muslims and Christians are read out by students. Students from one religion read out the verses from the holy book of another religion, prides the Principal V. Sujatha.The celebration has the trappings of a house-warming ceremony with the college making 24 offerings to the deities.After a woman brings in water in a traditional way, the offerings such as rice, books, and sports equipment are made by others.

This time, Kalpana Lakshmi Narayanan, associated with Reddy Educational Trust, the College Management, took the role of making water as an offering.What followed was a Teacher’s Prayer of Blessings by Sudha, a senior faculty of Commerce Department. Sivaranjini, a first-year student of Mathematics Department had the privilege of offering Students’ Prayer of thanksgiving, by virtue of being the Plus Two topper – with 1152 marks – among the newcomers.The exercise was all about removing fear from the minds of the students at the very outset, said Ms. Sujatha.