Trying to break the custom of Brahmin and male bastions of performing pooja rituals, the DS High School, Sion has started teaching it's students the intricate art if performing a puja. The students are taught to perform Satyanarayan, Laxmi and Ganesh poojas. This training, the authorities hope, will help students to earn a living.
There are currently 80 girls and 5 boys who are learning to conduct poojas and read the scriptures. School president Rajendra Pradhan initiated the idea and three Sanskrit teachers namely Vinod Buwa, Asawari Gokhale and Dilip Nagpurkar have been appointed to conduct this training. Whenever invited, students of the school go to people's homes to conduct rituals.
"The idea was to help students from lower-middle-class family earn a living. Surprisingly, girls are more interested in learning the rituals than boys. They are more sincere compared to the boys in the class," said Rajendra Pradhan.
Echoing the sentiments of Pradhan, Sanskrit teacher Dilip Nagpurkar who offers the training, said, "The school arranges all the materials for the training. We got a good response from the parents and our students also sincere about the training which is helping them earn their education expenses."
Rutuja Jadhav, a class 10 student and one of the female priest in high demand, said, "Our school encourages girl students in all aspects. I have been learning the rituals since last year and now, I get numerous calls from people with a request to perform pooja at their place. I earn Rs 10,000 and more in a year by performing these rituals which I spend on my education."
