Saturday, October 23, 2010

Welcome to CROCUS 2010



When I meet an elderly person from a town in South India or North India, they would fold their hands in "Namaskar" as a way of greeting.
When I meet an American, I would be greeted with a cordial hand shake.
When I meet a Japanese, I would be greeted by a reverential bow.

All over the world people acknowledge each other when they meet, but the expression of that varies. The idea is the same, just the forms are different, but beautiful in every way ! Most of our actions, behaviour, lifestyle patterns stem from the cultural environment that we grow in. They collectively represent the culture of a group.

Culture can be understood in terms of it's constituent elements - food, dress, language, customs, lifestyles, music, dance, art forms,legends and so on. These form the core elements of any culture in the world. It is these diverse forms of expressions that we are attempting to understand as part of our CROCUS festival of 2010.

In CROCUS 2009, we briefly stopped over at the various continents and got a little taste of the lives of people there. This has whet our appetites and propelled us to delve further into their lives to get a better understanding. We have picked books that showcase the numerous aspects of culture from the various communities across the world. From the traditional tribal arts to beautiful ballet, from the rural crafts of India to the indigenous crafts of Africa, from the magical myths to historical happenings, from the regional rituals to the famous festivals of the world, we have tried to cover a whole gamut of cultural aspects!

The colourful threads of diverse cultural forms woven into the beautiful fabric of humanity highlight the fact that despite all our differences we are still one. This universal truth can be explained through these wonderful books to our budding little citizens of the world.

It has been a very interesting journey for us and we are thrilled with the wealth of books that we have unearthed ! We, the Saffron tree team, welcome you all cordially to this book festival. We hope that all our readers will share the same feeling of joy and happiness as we take you through the world of cultures and give a glimpse into the the lives of the people. It would be wonderful if you all take this treasure trove back to your children and enrich their lives !

Namaskar.

14 comments:

the mad momma said...

can i just go yayy!!!!!!!!!!!!!??

utbtkids said...

Or say happy birthday?

Meera Sriram said...

Namaste, Hola, Hi, Crocus 2010 is here!!!

artnavy said...

Janm Din Mubarak ST!!

Anonymous said...

And the celebrations begin!!! A fantastic start, Ranjani!
-kodis mom

Vibha said...

A wondersul beginning to the festival. Very well written post Ranjani.

sandhya said...

Yay! We are on! The roller-coaster ride has begun. So just hang on,guys, and enjoy!

Tharini said...

Wow Ranjani! Those were brilliant words!! Excited! Thrilled!

Subhashree said...

Happy birthday, Saffron tree. May your tribe grow!

Choxbox said...

Happy Birthday ST! May you grow and grow!

Praba Ram said...

The celebrations are in full swing. Great to see the reviews rolling in! CROCUS 2010 is here! Yoo hoo!!!

What a great introductory note, R!

Zoe @ Playing by the book said...

Such a lovely introductory post!

Sunita said...

Lovely into Ranjani! Goosebumpy!

ranjani.sathish said...

Thank you everyone for your warm comments !

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