It is not a ‘gurukulam’. Despite it’s location and it’s ideals, it is an entirely functional ICSE and ISC Board Certificate school. There is no guru -student relation between students.

Classes are not held on stone benches as a matter of course. We have lovely, well equipped class rooms. Classes are occasionally held outdoors, when there’s a discussion ongoing that might disturb other classes, or when the weather’s just too nice to be indoors.

The pictures you’ve taken, which are lovely, are of an area around a large banyan tree on campus. To my knowledge, in the ten years that I lived in and visited the school, classes haven’t been held there, though we’ve had open dance performances under the tree, as well as plays, until falling branches made it hazardous. There used to be a cement platform under the tree, where we could play, but it’s been removed since the roots of the tree are being treated with special soil to improve it’s health and hopefully, prevent it from dying.

While I am happy that many people are interested in the institution, a lot of people call it an ‘ashram’ or a ‘gurukul’. In truth, it is a school, albeit a very unusual one. There is no ’spiritual’, religious or other training, indoctrination, lecturing, and so on.

Cheers.

What are the benefits of sitting under a banyan tree for meditation or just otherwise? I wonder.