Besides making the Rangoli to decorate the library for Diwali, my other intent is to educate the people who visit the library and my blog about the significance of the Rangoli. I try to learn as much as I could about cultures that are not my own and at the same time share what I have learnt with others. It is my belief that the more we know about the way of life of others, the more we understand about them and the more tolerant we become.
It is because we have the Rangoli in the library that more people now understand the difference between a Rangoli and a Kolam. Also, my students keep asking me why I spelt Deepavali as Diwali. They now know that Deepavali is the Tamil word while Diwali is Hindi for the festival of lights. Those who helped make the Rangoli would be richer in experience for they had a hands-on activity to make one. When we were making the first Rangoli, some of the students asked Sharveen how he dyed the rice. They also saw how difficult and time consuming it was to put all the rice grains into the pattern that we had drawn. That is what incidental learning is about. It is not something that is within a syllabus but things that we learn from the university of life.
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