West Windsor-Plainsboro’s multicultural mix has just been enhanced by an infusion of Indian culture into one of the district’s schools. Although not affiliated with the WW-P school district, new weekly classes at Community Middle School aim at serving the entire community and bringing its members together in the process.
Vedic Vidyalay — a volunteer-run, not for profit, 501 c(3) organization — holds a variety of classes on Friday evenings, from 6 to 9 p.m., at public schools in Edison, Franklin Township, and South Brunswick. This year West Windsor-Plainsboro has been added to the mix, along with East Brunswick. In general, classes including Vedic Math, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Marathi, Telegu, and Bharatnatyam (classical dance) and Indian Art are offered.
“Even though we are charitable and can accept donations, we pride ourselves in being ayachak (the one who does not ask for free stuff). Our mission is to bring to light the treasure trove found in Indian scriptures and the Vedic education system, and to provide a glimpse of the capabilities and knowledge of Indian Rishis in advanced mathematics, sciences, and arts,” says the school’s founder, Bhupendra Maurya.
West Windsor resident Pari Boopalan, an IT executive, was part of the initial planning process for the school to come into the WW-P area. In 2009, when Vedic Vidyalay started out with its Franklin Township school, Boopalan took part in the initial planning and discussions — he lived in Franklin Park at the time. He has known Maurya, who is a resident of Franklin Township, for over 10 years. Following success in South Brunswick and Edison, Boopalan says the natural progression for the school was expansion into WW-P.
“The response has been so great every year thus far. In Edison alone this year we have over 200 kids,” Boopalan said.
Vedic Vidyalay is unique in the variety of classes that are offered. For WW-P’s initial offerings, which started on September 28 at Community Middle School, seven volunteers taught Vedic Math, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, and Indian Art. A new volunteer joined the Plainsboro location last week and became one of the new Hindi teachers. Several other teachers are parents who in the past took their kids to Vedic Vidyalay’s South Brunswick school.
“Our philosophy is not to promote one language over another or to instill any set path for a child’s learning. Vedic Vidyalay offers Vedic Math plus a variety of languages because we want to see what the needs of each community is and then meet those needs,” Boopalan says.
As an example, Boopalan said one family was interested in enrolling their children in two languages — Tamil and Marathi — because the father and mother were from different parts of India. “They both wanted the kids to learn Tamil even though more of their family members spoke Marathi. We are happy to be able to accommodate the needs of both of the parents,” said Boopalan.
Boopalan holds a master’s degree in electronics and communication engineering (applied electronics) from College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG) at Anna University in Chennai, India’s oldest engineering college, founded in 1794. His bachelor’s degree is in electrical engineering.
Boopalan has held various positions over a 23-year career in IT, including being a consultant for JP Morgan Chase and AT&T. Before joining InfoGroup he was head of product implementation and operation for Morgan Stanley. Prior to that he was the senior director of technology at Epsilon.
“Being involved with Vedic Vidyalay gives us some form of satisfaction that we are helping our children and other kids get exposure to Indian culture, learn languages, and build a sense of community,” Boopalan said.
Another key player at the new Plainsboro location, Rashmi Katiyar, has lived at the Princeton Collection in Plainsboro for the past three years. Like Boopalan, Katiyar has a computer science background, but she is currently a stay-at-home mother of three. Her husband, Prashant, works as a software architect for AIG.
As a volunteer, she taught Vedic Math and Hindi at the South Brunswick location last school year. Katiyar’s involvement in Vedic Vidyalay stemmed from her dedication to her children’s educations.
“The reason I joined Vedic is for my kids to get an exposure to our culture. It’s not just a language and it’s not just a subject. It’s not just going there for math and languages. It’s the overall environment that they get at Vedic Vidyalay — they are all with kids of their own age group, and they are learning the languages together.”
“Theoretically we can tell them things and say this is our culture, but to actually give them a practical experience of our culture is the best thing they can get,” she says.
Katiyar says on top of Vedic Vidyalay’s classroom settings, the school hosts cultural events throughout the year that provide “a very good boost for our kids for realizing their own identity.” Special programs include celebrations for Navaratri, Holi, and other religiously-tied dates; Kavita (poetry) competition, math jeopardy, and annual end of the year class competitions. In June Vedic Vidyalay held its annual year-end gala and competition at Rutgers, and the Franklin school’s bharatnatyam (Indian classical dance) group took home the top honors among all participants.
Before coming to Plainsboro the Katiyars lived in Edison for four years. The family has been in the U.S. since 1999, previously living in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio.
Katiyar’s daughter, Aditi, who is a third grader Her older son, Anshu, an eighth grader at Community Middle School,
One of Katiyar’s friends who lives in Princeton Junction was taking her child to Vedic Vidyalay’s South Brunswick location and telling her great things about the classes and a sense of community that families felt there. While she was immediately interested, Katiyar was relatively new to Plainsboro so she let a year pass before deciding to sign her children up.
“Last year we all went to South Brunswick, and when I registered my kids they said if parents want to volunteer, they have that opportunity to do so. I said why not because I’m a stay-at-home mom and I have a background of teaching math and computer science, and I love doing that,” Katiyar said.
Katiyar earned her bachelor’s degree in science from APG Shimla University in India, followed by a post-graduate diploma in computer applications. “When I came to this country I got my degrees evaluated according to U.S. standards, so it came out to a bachelor’s degree in computer science,” she said.
In India Katiyar taught high-school level math and computer science for one year. She also taught a course in C++ computer language at an institute. In Ohio Katiyar first explored her entrepreneurial spirit by starting a preschool at her home. Looking back, some foreshadowing was in place as Katiyar’s small school had a variety of classes, from yoga to math tutoring and Hindi. In Cincinnati she taught Hindi to children in groups of five.
“The parents were from different Indian language backgrounds but they wanted to teach Hindi to their kids. In Cincinnati there was not the type of Hindi classes and schools as New Jersey has. I advertised in some Indian stores and I had a good response to it, so I used to teach them once a week,” she said.
When Katiyar first came to New Jersey, she dipped her toes back into the classroom as a volunteer at her older son’s Montessori preschool in Edison.
While its new West Windsor-Plainsboro location has not yet set a date, Vedic Vidyalay will host its annual Navaratri celebration at Franklin High School on Friday, October 19, from 6 to 10 p.m. A second event on Sunday, October 21, will be hosted by Vedic Vidyalay’s Edison school.
As her experience with the South Brunswick Vedic Vidyalay school was just beginning, Maurya informed Katiyar that he was hoping to expand to serve the large Indian community in West Windsor and Plainsboro.
“Last year it did not work out (expanding into WW-P) because of the logistics or timing, but by the end of the school year I was approached and asked to coordinate the Plainsboro location. I said okay, good, I was ready to do it,” she said.
To date Vedic Vidyalay has not done so much advertising for the new location in West Windsor-Plainsboro, as Katiyar said flyers were distributed in the local libraries and Indian grocery stores.
Road signs were put up at a few spots, including the Schalks Crossing-Scudders Mill intersection in Plainsboro (near the post office), a few near the Princeton Junction station, and one in East Windsor at the intersection of Route 571 and Route 130. As of October 11, a total of 22 students had enrolled in the new Vedic Vidyalay school.
A New Community
For Katiyar, Boopalan, and more than 400 Indian families in Central New Jersey, Vedic Vidyalay provides a rare outlet and opportunity to develop a connection with other Indian Americans. Despite the high population of South Asians in the WW-P school district, bonding together through cultural awareness still seems elusive.
“We were in Edison for four years and over there the Indian community is massive. When my daughter started kindergarten in Edison, there was only one Caucasian child. The rest were all Asian American. But still, in school kids do not get an environment like Vedic Vidyalay where they get a platform to express themselves and perform the different languages or cultural themes. When we had Kavita and math competitions, I felt they really made a difference in our kids’s confidence and being part of a community,” she says.
Boopalan is currently working as the vice president of IT operations at Infogroup. When asked why his family moved from Somerset County to West Windsor, Boopalan said “you can probably guess.” While Boopalan sometimes commutes to New York for work, the main reason was the school district. His two daughters are thriving in West Windsor-Plainsboro schools as his older child, Sruti, started her freshman year at High School North. Boopalan’s younger girl, Tulsi, is now a fifth grader at Village School.
Boopalan’s mother was a homemaker. His father was a farmer, and in the early part of his childhood Boopalan would work the land alongside his family members. To this day his family owns farms in Tamil Nadu, South India.
Vedic Math for the Mind
For many Indian families, a focus on math and science over other school subjects has long been the norm. But Boopalan says there is an added appeal with Vedic Math.
“Indian kids usually excel in math, but the way I saw it was that back home I started learning Vedic Math techniques during my elementary education. This is something to provide a base, and for me it represents a fundamental building block for approaching math calculations. Kids can master math problems much faster by applying methods they learn in Vedic Math classes,” he said.
Boopalan says that it has been a surprise to him that after spending five days a week in regular school math classes, the kids that have taken Vedic Math at Community Middle School so far have been inspired and eager to learn when they come to the classroom on Friday nights.
“It’s so great to be able that platform to them, as it will help them do their regular schoolwork and get a better grasp on the subjects,” he said.
For Katiyar there’s a more personal connection to Vedic Math. In India her grandfather was a college math professor who authored several books on the subject, including some writing about Vedic Math. That sparked her interest in the subject at an early age.
“The difference I felt in doing Vedic Math in my youth was that this helps you think differently. The formulas given in Vedic Math are easy to learn and quick to calculate, and this kind of math is a very good exercise for kids. It’s a totally different way of doing math, and for them it’s interesting so I feel that kids should have a chance to learn this,” she said.
For the duration of the 2011-’12 school year Katiyar took her three children to the Vedic Vidyalay school in South Brunswick each Friday evening. There Anshu was introduced to Vedic Math. While the last thing many students would want to do on a Friday evening would be math problems, Katiyar says she has seen a new form of enthusiasm from her son.
Katiyar’s younger children also participated in classes at Vedic Vidyalay in South Brunswick, but not in Vedic Math yet. Her youngest, Arnav, who’s now a kindergartner, took “Hindi Shishu” or beginner’s level Hindi.
Appropriate for children in third grade of higher, Vedic Math does not introduce entirely new concepts and explore math functions that children would never use. Instead Vedic Math is a different method of doing calculations that kids would encounter in the normal course of elementary to high school math classes. “The calculations become quicker and easier to do, and at the same time Vedic Math provides a way for students to check their answers. You can be 100 percent sure of the way you have done it,” she said.
Vedic Math classes at Vedic Vidyalay span five levels — from “foundations” for beginners going up to level four. Katiyar’s son Anshu is currently in Vedic Math level 2, and she says after his first year of the course he has no qualms about taking on a bigger math problem or calculation. “He won’t be thinking like that because Vedic Math teaches so many formulas to very big calculations, in a very easy way. People who are scared of math or calculations get a different perspective. It’s not that difficult after all — it’s merely a shift of your way of thinking,” Katiyar says.
“Vedic Math is a new thing to bring to the area, and it’s much better than Kumon, Aloha Mind Math, or Abacus programs. People say those things are actually not the best for young kids because they have to visualize all these numbers in their mind. Other programs out there might increase kids’ concentration, but at some level it’s not good. If kids get too much into it, it can affect them psychologically,” she said.
The difference with Vedic Math is that it is derived from the Vedas — ancient Indian texts that constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism.
“All the 16 formulas that the Vedic Math has are very simple, one-line formulas. Because Vedic Math uses both a person’s right and left brain it increases concentration a lot,” Katiyar said.
Vedic Math classes at Vedic Vidyalay schools are usually held during the last block, from 8:10 to 9 p.m. That way, many kids who are in different language classes earlier in the evening can come together to learn new approaches to math.
Above all, providing families with the right outlet for coming together has been the staple of Vedic Vidyalay in each of its locations, and now in WW-P.
