Africa Ganesha Drinking Milk Again

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VFA-family, M P Bhattathiri <mpmahesh@a...>

wrote:

Ganesha Drinking Milk Again, in Africa

http://www.mmegi.bw/2003/November/Monday10/20243234790.html

 

BOTSWANA, AFRICA, November 9, 2003: As they went around the shrine,

devotees whispered an invocation, prostrated to Lord Ganesha, poured

milk into a spoon and placed it over His mouth. The milk disappeared.

This was the scene at Maruapula Temple last Thursday when members of

the Botswana Hindu Society in Gaborone went to feed milk to Ganesha,

reports this article. The priest Subramaniam termed it a "miracle."

People joined their Hindu friends to witness the event. "I came to

see

the God that drinks milk," said a British woman who preferred not to

give her name. Among those who came to witness were ever-skeptical

journalists. "Whatever is happening here? The milk just disappeared!"

one of them exclaimed after Ganesha drank the spoonful of milk he

offered. Subramaniam told a reporter he received a telephone call

from

India reporting a "miracle unravelling." The Hindu community started

to

light candles and lamps around the shrine, and fed milk to

Ganesha. "It

is happening all over the world. Lord Ganesha is drinking milk. You

can

go in and say your wish," Subramaniam told curious non-Hindu

spectators.

 

The last time Ganesha was observed drinking milk was in 1996.

Millions

of people offered milk at temples and homes and the milk disappeared

upon being offered, according to many credible witnesses at the time.

This one report from Botswana is all that HPI has received about the

current miracle.

 

Schoolyard Mediators Lessen Bullying

Montreal Gazette

 

MONTREAL, CANADA, November 17, 2003: Schoolyard violence can be a

problem anywhere. But at one St. Henri elementary school, staff and

students decided to do something different about it. Seven years ago,

Ludger-Duvernay school began developing a program to train Grade 5

and

Grade 6 students as mediators to intervene in small disputes. The

program went into effect four years ago. The student peacekeepers,

patrolling the schoolyard in teams of four or five, have been so

successful they won an award yesterday for their work. Principal Lise

Cantin, special educator Soledad Dextre and five students were

delighted as they accepted the 2003 Peace Medallions awarded by the

Montreal YMCA. The annual world-wide awards were created in 1987 to

recognize efforts to realize the peace vision enunciated in 1981 by

the

World Council of YMCAs. Ludger-Duvernay is one of several Montreal-

area

schools with violence-limiting programs called Vers le pacifique

(Toward the Peaceful), Cantin said. "I am certain that these young

people will develop skills that will enable them to be peacemakers

later on in life," Cantin noted after the ceremony at the YMCA

residence on Tupper St. Carolanne Masse, 12, said monitors like

herself

are getting increased respect from their peers, and often student

will

come to them for help. The winner in the individual category was

Dilip

Chowdhury, a Hindu Bangladeshi who came to Canada in 1994 and was

accepted as a refugee claimant. The award citation said he had won

the

respect of the Bangladeshi community for "giving freely and quietly

of

his time and skills" to mediate in family crises. Chowdhury now works

for the Tyndale-St. Georges Community Centre in Little Burgundy

district, where he was first involved as a volunteer.

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