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'Indian Room' Set for Inauguration

J M Shenoy

The Indian Nationality Room will join the Nationality Rooms at the University of Pittsburgh on January 9, a welcome millennium gift for Indians.

The Indian room will be the 26th classroom to be formally dedicated as part of the Nationality Rooms. These internationally famous rooms are 'expressions of timeless human values' and were the brainchild of then chancellor Dr Bowman in 1926.

At the building in which these rooms are housed, the Cathedral of Learning, was constructed, Dr Bowman invited the city's ethnic communities to create their nationality classrooms, thereby enriching the new building with the heritage of each community.

There are two significant things about the creation of the room, said Dr Chandrika Rajagopal, chair, Indian Nationality Room Committee: It is the first room of its kind to be dedicated in the new millennium. In the history of the Nationality Rooms, this is the first time that conception, fundraising and execution of the room was carried out in seven-and-a-half years. The committee has raised more than $ 500,000, most of the money being raised from the Indian American community.

For the Indian room, the committee focused on the importance of ancient Indian educational traditions, which reached its culmination at Nalanda in north India. The famous university is believed to have attracted thousands of students, including many from outside of India. In its heyday, it epitomized a period in Indian history that is referred to by historians as the Golden Age of the Indian Renaissance. This was also an era which, in addition to witnessing more political and artistic unity than at any other time, represented the peak of India's artistic development in music, painting, literature, drama and architecture.

Architect Deepak Wadhwani has designed a spectacular room by recreating a monastic courtyard from the ancient university.

If you would like additional information on the Nationality Rooms, log on to http://www.pitt.edu/~natnlyrm/countries/cath-tour.html for a self-conducting tour of the rooms. The information on the Indian room is currently incomplete and will be updated upon the formal dedication of the room.

For more information, contact Susan Langer of the Nationality Rooms staff at (412) 624-6150 or Chandrika Rajagopal at (409) 690-0569

If you would like to post any information about forthcoming events or community happenings, please email the details to bettypais@aol.com

Information and photographs can also be mailed to Betty Pais at 87-52 108th Street, 2nd Floor, Richmond Hill, NY 11418-2229, USA.

EARLIER FEATURE:
Steel City to Get a Nalanda Classroom

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