Major Contribution By Devotees

Suniti Saini came to Saskatoon with her husband Om Saini and three children in mid-seventy. She had a Masters in Sanskrit and Hindi. She got a teaching position in Department of Religious Studies University of Saskatchewan. Other than teaching and taking care of her family she dedicated most of her time in the service of temple. Suniti was very good bhajan singer and an accomplished dholak player. We all depended on Suniti for 24 hours continue Ramayan Path on Ramnaumi festival. Attending temple services every week, she felt that there was need for children in the community to learn Hindi. So she started offering Hindi classes for young children. Suniti was very good teacher, and liked by students. Suman Gupta assisted her in teaching the children. Mayadi also helped her, whenever she needed. Suniti was also very instrumental in making sure that children coming to temple and learning Hindi also learn their Indian culture. She wrote kids plays on Mahabharat and Ramayan and helped children perform these plays at festival congregations at temple. The pictures below depict the plays presented by children under Suniti’s guidance. People in the community appreciated the hard work Suniti did in teaching children. One Mr. Prakash Narain Mathur a member in the community was very appreciative of Suniti’s work. He used to encourage children in the community to take part in the Hindi school. To show his appreciation, twice he gave awards to children who took part in these plays that Suniti organized. Many other respected individuals in the community supported the Hindi school that Suniti operated by giving donations to temple in support of the Hindi School. Her hand written all songs in Hindi and English are still our temple bhajan books being used every week.

Suniti was also elected as the President of Hindu Society of Saskatchewan in 1998 for two years. She did exemplary work during her term as a president.

Suniti’s life was cut short when she lost her life in a car accident few years back.

HSS went through a tumultuous time with the untimely demise of Dr. Lakshman. HSS is very fortunate that Dr. Suresh Kalagnanam was able to provide his expertise in leading some of the poojas for the temple at that time. A lifelong learner, Dr. Kalagnanam, has been leading the Hinduism classes since their inception. He believes in transferring our heritage and values to our future generation and if you participate in any Pooja at the temple you will notice our young disciples at the forefront. Suresh very ably brings the perspective of Hinduism to the multi-faith forum in the community and utilizes the ideas of Hinduism in academic papers. Suresh has deep roots in the Saskatoon community and has been integral to our temple be it with taking tours of citizens through or serving on the board of directors.

— Anu Kashyap —

HSS has been offering rich spiritual experiences through their outstanding services to the Hindu community of Saskatoon. The community has been generous in taking care of the temple’s operating expenses in many ways. One such effort was conceived and introduced in 1993, which has become an ongoing, annual fund raising event. This effort not only brought funds to the temple, but also involved direct participation of the whole community in this spiritual activity. This effort was the brainchild of Mythili Venkatraman who introduced this effort during the years between 1993-1995 when she served as the Treasurer of HSS. She introduced a new practice of having the devotees participate in the Samoohika Pooja for various gods and provided the opportunity for all devotees to make a suggested financial contribution. The devotees enjoyed performing Pooja at the temple, while helping in the temple fundraising efforts. The sponsors of these Pooja took care of the expenses incurred and the devotees took home the Vigrahas that were given to them for performing the Pooja. The Pooja was ably conducted with strict adherence to Vedic traditions by Dr. Lakshman for many years. This tradition has now become part of HSS’s annual fund raising efforts and the year 2018 witnessed the 25th anniversary of this activity.

—-Mythili Venkatraman—-

Dr. Lakshman’s contributions to the temple extend much beyond performing Poojas to celebrate the important festivals. Dr. Lakshman was passionate about Srimad Bhagavad-Gita Gita and he imparted the knowledge from the Gita each week as part of the religious discourse during regular worship hours. His interest was not in simply chanting the slokas but highlighting how the lessons in the slokas apply to our daily lives. This is another activity that has continued with other community members participating in these weekly discourses. As such, he was very knowledgeable about Hinduism and shared his knowledge with children, youth and adults through a variety of forums. He also started chanting classes for interested adults, which was a weekly affair after the completion of Sunday worship. Dr.Lakshman was very particular about right pronunciation and took the time to ensure that the chanting class students learned properly. A final significant contribution is that he encouraged the HSS Board to introduce Hinduism classes for children, which has now been running for over ten years.

—-Suresh Kalagnanam—-

Our dear Lakshman attained the lotus feet of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba peacefully on August 11, 2013.