Embassy of India
Warsaw
*****
Press Release
Makar Sankranti was celebrated with joy at the Bednarska School in Warsaw. The Embassy of India organised a colourful event there to mark this important harvest festival of India with colourful displays of rangoli and demonstrations of kite-flying.
The event began with a group of Polish school children reciting the Gayatri Mantra to Ambassador Nagma M. Mallick. The rangoli design on the floor of the venue displayed with colour and symmetry the logo of 75 years of India’s Independence. Ambassador Mallick explained to the students the importance of this event to all Indians, especially the farming community. She explained the special foods prepared on this day, the kite-flying that characterises the festival, the group dances and bonfires that also mark it, and the significance of the rangoli tradition. She then gifted kites and sweets to the students who then enthusiastically tried to fly the kites. The faculty and the students greatly admired the rangoli.
Bednarska is a prestigious chain of eight schools that was established in Warsaw after the fall of the communist government in 1989 and is dedicated to the ideal of free inquiry, individual rights and openness to the world.The school has declared its patron to be Maharaja Digvijaysinhji, the Jams Sahib of Nawanagar who gave refuge to over a thousand Polish children in Jamnagar during the Second World War. He was elected to this position in a free vote by faculty and students of the then-newly-established school.
Warsaw
14th January, 2022
