AP youngsters organise cultural activities for Sankranti to avoid cockfights

Vijayawada: Unlike other villages in coastal districts, many youngsters who are educated and professionals working in corporate firms in various places, are busy in making shuttle badminton courts, decorating the venues where cultural activities will be held at Penamakuru village in Krishna district.  

What more, children aged between six years and 15 years are seriously practicing dance for devotional and patriotic songs to perform at the venue. All these activities take place every year in Penamakuru village that comes under Vijayawada police commissionerate to divert the attention of youngsters and students to games and cultural events rather than illegal activities of gambling and cockfights during Sankranti.

Having an experience in organising such activities in the village for more than three decades, the Bharata Yuvajana Sangham, a youth welfare organisation, is all set to conduct the 31st annual games meet at Penamakuru to mark Sankranti.
“A few years ago, many youngsters and children, clad in murky clothes, had indulged in illegal activities like cockfights and gambling during Sankranti.

Ever since, the Bharat Yuvajana Sangham started in organising games meet, we changed the mindset of youngsters not to indulge in illegal activities. They are totally changed now and participating in games.

Some youngsters participate in the games and cultural events and other take the responsibility in organising those activities during Sankranti in Penamakuru,’’ explains M. Timothi, an MBA graduate and president of Bharata Yuvajana Sangham.

In 1980, former sarpanch of the village M. Nageswara Rao had created the trend by organising such games and cultural events in protecting Sankranti festival and its tradition while preventing illegal activities of gambling and cockfights.

Attracted by this new trend in the village, youngsters who finished their higher education in various streams and working in various corporate firms in different places in the state and other places in the country have started a youth welfare organisation — Bharat Yuvajana Sangham. They have been continuing the games meet in Penamakuru to prevent illegal activities.

Penamakuru finds a place in textbook for Class IV
Penamakuru, a village in Krishna delta, is part of the Social Studies textbook of Class VI prescribed by the State Council of Educational Research and Training. One of the invisible developments registered here was the stunning growth in the population in recent years.

‘Penamakuru – A village in Krishna Delta’ is in the Social Studies textbook of -VI. The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT-AP), has included the story of Penamakuru village in the series of Diversity on the Earth.

It narrates the changes witnessed in the agrarian village on several fronts — agriculture, rural economy, modes of ownership of land, livelihood options and diversification of crops on the deltaic land. The SCERT syllabus with the village story was prescribed from the academic year 2012-13 both for Telugu and Enlgish medium and is being distributed across the state.

“A drastic change in our lives over the years has made our village one of the ideal villages in the Krishna delta. There were unpredictable changes in crop pattern and growth in agriculture-allied sectors and food production,” Penam-akuru sarpanch (1995-2002) Mareedu Nagesw-ara Rao said.

The lesson compiled with 14 pictures of the village on various aspects of life and geographical conditions, including village map, tells a complete tale of all-round development of an agrarian pocket in Andhra Pradesh.