(RNS) — As the school year begins, many children around the country fondly look back at their time spent at summer camp making arts and crafts, playing dodgeball or performing in an end-of-camp talent show.
But for the kids who attended the Houston area’s annual Hindu Heritage Youth Camp, this year’s camp was memorable for more than just the giant waterslide.
The camp was held for the first time on its very own 52-acre Texas Hindu Campsite, where kids performed surya namaskar (sun salutation), bhajans (devotional songs) and aartis (lamp rituals).
“Growing up, I wasn’t surrounded by kids that shared that culture,” said 27-year-old Abhimanyu Aggarwal, former HHYC counselor turned steering committee director. “It always kind of seemed boring to some degree. But camp is a place where you can feel comfortable with your culture, with your traditions, and you can learn about it from people who are not that old. So that helps make it seem more normal.”
Senior campers perform surya namaskar, or sun salutations, during the Hindu Heritage Youth Camp at the Texas Hindu Campsite near Houston. (Photo courtesy Hindu Heritage Youth Camp)
Normalizing Hindu rituals, beliefs and philosophy in the context of young Americans’ lives is what the HHYC set out to do when it began in 1985. Since then, thousands of children from fourth to 12th grade have learned how to incorporate Hindu spiritual practices into their daily lives. But rather than from an outdated textbook or their older, immigrant community members, these kids are learning just how cool Hinduism can be from their peers who look, talk and act just like them.
“One big thing that we try to drive is how can we make sure the lessons we teach in camp are applicable to our everyday lives,” Aggarwal said. “Karma yoga is a big part of that — no matter your profession, your field, or even what you’re doing, you know there’s a pathway to God, just with action.”
The organization had rented spaces from Christian and Jewish campgrounds for decades but encountered restrictions such as no idol worship or Hindu group prayer. With the new campsite providing a sense of stability and continuity, HHYC aims to keep shaping and forming another generation of future Hindu leaders.
Around the Texas area and beyond, hundreds of kids waited for the chance to sign up for camp, filling spots in just 10 minutes in April. This year in July, 380 campers traveled to the Houston area for five days of friendship, faith and, of course, homemade food, from a woman they lovingly call auntie. From sunrise to sunset, kids participate in both American and Indian cultural activities, from playing classic schoolyard games to throwing colored powder at each other for “Holi Day.”
Most of the campers hail from Texas or Southern states, but some arrive from overseas.
For 13-year-old Naina Mehra, camp is where “everyone is almost just like her.” Though her town north of Austin is relatively diverse, she said, it is still uncommon to connect with others on the basis of shared Hindu heritage. As a third-year camper, Mehra said she makes a new lifelong friend every time she comes back.
Hindu Heritage Youth Campers pose for photos during Holi Day festivities at the Texas Hindu Campsite near Houston. (Photo courtesy Hindu Heritage Youth Camp)
“I think it’s important that you find peers that have been through the same things as you, like who knows what it’s like to be a Hindu kid in Texas,” Mehra said. “I come here every year, and I know I’m gonna find someone that is going to know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Mehra and her older brother, Rohit, were encouraged to go to camp by their parents, who met as camp counselors during HHYC’s inaugural years. Naina said her parents “just love it” when the siblings come home singing the new bhajans or reciting the Bhojan mantra, a prayer said before consuming a meal.
To older generations of Hindu immigrants like his parents, Rohit said, the camp is not only a source of joy, but a confirmation that the kids are all right.
“To bring people together into this community, it’s just strengthening the group as a whole and allowing the next generation to just keep going with knowledge and the ideas of Hinduism, so it doesn’t just die out,” he said.
And importantly, Naina said, camp gives kids a space to be outspoken about their identity, something not always easily afforded to them in the real world.
“A lot of times in schools, people do get shamed a little bit for their culture,” she said. “And I think being in an environment where that is completely out of the question, that really helps.”
Junior campers work on crafts during the Hindu Heritage Youth Camp at the Texas Hindu Campsite near Houston. (Photo courtesy Hindu Heritage Youth Camp)
For three hours in a day, campers sit in what HHYC calls “educations,” or seminars on Hindu history and traditions. Taught by counselors in their 20s, the classes cater to youth based on their age group. While junior campers may learn about the origins of Diwali or act out stories from the Ramayana, for example, senior campers tackle concepts with more mature themes, such as reincarnation and afterlife, human rights and social justice.
The idea behind educations, said lifelong camper and counselor Akash Tarkunde, 25, is in part to combat negative imagery and misinformation about Hindus and Indians that he said flood social media. By sitting through these seminars without phones, children gain a true sense of camaraderie with their peers, he said.
“In the United States, there’s a lot of pockets of Indian people and a lot of Hindu communities, but overall, we are still definitely a minority,” Tarkunde said. “So being in a place where you can be comfortable and be proud of who you are and where you come from, I think, is really important.”
Tarkunde started coming to camp when he was in elementary school, and he has since watched the other campers “grow from year to year, getting taller, being bigger, getting smarter and more insightful, and more mature.”
For Aggarwal, while organizing camp was a little more hectic this year with a new campsite, it was all the more rewarding.
“At the end of camp, I usually get a flood of text messages from parents saying how much fun their child had, that they come home singing bhajans,” Aggarwal said. “And honestly, one of the best parts of the year is reading through all those texts and seeing the impact you can have.”
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