Field Trip to Keesaragutta

The whole journey to Keesaragutta started off by teachers planning an outing for the students who were staying at the Academy during 2 weeks of October break. After lots of discussion on the safety measures and learning outcome for a trip they decided to take us to Keesaragutta village on 12^th October. Before going we received a proper email regarding the place, precautions and guidelines to follow during the trip as well as it was explained by the teachers for us a day before. Adding on, we started driving towards our destination Keesaragutta at 8:30 am and reached around 9:30-10 am. I had temples only in movies but seeing it in real life was way different especially seeing many different gods that are worshiped by people as it shows the divers sets of beliefs people have. At the same time, it was fascinating to see how people with various beliefs are coming in the same place and worshipping their gods without any disturbance to others or questioning other’s beliefs. Seeing the whole scenery of everyone coming together and juts going to their own god and having their prayers was the best example of pluralism which is the academy’s vision.

Moreover, this field trip helped us all to explore the real culture of India, Hyderabad as we have seen historical places or developed places here but not something cultural and religious which we did during this trip. This trip was an amazing experience for us to learn about Indian religions as we had storytelling in the bus about Lord Shiva which the Keesaragutta temple is famous for as well as other religion students follow. Overall, this field trip let the students learn about local culture, seeing the beautiful nature of Hyderabad and getting to know about the place they live in for the time being.

Written by Nasreen Azimi, student in Diploma Programme 2