My Heritage

My mandir, my home. From the time I was born to the time I will pass, mandir has and always will be a major portion of my life. Because of mandir, I can be successful in every action I take. Now what is mandir? Mandir is another term for a temple, my place of worship. Because I am highly attached to my religion, I have learned to live a mandir centric life, with the most important thing in my life being religion. It is not only a place for worship, however. From my mandir, I learned my heritage, my culture. It taught me how to properly act in society, restraining me from doing anything unacceptable. Without having such a place in my life, I would have barely any of the skill sets I already carry, let alone have any sort of mannerism. Mandir has shaped my identity and has made me the person I am today. My mandir teaches on a broad topic, from heritage to behavior. On every Indian occasion my mandir holds an event to show us the meaning of the holidays. From Diwali (the Festival of Lights) to Holi (the Festival of Colors) the children get to India. A large part of heritage is our mother tongue, Gujarati, which my mandir holds classes for. By learning how to speak, write and read my language, I can better envelop myself

From holding speeches to dances on special occasions, my mandir invests a large amount of time on the youths. From a young age, I was set on stage and told to speak dialogue. From this I grew as a speaker and can speak in front of large crowds without any fear. From the many celebrations we hold, I learned traditional Indian dances and performed them flawlessly on stage in front of thousands of people. However, the main concept my mandir teaches is hard work. We have a saying, hard work plus prayer equals success. As long as we work hard in everything we do, and remember God every step of the way, we will be successful in everything we