Sangh Shiksha Varg (SSV) 2022

What if you’re told that for 9 days you had to survive without your phone, laptop or TV, live without eating meat or spicy food even once and wake up at 6 am every day even though you slept at 11 pm the night before? Would you be able to do it? What if you’re told it is a lot of fun and these things wouldn’t bother you for the entire 9 days? Would you believe them? Well if you don’t, I am here to tell you that whatever you read was the truth. Still don’t believe me? Well then read on and you’ll find I’m not lying.

SSV (Sangh Shiksha Varg) is a 9-day camp organised by HSS (Hindu Swamsevak Sangh) where you have to go to a school and live there for 9 days right after the summer break starts. There you develop many skills such as discipline, self-defence, group discussions and intellectual skills just to name a few. This wasn’t possible in 2021 because of Covid so we had to do it online (which was honestly quite dull), but this year a full-blown SSV was going to happen no matter what and I couldn’t wait.

I’ll admit at the start I had my doubts and was on the fence about if I wanted to go or not but in the end, I decided I might as well give it a shot. So I packed my bags ready to go to Leicester, thinking about how this was going to be the last time I saw my phone for 9 whole days and how this entire trip could be a huge mistake. 4 hours later at 10 am, I arrived at the venue and the first thing that struck me was the surrounding greenery. There were hills as far as the eye could see. Even on the inside, the school felt nice and cool being there and it was quite spacious as well. I thought that this secondary school was probably the best place that could have been chosen for the event. I was also astounded by the number of people I saw there (I found later on that there were around 400 people across the UK there). However, what worried me was that I couldn’t see many people that I knew. That meant I had to pretty much spend 9 days with total strangers. First I got my ID card and was sent to my room. The room I was in was decently sized so when it came to holding 17 people and their belongings in it, it was an easy fit. Every single classroom also had a smart TV. Every single one! The camp was split off into 5 different year groups. Prathmik (First Years), Pravesh (Second Years, also the year group I was in), Praveen (Third Years), Pravandhak (Fourth Years) and finally Prabhod (Adults who joined SSV for the first time). After I was all set with my bed (consisting of a sleeping mat, sleeping bag and a pillow) it was time to move on to the activities.

We started it off with something fun. Games. We played games where we had to know each other’s names and this helped us slowly familiarise ourselves with them. It wasn’t easy of course. We would keep forgetting or mixing up the names and we struggled quite a bit but after a while, we would instantly know who was who. After that came lunch. Contrary to my previous assumptions, it turned out that the food was delicious. They served pasta and it tasted amazing so I just had to take seconds and thirds. So food-wise, it was looking quite good. After that, we did something called a Baudhik which is like the learning aspect of SSV where you learn and discuss certain topics. Since it was the first day, we didn’t do a topic. Instead, we played games which are usually played sitting down. When that finished we had a Shakha within our year groups which lasted for around 2 hours. We did exercise, followed commands and played a few games. Then came dinner which was a classical Indian meal. After we were all stuffed, we went back up to our rooms and played an interactive game called The Cube. We were split into groups of 3. There were three rounds where you were asked questions such as how many circles are flying across the screen. It was really fun and it was quite challenging because you blink your eyes once and you’ve probably messed up. We tied first place so we just had to have a tie-breaker. One person from the two teams had to come and do the plank as long as possible. We lost but just by a fraction of a second. Then came the time to sleep. My sleep, as I predicted, wasn’t that great. It felt like sleeping on the floor as the sleeping mat didn’t make much of a difference. So when I woke up, I felt like I had just done an all-nighter.

The second day is where the actual activities began. I woke up every day at half 5 (which was a pain to do) so I didn’t have to wait in the queue when I had a shower. The day’s activities consisted of Morning Shakha, Breakfast, Baudhik, Khel (Games), Lunch, Baudhik Activities, Evening Shakha, Dinner and Night Activities. The morning Shakhas were extremely dull and tiring as I just never had enough sleep and it would take every last bit of my energy to just move my body. We did Dumbells and Vyayamyog (kind of like starjumps but with a twist) and Yoga. After that, I would do a Ni-Yuddh (Martial Arts) workshop and it was quite interesting. I learnt how to break my falls and get out of tough locks. Breakfast was my energiser. The tea is what managed to get me through the day. That would make me feel as if I had a great night’s sleep. I had told my mother this and she was quite worried, so we bought an air mattress over there. That improved my sleep exponentially in the following days and made me grateful we bought it. Baudhik came next. Last year’s online SSV was worse than just boring since you had to sit on a chair listening to someone drone on. This time however they were interactive. The topics were also very interesting for example, I found out that as a Hindu, you can choose whatever path you want to follow with no restrictions, as long as they’re the right thing to do. Khel was probably one of the best activities. We played rough games such as Bulldogs where you would get pinned down by at least 5 people at once or Kabaddi (Indian wrestling) where you never know who might come up behind you and tackle you down. Baudhik activities are where you learn about how you should take a Baudhik if you are given an opportunity. In the evening shakha, you are sort of in charge in the first half where you have a chance to take some of the activities which are then followed by Ni-Yuddh and Dand (which is a long stick you use for self-defence as well). Then finally in our night activities, every day we did a different activity. It varied from board games, song competitions, talent shows, team-building activities, role play and so much more. The whole day was packed with amazing activities.

The first few days did go by quite sluggishly. Every time I looked at the watch it was as if an hour had already passed but in reality, it was just 20 minutes. The day took forever to end and it didn’t help that at the start I used to get awful sleep. But slowly the days picked up their pace and started zooming past. I would check the watch and wouldn’t believe so much time had passed. I wasn’t even missing my phone because we had so much to do. We even took our own Baudhiks for 6–7 minutes. Mine was about Chandragupta Maurya and I told a story about his life. Dand and Khel were probably the best parts. Dand because it was cool moving the sticks in all these different ways and Khel because all the games just kept getting better and better. I got to know so many people and on day 3 it was as if we had known each for a few weeks. It was as if every day was a celebration because of all the fun we had. I even bought a flute and learnt how to play 6 or 7 notes of music.

On day 6, I just couldn’t believe the time had gone this fast. But then our shikshak (Teacher or Leader) dropped the atomic bomb on us. The tests were coming up and if we failed, we were going to get held back a year. I was horrified at the fact that we came out here for a 9-day camp and had to get tested on everything. But at the same time, I should have also expected it. I was going to get tested in Dand, Ni-Yuddh, following commands, Dumbbells, Vyayamyog, Yoga, the notes I made in Baudhik and prayers and songs. All of these things and I had about 2 days to revise them. I started rushing through everything, refining Baudhik notes and practising postures. I did not want to fail.

Day 8 arrived. The day of the test. The shikshak walks up to us and simply says, “To fail the tests you have to be stupid enough to mix up a square with a triangle”. If you were to fail, you had to try hard. We were all worried about nothing. Nonetheless, I was still worried. I messed up in Yoga, Dand, Ni-Yuddh and Vyayamyog because my head would start mixing things up. Prayers and song wise I did well since the guy marking me told me I had done really good in it. But at the end of the day, the tests were finished and we had a 90-minute Khel session to look forward to next. We were divided into twelve groups and moved from one station to another. The stations varied from riddles to extreme dodgeball and it was tons of fun. Then we all sat down ready to end the day and from nowhere the fourth years come out with buckets filled with water balloons and launched them at us. One landed at my feet and splashed up soaking my legs and a bit of my torso. Some people had it worse like having an entire water bucket dumped on them. It was so fun and it was perfect for the warm weather. That was probably one of the best days in SSV. We even got pizzas that day and I had 7 or 8 pieces.

Then the final day arrived. We all packed everything up, put the classroom back to how it was before we came there and vacuumed every inch of the floor. Then we went to the main hall. We all had to be in uniform and had to be on our best behaviour as the parents were coming. We were all going to march outside, doing displays of Ni-Yuddh, Dand and Yoga and show them all that we had done during these 9 days. However, the weather started becoming grim and we had to cancel it. It had been sunny all week but right as we were going to make our parents proud, the weather decided it was the right time to take a turn for the worse. We all sat inside. People came and gave speeches. We even had a Conservative MP (Theresa Villiers) come there. Then it finally ended. We were free to go. The whole 9-day trip had finished and it was much sooner than I expected. It is said that time is relative to your experiences. The more fun you have, the faster time goes. I must have had a lot of fun because time flew like the wind. As I was leaving I realised how much I was going to miss this and the friends I made and thought about how I was coming next year. No hesitations.