Rapid urbanisation and technological advancements have brought about a significant change to modernday living with life becoming mechanical as people get almosteverything at the click of a button. What's more, changing lifestyle has reduced the life span of the present eneration due to consumption of junk food.

However, in contrast, life in the past was purely gift of nature built on hardwork and eating quality food, recipies for which were prepared on traditional manual stone-grinders, bending the body. This enabled the people to enjoy long life, even upto 100 years.

It was a typically rural-mileu replete with paddy fields, vegetable and fruit gardens, thatched hut and students dressed in
traditional rural attire, riding bullock carts and preparing Pongal (a sweet dish made of jaggery and rice) in earthern pots, ragi gruel and other dishes with the help of the stone grinder. About 4,000 students of the school worked day and night to recreate rural life in the city with inputs given by School Correspondent B Purushothaman with a rural background.It was a pleasant surprise for Tamil Nadu Agricultural Minister Veerapandi S Armuguham, who also hailed from farming community, as he admired at the craftsmanship that had gone into recreating rural settings.

He also applauded the students and the school management for their efforts in highlighting the importance of leading healthy life by following traditional practices. ''Perhaps, for the first time in my public life, I am seeing a
rural setting in a school campus,'' he said while watching a few folk dances presented by the students, including a rural number, 'Mayilattam', 'Oyilattam' and 'Kavadis'.The Minister also had a taste of some rural delicacies prepared by the students in the traditional way.