Kumari Extension Activities:

Learning about the Kumari could easily lend itself to a continuation of the study of beauty. Students would have the option of focusing on one of the following possibilities:

1. Create a book of images from the internet about the Kumari. Create a pamphlet about the ritual as well as an accompanying podcast.

2. Choose one interesting beauty practice, such as tattoos, cosmetics or piercings, and investigate the history of the practice throughout time and in
different countries. Create an illustrated timeline of your findings.

3. Find quotations about beauty from different countries. Create a book of these quotations that has a different quotation on each page, a picture of
someone from the culture from which the quotation originates "demonstrating" thatquotation, and write a response to what this quotation means to you.

4. Research the history of beauty pageants and create a timeline. Where are such contests most popular today as opposed to the past? How many different "themes" or types of pageants can you find? Aside from measuring competitors' attractiveness, have pageants served any other purposes?

5. Research about what has happened to women who once were Kumari Devis. Was it difficult for them to return to "normal" life? How did their lives
change once they were no longer Kumaris?

Note: This lesson adapts ideas from Only Skin Deep. http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2001/05/23/only-skin-deep/