Ever wondered what Sholay has to do with Sanskrit ? Or the popular
Bollywood number “Aati Kya Khandala”? Ask any volunteer of the “umd_
Samskritam” group and they have an answer ready. Not just an answer, they
will enthusiastically direct you to the video of the “Sholay” skit and
the “Aati Kya Khandala” song – both in Sanskrit – that they performed at an
Indian event in the US, and whose videos are available through the popular
video portal run by Google
This is one of the many new methods that this group of youngsters, mainly
students at the University of Maryland and young professionals from the
area have adopted to promote spoken Sanskrit in daily life. On July 11, they
are launching a new website – ” www.speaksanskrit.org”
So, how did it all come up ? “umd_Samskritam” began as a collaboration between DESI ( www.desiumd.org), a student group at the University of Maryland and Samskrita-Bharati ( www.samskrita-bharati.org)
in Feb 2005, with the intention of introducing spoken Sanskrit in daily
life. Having grown into a group of over 160 members and about 15 volunteers
by May 2006, in addition to coordinating the Sanskrit activities in the DC
area, they decided to launch this website which aims to function as a
repository of Sanskrit resources, link together Sanskrit activities around
the world and also promote Sanskrit through fun, and such activities as
blogging and forums.
So why July 11 ? One of the volunteers Srilatha Kuntumalla explains that it
is “Guru Puja” day and that they wanted to give a surprise Gurudakshina to
their teacher and Samskrita-Bharati volunteer, Mr Rajesh Rachabattuni.
How is this effort different from Samskrita-Bharati ? The volunteers claim
that they intend to “fill in the gaps” by providing more online resources
and also adding the youth angle to promoting Sanskrit through fun. “This
effort is supplementary to the Samskrita-Bharati efforts. We don’t intend to
duplicate anything”, said Avinash Varna, another volunteer. The website
already has mp3 versions of stories, songs, conversations, and videos of fun
skits that were performed during various Sanskrit workshops. The group has
also launched a forum two weeks before which already has about 40 members
and 120 posts.
In addition, there is a separate link for the DC area activities which
includes weekly study groups at 4 different locations, weekend workshops
once in two months, Sanskrit cultural programs in Indian community events,
library and subscriptions to popular Sanskrit magazines . The group hopes
that it can soon help create such webpages for various regions in USA where
Sanskrit groups are already active. “This is just the beginning, we have a
long way to go”. Indeed it is so, for the motto the group has adopted is
“Rachayema Samskrita Bhuvanam” which means “We shall create a Sanskrit
world” !
