Samskrita news

[Guest guest]

For Immediate Release

Washington DC

July 11, 2006

Contact :

 

info (AT) speaksanskrit (DOT) org<http://us.f341.mail./ym/Compose?To=info@spea

ksanskrit.org ;

240-338-8525

 

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)<http://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" !