Washington DC
July 11, 2006
Contact : info@speaksanskrit.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) 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" !