Ahmedabad academy uses film dialogues to popularise Sanskrit

Ahmedabad, Sep 6 (PTI) A city-based academy has hit upon
a novel idea to popularise country's oldest language and has
taken the help of Indians' biggest passion--Hindi movies.

A Sanskrit-teaching academy here has taken up the mantle
to bust the popular notion that the language is hard to learn
and of little use.

Eklavya Sanskrit Academy (ESA) here in the western
state of Gujarat is using dialogues from super hit Hindi films
like Sholay and Deewar, and is translating them in Sanskrit to
popularise the ancient language among the youth and general
public.

"There is a myth prevailing among people that Sanskrit is
a difficult language. They also think of it as a language
which has no use," Mihir Upadhyay, director of the academy,
told PTI.

"But, the language has immense potential. Even the
advertising world quotes Sanskrit shlokas and many manuscripts
hold great knowledge. We want to create awareness about
Sanskrit and promote research," he said

"We also want to show people that Sanskrit is an easy
and interesting language. To popularise it, we recently
did an experiment by using dialogues of around 17 super hit
Hindi films to attract people, mainly youths," Upadhyay said.

For example, the famous dialogue by Amjad Khan (Gabbar)
in film Sholay, "Ab tera Kya Hoga Kalia? (What will happen to
you Kalia), will become "Kaalia, tav ki bhavisyasi?" in
Sanskrit.

Another dialogue between Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi
Kapoor in the film Deewar -- "Mere paas gadi hai bungalow hai
paisa hai...tumhare paas kya hai ? Mere paas maa hai... (I
have car, bunglow, money.. what do you have? I have my mother)
has been translated in Sanskrit.

It is read as 'Mam samipe yanam asti dhanam asti bhavanam
asti sarvam asti bhavatah samipe kim asti ? Mam samipe mata
asti'.

The four-year old academy has 190 members who gather on
the last Saturday of every month and discuss various issues.

It offers both short-term and long-term courses and is
aimed at people who want to learn Sanskrit.

"We have a three months course which helps the students
learn the language. The classes are held three days as week in
the evening," Upadhyay said, adding that they also provide
diploma in Sanskrit teaching for teachers.

"We also have a project where we teach Sanskrit to
children from kindergarten to class 8, using combination of
the language and child psychology," he added.

Upadhyay said there were 16 persons who teach at the
academy and they do it on voluntary basis. PTI PB
JVN


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