It is indeed very easy to learn Sanskrit, say students

Hyderabad: "Is it really so easy to learn Sanskrit?" was the common question that people had after seeing the presentations of students who participated in the 10- day spoken Sanskrit camp held at Pearl County Society, Attapur.

As a part of the closing ceremony of the 10-day Sanskrit Camp, the students presented before their parents, family members and others what they learnt in the 10 days. In order to make this entertaining they presented it in form of short skits, songs and a few advertisements – all presented in simple Sanskrit. The audience especially loved the presentation of the "Washing Powder Nirma" advertisement in Telugu.

Parakala Prabhakar, ex MLA and advisor to CM of AP till last year was the chief guest for the function. He spoke fluently in Sanskrit for around 10 minutes. People were surprised to know that he could speak so fluently after just two months of learning Sanskrit. He also impressed upon the people that such 10-day camps served as proof to show that learning Sanskrit is not only easy but also very fast. How else he said, "could a 7- year- old kid Vivaan, one of the students in the camp, present a skit in Sanskrit by learning it for just 9 days?" He exhorted all to make efforts to learn and promote Sanskrit.

Sanjeev, Head of Samskrita Bharati, Telangana, said that Sanskrit was the mother of all mother tongues (languages) in India and learning this one language makes one familiar with most Indian languages. Roopesh Rudrakar was the teacher for the camp and also the master of ceremony for the program. In a special gesture by the students, they all presented him with a gift as a token of gratitude to mark the closure of the camp. Roopesh is a computer Engineer by qualification but a Sanskrit teacher by choice. He also teaches German besides Sanskrit and is fluent in Hindi, English, Marathi and Tamil among other languages.

The success of the camp could be seen from more and more people wanting to organise camps at their respective gated communities and also wanting to participate in new camps. Another 10- day camp was finalised at Ambience Fort, Attapur to start towards end of April.

This "Learn Sanskrit in 10 Days Camp" was organised in a unique effort to popularise Sanskrit and to prove that learning Sanskrit is not only easy but also great fun. The camp was organised on the initiative of the Pearl County Residential Society in collaboration with Samskrita Bharati. Classes were held for 2 hours each day (8 am to 10 am) from April 15-23, with today April 24th being the closing ceremony. Around 40 students ranging from kids as young as 7 years to the elderly as old as 67 years participated in the programme.

A unique aspect about the program is the method of teaching. There are no text books or note books required. No reading / writing but only oral instruction. Just like the kids learn to speak in their mother tongue just by listening to the elders, the students in the camp also learnt to speak Sanskrit by listening to and conversing with the teacher.

And Wednesday's ceremony was a demonstration of the prowess they picked up in just nine days.