The sun rises from the west...

The rise of SANSKRIT IN GERMANY

Have you travelled somewhere, and experienced the discomfort of not understanding a laguage being spoken around you? It's quite frustrating. However, today I am writing this note to share an experience that was beyond frustrating.

Past Friday, I took time off work and attended the closing ceremony of Summer school in spoken Sankrit at South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University,Germany. It was a relatively small event with big undertaking. 13 students from all over the world attended this 2 week long intensive course in spoken Sanskrit.  At the event, they presented long speeches, a sanskrit play, and sang many subhashitas in Sanskrit. The entire program was conducted in Sanskrit.

Now, if I say that apart from 3-4 students, majority of students were NOT from South-Asian origin, would you believe it? It was not some Youtube video, I actually experienced it live. The group of students included professors, professionals from different area, and different religious background. When I talked to students, I learned that for some of them their sole motivation was their interest in this langugae and all forms of wisdom it leads to! And on the other hand, we sit in our homes, our schools and education institutions... and question, why should we learn Sanksrit?

I reached there, the program started and the first presenter was a student from Leipzig University, German origin... read a 10 page long speech...completely in sanskrit. I was sitting there, trying very hard to make sense of it all, but I could only understand it in parts. This moment was beyond frustrating when I realized that this is not German, French, Italian, or English...its *Sanskrit*, it's my own language, and yet I cannot understand it.

When a German person speaks German to me, and I don't understand...I can live with that. But what could be more embarrassing then a German person speaking Sanskrit in front of me, and I do not understand a word of it!!! 

An orthodox christian presenter said this in sanskrit, " Like fruits depend on the tree, and a tree depends on the roots... sanskrit is the root of Bharat, and without Bharat the world will be poor."

Should we sit and wait some more years, we shall see a day when more people of non-south asian origin will be knowing/speaking/studying sanskrit than the people who it absolutely belongs to... but they have massively failed to value it.

I felt more "closer to home" that day, than I have felt in many years!

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Related article: Why Should My Child Study Sanksrit? (Extreamly eye opening article, must read!)