It was February 2015, a good month after my parents had returned from attending the Gita Shibiram, a 10-day workshop organised every year by Samskrita Bharati. Every day, they had a new experience to share; about what they learnt, about the people who organised and attended the workshop, about their every day routine, about the organisation’s vision and more. I listened to all of them, pleased that they had developed a passion for something valuable. Inspired by what they had experienced there, they soon began attending Level One of spoken Sanskrit as well at Ramakrishna Mutt in Mandaveli. Every week, they would wheedle me into attending the classes.

“It’s so comforting,” they would say. “It’s such a revelation!” they would add. “You learn so much about our culture,” they would claim.

And, quite like any other person my age, I would argue; Sanskrit is not for people like me. What would I achieve from learning it? Where would those skills apply? Isn’t it for old people? I’ll think about it when I am much older. I have other languages to learn now.

Of course, this thought largely arose from my earliest exposure to the language; in school. When I was in middle school, Sanskrit was my second language. I learnt Rama Shabdham over and over again until it registered in my mind, I byhearted Vishnu Sahasranamam because the teacher would point out to a student at random and ask them to recite it. I would sit up at nights and bury my nose into Sanskrit textbooks just so I fare well in the exam next day. In essence, I learnt the language because I had to clear the paper and be done with it. Little was I inclined to understand the meaning of the words, delve into the nuances of the language or understand the values it holds.

However, after much insistence, I did go for the first class. At the basement of Ramakrishna Mutt in Mandaveli, there sat close to a dozen men and women on a carpet, repeating the Aksharams, one by one, time and again. As I’d feared, the people seated in the hall were significantly older than I was. I felt momentarily out of place. However, something in me said; go with an open mind. Learn something. Anything. No matter how big or small. And I sat, at the last row, drawing my knees to my chest and taking in whatever was being taught.

A few days later, as my parents prepared to leave for the second class of the week, I meekly said; I’ll join you.

For the first month, we learnt the very basics of the language, the Sanksrit aksharams, the vowels and consonants, small action words, the meaning of such words and so on. Although I was reasonably familiar with the basics, given my prior knowledge of the language and having known Hindi (one of the languages closely associated to Sanskrit, apart from Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil and the like) there was something peculiar about how each class was held and how the learning was imparted.

Although most of us were unfamiliar with the spoken language and the meaning of the words, the teacher taught and interacted only in Sanskrit. They believed that the most effective way to learn a language was to learn it the way a child learns its mother tongue; by listening. A deeper belief they held was, since Sanskrit was one of our (Indians) most ancient languages, a language in which our ancestors are believed to have communicated, the essence of it still lives in us and hence, the language, with some effort, will come naturally to us.

Is this true? I must say with conviction, yes. It is.

Within a month, following short periods of frustration for being unable to understand certain nuances and converse smoothly, the love for the language began to grow on me. There were several life altering lessons I learnt during this period, which, if I may say, enhanced my perception of things and living. Let me share a few here.

From a learning perspective, you might wonder, what do you achieve by learning a language that adds no value to your career? Here’s what I think. Sanskrit is certainly not taught for the purpose of enhancing your career, or taking you a few steps ahead in fulfilling your material needs. In fact, it works at a grassroots level. Personally, it helped me get in touch with my roots, my heritage, my culture, my traditions. To me, that is supremely richer than any wealth I may acquire or any exposure I may gain. Because, as someone I know once said, when you take the first leap from your home into the outside world, what gives you the strength to face life and its challenges is the strong value systems you are bound by at an early age. It is that which determines your quality of life.

This naturally leads to the second obvious question; does it propagate religion? It certainly doesn’t. In fact, it teaches a universal way of life, irrespective of who we are, what class we belong to, or what beliefs we follow. It encourages unity. In today’s world, where we are often led to crossroads where we have to make a choice between what is right and wrong, where we are often faced with distress in family, work and social circles, where we often undergo periods when we question the meaning of our existence, learning this language will certainly lead us in the right direction because what is taught is an extract of the many ancient texts and scriptures which have been written in Sanskrit, ones that teach us how to improve our way of living.

But, it is a difficult language to learn. Haven’t you felt that yourself, back in school? You may ask. Truth to be said, I thought so too. But, there is a certain way in which language learning is imparted here. Like I said earlier, it is taught in the same manner that a child learns its mother tongue; by listening. Using plenty of examples, anecdotes and moral tales, they teach you the language in a manner that you understand most effectively in a short period of time. And, although we are asked to write an exam after the completion of each level, there is no stress on scores as much as there is on enabling us to learn and understand the language at our own pace. Personally, I believe such an attitude fosters a culture of learning and enables one to gain knowledge, of any sort, more effectively.

What more? No matter how connected I am to the digital world, I still envy the life I lived before being exposed to technology, when we were connected to one another in the real sense, when we lived in a colony or neighbourhood which had our backs, when conversing with a stranger sitting across us was the norm rather than conversing with someone a thousand miles away on Whatsapp. Here, it was still alive. There was a certain harmony among the people who came together to learn the language; a certain genuineness, a certain bond that cannot be explained in words but can only be compared to a time when we were more in touch with people in the real sense.

All in all, belonging to a generation where I’ve questioned the viability of every practice, custom and belief, I believe, through Sanskrit, I’ve taken the first step to find answers to the many questions I have about my roots.

Incidentally, this piece I have written is in English. But I hope, someday soon, I would have learnt the language well enough to write the same (and probably some more), in Sanskrit.