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When I come to Sanskrit conference in India, a Sanskrit conference never starts without what? Without an invocation. Yes. Nothing can start in India. Not even a Sanskrit conference, academic conference without a a deeper and a chanting.
So may we start our meeting? Yes. Through the chanting of Guru Shloka. So with bows to my guru. And only after that something can happen in India.
Before that, the sun does not rise, rickshaws don’t drive. Sure. Our culture is so and we are like connecting everything with divine helps us to work better. That is the secret. Yes, if in India someone is late, he can always tell that he was in the temple, you can never tell that that’s bad that he was late for your meeting because if he tells that he was in the temple, then that means how how can it be bad?
Yes. Of course. And there are like many many advantages of that as well. So we can put everything on God, isn’t it? So we need one head to put all our mistakes on.
So that is the place where he takes. There was a like a small small movie that he said, like if you if you bet or if you like take a wrong promise on the name of God, if anything goes wrong, no. No. It’s it’s by both. Promise by this person, then the person might die if we say it wrong.
Then this fellow says if you put it on God, God won’t die. Okay. I love that idea. So God cannot die, so we can put all everything on God. Right.
So I would want you to tell so this is the third time I speak with a Sanskrit score from India. The first time was Madhav Deshpande. The second time was Pune, Sarojabhate, and now it’s Ushasankha. So there are three scores in a line, and I would want to hear about how can one become Usha Sankha? How can one become Usha Rani Sankha?
And what was the biography? What was the early days of becoming, Usha? Can you tell where are you from? Where are you now? Can you please tell me about yourself?
I was born in Hyderabad, under it was like a part of Andhra Pradesh then. Now it’s a part of Telangana state. Like, we have different states in India. So now I stay in Andhra Pradesh part when after the division in Tirupati. So it’s like That means that means actually it’s like nowadays it’s two different parts.
So you were born in one part and now you live in a different part. Different part. Okay. So I can still say I was born born in Andhra Pradesh and I live in Andhra Pradesh. So but now the telegram that Hyderabad part became as a separate part.
So that is the issue. And then like II was there till like my father got transferred to. It is in Pradesh and then like we had a chance to visit different places in India like for three to four years. My father was in Bihar. He worked in Patna.
We went there for some time, then we were shifted to Bhopal. After that, we again came to Hyderabad. So all this like visiting in the North India, etcetera, has been a very good productive effect upon me. Like I picked up Hindi and all that. So I was connected with Hindi.
And then I studied in Bhopal. That is where, like, it is important because the North India system has some script in the curriculum, in the school curriculum. The South India But not in Telang, not in the place where you stay? No. No.
Not here. They don’t introduce until we take it at the optional, the plus two after 10 standard. Right. Opt for it. Otherwise, they don’t have Sanskrit much in the schooling level.
Understood. So the South, you can have only as an option after tenth grade? Yes. Tenth grade. Correct.
Correct. Okay. Yes. And if you if you are like, there are central schools in it, everybody knows about it. So we have two systems of education.
One is the state described education, the state director and other is the central director. So, the central director education has some script since like maybe standard fifth or standard sixth sixth grade. From there, they start And it continues. If the student opts for it in the higher level, in the plus two, in the eleventh, eleventh grade, twelfth grade, then also they can study it. But there are around 20 state universities for, like, like, not not universities, schools.
Like, how many schools are there? There are many states are there, as many schools. Like, we have different state boards. And then we have It’s hard to get there, right? Hard in what sense?
Like, you went to a state school, right? I went to a state school, true. Because getting to non state school would be hard in what meaning it is expensive for or too many people are No. It’s like there are certain employee employees who are, like, allowed to get an admission there. So there are certain institutions where our father, if the fathers work there, the children get the the child.
So it depends not on yourself but on your father. Father. Yes. Yes. True.
Until then, until my time, it was like that. I don’t know the present situation. Mhmm. So when we were, like, I was doing my sixth standard, seventh standard, then I went to. So at that point of time, central school was not in the access of my father’s institution.
Mhmm. He worked with Nava Bank. It was like National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. So in that bank, he used to work. So our bank people didn’t have any, like, special Disney and, previously, we not have any way to enter that.
Yes. Understood. So you were you were raised up not in Hyderabad? Like, until my sixth standard, I was in Hyderabad. From seventh standard onwards till my BSc first year, I was in Bhopal for seven years.
Then then we again came back to Hyderabad, and then I finished my, like, bachelor’s, my master’s in Hyderabad. Then again, I came for PhD to, like, Tirupati. It was like all these places I had the studies in parts, different parts, different slots. So they are different. The South and the North, they are different.
Much different. Very much different. Yes. Like, in what kind of ways? Like, in in the part of education?
Okay. So you could have in the North, you had Sanskrit started earlier in the school, right? Yes. Yes. Was it good?
I mean, do you see that it actually affected your knowledge and, Yes. Yes. Of course. Yes. It does have it.
When you study a subject, when you study a language, when you study something during the schooling, it definitely has a good effect upon the life. Sure. Like in South, we don’t have much respect for Sanskrit, but I saw that in the North, they respect Sanskrit. In Karnataka, like, Karnataka belongs to a South state, but there is lot of, like, respect for Sanskrit, and we find, like, lot of work going on in that state. Andhra Pradesh is much behind in that.
I mean, I belonged there. Not maybe even actually behind but it’s like it’s a question of politics maybe even that that they are trying to show the strength of the South and ignoring the strength of the North. Correct. Correct. So this was the, like, Aryan invasion theory.
Everything can be explained. Like, it all goes again to those things and, like, the political parties which are ruling, they want certain things to be like they want mother tongue to be over Sanskrit, and some people, they’ll build the clashes without knowing, without let me they’re very ignorant. They think that Sanskrit is a different language from the from from our mother tongue. So, like, Telugu. So your mother tongue is?
Telugu. Telugu. Like, I’m Telugu person. My both my parents are Telugu, so I’m also Telugu. So they even in Andhra Pradesh, like, they have been, like, like, now what they are divided, my mother belong to Telangana, my father belong to Andhra Pradesh.
So it was like that. So I had an advantage of, like there is a, like, what you call as a slang kind of, you know, the the different the lang the same language but different accents, different, like, the the word vocabulary. They were both a bit different. Right? Yes.
They were they were different. They were a bit different, and they had the advantage, like, mother’s side relatives speak Telangana more. Father’s side people speak like Andhra. We we call it Andhra, Telangana, Telangana, Telangana. So it’s like that.
So I had advantage of all this. So I could make the, you know, like, the best of it. So your first touch with Sanskrit was not in family, but in school? No. It was in family.
Definitely not in school. Like, I I enjoyed it more in school because I had the background right from the family. It’s my grandmother. It’s my paternal grandmother whom I I want to, like, remember with great reverence that she had been, like, the the pole, the central pole in our family for all the language, but whatever happened in our family, like my cousins, me and whoever are, like, attracted to language and whoever is working, like, working with the language have the they they take the like you know name of my grandmother that her affect her like what what she generated in us is working through all of us. Like that.
So she used to be like lot of story good good storyteller. And then she used to tell all the stories and all. Used to read she used to read slokas. And then we knew the importance of chanting much before, like, others realized. I saw that even after, like, long time, they don’t realize even now there are people who are, like, somewhere around 50, 80 years old, but they don’t know that chanting is important.
We should we should learn pronunciation. They don’t realize it. But we realized it much earlier in our childhood that chanting, we should not chant wrong. The mantras are very important. All these things, as we call it, the pronunciation aspect.
Even in our, like, Telugu words where we use the Sanskrit words, they used to correct us. No. This is not this. Should say like this. Like for for example, Telugu people have a they say the.
But then there’s no no. It’s not the it’s like you should say. All these things like we were. My father was like very early. I remember my sixth class experience when I was in I’ve used to learn music and my teacher taught like.
One like that is there on musical competition that’s like word and we we are three like I have two brothers, one younger and one elder. We three used to sit and, like, sing my father. My father was also a, musician. He used to, like, take our like, you’re saying what your teacher do or just sing something. You’re saying, we said, ma’am.
So no. No. How can it be ma’am Dara? It should be ma’am Dara, isn’t it? Because it’s the.
Two hidden I I don’t know if he knew at that point of time. Like, it’s a rule by Ashtadiai Panini Sutra and all that. I don’t know if he knew the technical details, but he corrected us. So it cannot be. It can be.
So like this, we had, like, a lot of, like, things around the the joke. They used to make language jokes with a little like one one consonant changed the meaning changes the letter some words are very alike right. So we say it one way. It means something other way. It means something else so just one letter changing one deal guarded one small thing changed, and it it it is hilarious.
It’s like sometimes it it results in lot of, like, very comedy situations and all that. We used to have that all day in our house. Like, almost we used to we have that fun, have that great and all along with my father, my my my brothers and mother. Everybody used to have that, you know, that And and it’s and it was all in Telugu or in Sanskrit? Yes.
It was in Telugu, but it felt like Telugu chanting. Telugu. Telugu chanting is not totally different than Sanskrit chanting. Right? Yes.
Yes. It’s it’s much inspired from Sanskrit and we have lot of things in common with Sanskrit in Telugu. Telugu is a separate. We cannot call it totally like, you know, only it’s it’s it’s only Sanskrit, all everything. No.
Telugu has her own, like, culture, her own, like, the system of the chandas. There are many, many beautiful rules in the Telugu, which are much like, we cannot say it, but we can say much much elaborate and much expanded in Telugu. So that means that your Telugu chanting experience in the family helped later for the Sanskrit chanting. Right? Yeah.
Like, my grandmother used to, like, do some household chores. While doing it, she used to sing stotras. So it was like in the evening time, we should remember Bhagawan. So they were very religious. They were very, very, like, staunch into spirituality.
And all these, like they’ve always connected with Bhagawan. Whatever stories they told, whatever they are there, whatever conversations happened, like there are some dharmic things like there is a there is a like difficult situation, then they are thinking about it, to resolve it and all. So there used to be a lot of like dharmic. I know we should not do this. We should do this.
So then they quoted some rule from the some Sanskrit text. So these things were very, like, common. I grew up with all these. So that’s right. It’s like the the the part of Telugu where either like, it’s twofold.
Either the direct Sanskrit words are inside the Telugu language or those which are, like, affected by the Sanskrit words. Like, those which go by the grammar and all. But could you give, like, five examples of each of those? I mean, of directly and those that are connected, like, how the word sounds in Sanskrit and how the word sounds in Telugu? Yes.
There are. But right now, I don’t remember. I can I can I can tell them? Maybe I can I have to? Yeah.
Yeah. They come even today, like, they come in my like, when I’m translating from Telugu or to Telugu. So we have such issues. Like, we have to take care. Oh, this word doesn’t mean this in Sanskrit.
It means different in Telugu. So we had such like once I started learning Sanskrit academically, I had to, like, correct false friends of the translator. Yes. Yes. Many times I find that the the the person is not aware of this fact that so he’s or she’s doing it wrongly.
I become aware of that by this, like this. We call it. So that is the the exact Sanskrit word in Telugu. That was something which changed from the the like, some some some word is there, just some consonant or some verbal changes and it becomes a new word in Telugu. It’s like that.
Right. So at what time did you understood that you want to go deeper in the Sanskrit? So it was not in the sixth grade, was it? No. It was not in sixth grade.
No. So when? What what what happened? Did you meet a teacher or you had to choose because you’re getting older? So it it was very interesting.
I remember one event, like, it was not sudden. It was not, like, a quick event or quick person that changed it. It was an idea that changed it. I really remember that fond moment when I was, like, reading my English text, actually. I was I was in eighth grade.
I was in eighth grade, and I was, like, reading my English reader, and they was, like, the word is divisible. That was the idea of this. You know, notion. The same no and t I o is a different it’s two fold. Like, concentration.
So concentration. So it’s like three words, three put together. Three parts, three morphemes. Three three sub sub elements which are joining as one single word. I went to my father running.
I remember. So he said like, I I told him, father, do you know this? You know, word is divisible. So where where can I learn this? I mean, I it was just one, like, exercise in the whole textbook, and I I said, where can I expand this idea?
Where can I learn? Right. What should I do in order to, like, explore this field more? Then he told me that you have to do MA English, something like that, because I was English like, I was I picked up the English text. So he said for the language and all, you have to do masters, master of arts.
And in that, you have these all these things. But at that time, I was like a aspirant for medicine. I was it was like a I wanted to do, like, my my my after twelve, I wanted to do my bachelor’s in medicine, but it didn’t happen. Then I had to change my field. Then these all these put together such experiences like my grandmother, my my family background, and all this already in the schooling where from the sixth grade it started.
And, like, Sanskrit was like, the schooling, we are not, like, given so much depth, like, though I remember my teachers even today, my Sanskrit teachers even today. But it was not very deep. It was more like exam oriented, like this question, this answer, just read this line, remember and write, and all these things. I don’t know why my classmates would always face difficulty, but I would always understand the text rightly with Sanskrit and all. My own study also used to be there.
And that, like, helped me when it came to, like, career choosing, then I had no difficult time choosing Sanskrit. So that was the idea. Like, word is divisible. How to understand it? How to work on words?
So that brought me to Sanskrit. But you went to MA for English? No. I went to MA for English after my Sanskrit. Kindergarten two years.
Then we have the first grade, first standard to tenth standard as one unit. Then the third unit is the plus two, we call it. Either it’s the college system or it’s the schooling. But with the eleventh and twelfth grade, we call it. Like Mhmm.
I studied in that eleventh and twelfth grade system, whereas in Andhra Pradesh, in in Telugu states, it is like inter inter intermediate. We call it intermediate. So it’s schooling to college. It’s an immediate college in in the middle. But then that is another I didn’t study that.
I studied the plus two system at the eleventh. After that, we have three years of bachelor’s bachelor’s course. That is, like, three years degree, we call it degree. So three year degree. And then that we then we have an MA, master of arts.
That is two years. Okay. So you went for bachelor’s for what? Bachelor’s were we I had three combinations. So I had like, we had, like, CL Sanskrit.
That is classical language Sanskrit. Mhmm. ML English, modern language English. Mhmm. And then psychology.
So these three were my optionals. And you went for what university? I went to like, I I studied in the university college for women. It is in the. It’s called in Hyderabad.
I studied in Hyderabad. So we we came back from Gopal. Then the plus like, after plus two, we came to Hyderabad back. Then I joined this college. It’s a university college for women.
So it’s Sanskrit English and psychology in one? All, like, we had three options. Like, in the in the bachelor’s degree, things like that. We have to choose three options. So others choose, like, sociology, like, administration, lot of other other art.
So that means at that state, that was not a lot of Sanskrit. I mean, it was there, but it there’s not a lot not at all many hours per day. True. True. True.
So it was like classical language. Sanskrit is a special way. The subject itself is Sanskrit. It’s not like one language. Like, we have apart from these three optionals that we choose, the main study areas, we have, like, two language also, like one English and one Sanskrit.
That’s as a second language. So that many people used to take their second language option for Sanskrit, but I took it for, like, the classical language. That was my main option. So there, it really brought change. That part made me, like, academically and as a career as a career, I am now with some studies like that.
Though it’s one of the three, but it’s the main that I could study. Mhmm. So that was your first bachelor? Yes. That is the bachelor’s, the three years.
And then I out of these three, I chose Sanskrit. For MA? For MA. For MA. MA.
MA is like all Sanskrit. Now this is the main place where everything becomes like Sanskrit and the total studies become Sanskrit. So that is the part. But the studies were not in Sanskrit. They are.
I mean, you can study Sanskrit in Sanskrit or you can study Sanskrit in English. So what was the medium? So it was like, luckily, before us, like, one batch before us, our senior batch, until then it was like Telugu, anything was allowed. But later, they shifted the system to only English and, like, other like, if you are studying Telugu as your masters, then you can write in Telugu. If you are doing Hindi, then Hindi.
Marathi. Marathi. All others English and Sanskrit in Sanskrit. So our Sanskrit people have a disadvantage. I should call it the advantage for me that they all know little English.
They are not very good in English. Okay. Okay. All the Sanskrit people who study through the traditional means become teachers later in the universities and all. They have great difficult time with English.
Like like our Russian students, some students don’t have much like English. Same happens in India. Right. So they are good with their mother tongue. They’re good with Sanskrit, but they are not good with English.
So that is where our teachers chose to teach us in Sanskrit. So that way I’m So you were taught Sanskrit in Sanskrit? In Sanskrit. Yes. Yes.
So it was like Usmania University in Hyderabad. It’s a very old university, Usmania. So there I studied in the arts college. It was a wonderful time in my life, and all the students who came were also from traditional college. Like, they studied in like you said, until my bachelor’s, it was, like, different optionals.
I I had but Sanskrit has only one of others. But these people who were my classmates happened to study Sanskrit since their childhood. Like, they They they had more Sanskrit background than you. Yes. Yes.
Yes. 101% more. They were all very, very deeply, like, grounded into Sanskrit. They could speak in Sanskrit, and it was like, ah. I was like, you know, I don’t know how to speak Sanskrit by that time.
I could And and mostly boys or girls are less. By the time you reach masters, MA, the girls are very less. We are we were only six of us, and then there were a of of 30. 30 like, all others were boys. We were, like, six girls.
That’s Because in Russia, when you you go for a language faculties, it’s like 50 girls and two boys. No. It’s not like that. Other languages, maybe it’s like that, but in Sanskrit, we do have still the the traditional schools are there, the traditional colleges, the bachelor’s, the level colleges are there, still there. They’re called only oriental.
Oriental colleges and all. They are like school plus plus two. They finish there, and then after degree also in the degree also, they have the BA level also. They have good, like, Sanskrit only. So that is how Sanskrit is a little different from other.
So what age were you when you understood that there are people of your age that can actually speak Sanskrit? How old were you? Like, I was, like, 20, 21. Okay. So 21 you were.
You understood that there is a possibility to actually speak Sanskrit? Yes. Yes. In in my degree, it happened. Like, one day, I still remember that picture is also there in my in in my, who’s taught taught like some CL that CL subject who dealt that sir is from a that this traditional background.
His full education has been in Sanskrit And, like, somebody came, like, we were having the class. We were only three students. So the three students use him in the bachelors. In the bachelors, it was the situation. Mhmm.
Then we we were sitting in front of me. We used to take the class in this department itself. So the department, the table he used to put three chairs, and we used to sit in front of him. He used to teach us in the work table itself. His work table was a place of our class.
Mhmm. It was our classroom. So one fellow came, and suddenly he walked in. He was, like, above our age. He was, like, somewhere in twenty five to twenty six years.
We were by hardly like, I was 18 years. I was 17 or 18 years old by then. He was, like, 25 to 26 years. He just walked, and they started speaking something. I said, I just looked at them.
What are they speaking? What did I listen right now? I still remember that spark in my heart, which was like, it’s suddenly like somewhere and they’re speaking Sanskrit. Then when I felt like all, like, holding myself until that fellow walked away immediately said, sir, you were speaking in Sanskrit? Said, yes.
We were speaking in Sanskrit. Sir, can we speak Sanskrit? He said, yes. We can speak Sanskrit. So it was the moment, like, which brought me entire, like, joy.
Yes. There are people in this world who can speak Sanskrit was a very, like something that changed my, like, an understanding. Until then, I used to know only Sanskrit are literary. Like, you know, you can only write. You can only read.
You can only understand Sanskrit, but speaking? No. I never listened to Sanskrit before that. Somebody speaking. So you were you were 18 years when when it was when it happened for the first time?
First time. Yes. Sure. And then by MA, you started actually practicing? By MA, what happened?
We had the difficult time because the teaching was all in Sanskrit. So we had to quickly accustom ourselves. We were used to listening to English. We were used to listening to Telugu, but not Sanskrit. So suddenly, had to change my, like, understanding and all.
So there, it helped a lot. So there, it was, like, totally they taught us in Sanskrit, the masters, the MA level. And we had all the classes in Sanskrit except one or two. They they prefer teaching through English. And but we had a choice to write in English and Sanskrit.
I chose English. I didn’t choose Sanskrit at that time because I wanted to hold my rank. I was second ranker, and I wanted to hold my rank. That’s why I thought if I write in Sanskrit, I can’t compete with those fellows. You know?
Oh. Fellows in the benches sitting there behind me, I would never win over them. So I I chose only for, like, English. But later, I regretted. I should have chose, like, I should have given up the rank and I should but later when I came to Vidyapita, things changed.
There we had, like, some script writing and all that developed in Vidyapita. It was around 02/2003. My MA in 2008, and I did it with. Then, again, I had to do MA. That that was the subject level of subject.
Again? Yes. I I I get it MA. So you did two MAs? Two MAs?
Like, one in Sahitya special. So, like, it’s default. All The second one was Sahitya? No. The first one was Sahitya.
In Osman University, the system is like this. Though we have lot of other optionals in Sanskrit, like, we have we have, we have, like, lot of other optionals option in, like, Sanskrit education, but we don’t have that in the outside universities. The outside universities, what they do is they offer only Sahitya special. So it’s by default, we have we are all like, once we are doing MA through either English medium or some other medium, we are doing only Sahitya. We are not doing anything else.
It’s like that. So you can you can you have a lot of Sahitya, which means literature, but you don’t you don’t have you can easily have grammar? Yeah. Like one of them. We have but a little bit of it.
Not like a specialized is more limited and Sahitya is more widely spread in the education system? In Sanskrit. Yes. As far as Sanskrit is concerned, as an academic study, yes, this is the truth. In all outside universities, like outside, I mean, by outside, I mean, non traditional universities.
Like the traditional universities like with their, though they they they are, like, running the university in the modern education system, modern system, but they are still can be called as they can be called as traditional because they have different departments. Like, they have a department. They have a department. We have an department. We have a department.
We have a department. We have like such, like, different departments, which are only, like, pertaining to Sanskrit or something from Sanskrit, things like that. So what was your first work in the MA for Sahitya? Work? Like, what The thesis.
I don’t much remember what dissertations like, dissertation was not very important for us. It was just, like Oh. I don’t I don’t remember it now. Okay. Yeah.
What I worked on. So first, you went for Sahitya in MA. What Yeah. What kind of disciplines were there in the MA? Means, what kind of means the names of the fields covered there in those two years in the Sahitya was like, do you remember?
Yes. Yes. Those I remember because I’m again connected after so many years. I’m connected with teaching the MA people from the same university. So I have online classes with the distance education people.
So now I’m connected back. It’s like the first year we we had the semester system. By the time we came to MA, it was semester system. Previously, it was system. And in the semester system, we had, like, the first two semester.
That’s the first year totally do all kinds of like all the fields of Sanskrit like we had. Had. We had. We had, like, the selections from the poetry like poetry. We had is another form of, like, Sanskrit poetry.
And we had one. What else did we have? They had and linguistics. We had, like, text was there. And then in the second year, it was, like, more concentrated to.
Then we had grammar also in the first year, Like, some part of Siddhartha, we had grammar, like, until Karaka, Pratnasanya, Paribhasha, Karaka, Samasa. We had the whole Prakaranas from there. And then in the second year, it was Oh, you had Samasa’s already in the first year? Yes. We had the samasas.
Yes. We had it. Yeah. But I didn’t understand any of that point of time. I still remember my dumb head.
I was not much into, like, you know, what is a sutra? How does it work? I didn’t know anything. I didn’t make a dull tale of it. We just passed the exams.
We just studied for it. Whatever we put on paper, just we could put it. I really I didn’t care about marks. Was a question of exams and marks. It’s not about understanding.
Mostly, yes. When we concentrate on rank, that is what happens. Okay? So in India, people concentrate on the ranks? Yes.
We mostly, we have them. Only some people are there who don’t concentrate on the rank and but on subject. I was one of them. I was one of them, but was not my cup of tea at that point of time. But later, I never knew that I would come to would choose me.
It’s it’s like now I remember You would have a a related PhD theme. Right? Yeah. That that’s what from Vidyapita. Later, it happened.
It happened later in my life. So So you changed all your life. You changed the city you live in because you went for the Vidyapita. Yes. Yes.
From Hyderabad, I had no other reason than like, as you said, in the Uzman University, though the MA system had the teaching and writing exams in, like, Sanskrit only. Only some would write in English. But in thesis, when it comes to PhD, there is an option that you can write in Telugu, you can write in English, or you can write in any language. So first first, you went for English? No.
For the PhD. For the PhD, is like that. Okay. So in the MBA, I chose English, and I finished all that. You chose English.
But for the PhD, you choose Sanskrit. Sanskrit. Then when I like, I had some time difficult time in my life, like, coping up with my health and many other things went wrong, so I had to give a gap in the education at that time. After 2003, there was, like, until gap till 2008. Mhmm.
It was all these five or six years I was just at home. Like, I just worked in one college for some time just for some experience and all. But all the other You are living together with your mother? Yes. With mother and, like, yeah, my father went for the divinity.
He became divine in 2000 in the year 2000. Like it when I was in the third year in the third year of the month final year of my BA, my father left us, and my grandmother also left us in, like, when when I was in the degree first year. In the first year degree, she left us, and then father left in the final year degree. And then by MA, like, we shifted to another house in the same Hyderabad city, and I, with my two siblings and mother, we used to stay together. It was like that.
So at that time, I finished my MA, and, like, it was, like, good experience. I don’t they never discourage, like, you know, like, format like, we we have some like, father will watch us from the divine, so we have to study well. We have to become good persons. We should not misuse our opportunity in the life. Like like that, we used to have such feeling.
And I used to concentrate. I was a very studious, and I was a very first bencher, like concentrating on studies always, come back from the college, and, again, go through whatever teachers have taught, do good revision, writings. I I would I would prepare the questions and answers myself. And I was, like, always preparing and understanding the subject. And in the in the MA, they encouraged us to learn the text.
So that is another thing I I learned. Learn means learn by heart? Learn by heart. Without seeing, I was able to Right. Give a lot of text, like, the second year, we had.
Sahitya Darpana, Kavya Prakasha, Dwani Aloka. So these texts also used to, like, you know, learn by heart and use it in the examination. So this idea of learning by heart came to you in the early years of the first MA? Yes. Yes.
Correct. Yes. It was like that. And then, like, in the for the PhD, then we shifted to, like, Tirupati, then I asked my mother. We like, there is one classmate of mine.
I fondly remember her today. Durga. I never used to call her Durga. Like, is like this thing for, like, Didi. Like, the the students call me Didi.
Right? So it’s like Didi in Telugu. Mhmm. She told me, like, I I I still like, you know, those words. You know, there is a place in Theropati.
There is a university in Theropati. In that university, all the students speak in Sanskrit. You know? How they communicate with each other? They come from different parts of India, and they stay in the hostel.
So they talk about food. They talk about, like, anything shopping, all the things in Sanskrit. I said, is it so? And she said, yes. And if if two people meet on the road, how they converse, she showed me.
So how she converted? She said, what? Have you gone crazy? Are you out of your with something happened to your brain? How can we go to the we have a place in Hyderabad, so we are going to do everything in Hyderabad.
Our life is here so then slowly like like things changed by 2008. She agreed Like, I was like all the time behind her. Let’s go to the. Let’s go to the. It was like for two ladies like me and my mother alone coming to the shifting the place, getting a house here in the university, like studies and all.
It was a very, like, impossible task for us. But then she for my sake like seeing my interest for Sanskrit, she agreed and she came, lived all alone apart from my brothers like we were separated just because of my studies Mhmm. All the time there with me until my PhD finished. So how many years took the PD? Actually, we came for PhD in 2008, but as I told, I had to do the MA again, isn’t it?
So like, I wanted to do. By this time, another thing happened. When I finished my MA in in Dosman University in the year 2003, one senior was there. So he was from linguistics. He was he did his MA linguistics.
When I was doing MA Sanskrit, he was my senior doing MA linguistics. He told me, do you know there is something that started lately? It’s called natural language processing. It’s called NLP. Mhmm.
And it’s like, you know, where the the you apply language to computers. I said, how how is it possible? How can computer like, what’s the for me, computer was a different entity and Sanskrit was a different entity. Mhmm. But he told me that Sanskrit is applicable to computers.
He’s the one who showed me the way to that. Mhmm. And I started, like, when I told you that that that gap period was there, so we got the Internet installed in our house for the first time. The computer came. Like, we had computer in the the in the the back era, the the the two fifty six GB.
That’s not so two fifty six model. I don’t know what that pen two fifty six then yeah. Then four fifty six was in our house. When everybody had two fifty six, we had four fifty six in our house. And after that, then Pentium came.
So then, like, in ‘2 in the year 2003, then we completed four or five 2005 computer came back to me. Mhmm. So that that stays with me till academic. We changed it, like, twice, but the computer is still the desktop computer. Then at that point For the last for the last twenty years, you’ve been with the computer.
Yes. Yes. I was the best hater of computer. Let me be very frank here. I hated computer like anything.
When there was a debate, like the usage of computers in my degree college, I participated against. Is not good. Computer is bad for humans. You know? Yeah.
I would say you would you would stop thinking by yourself. You would depend on it. It’s it’s bad. It’s, like, separating people. It’s bringing down the employment.
You know? People started working by machine, and human power will be, like, less and less. I I argued on this lines. I was such a person. But later, when this computer came, then I had to apply some script to computer, isn’t it?
So now I have a purpose. Why I should like computer and all? I learned. I did a course. I learned how to my brothers helped me.
My both my brothers, like, handholded me and helped me not to lose the computer. What is MS word they could give? Like, I used to work with Telugu. And, like, Telugu and the Sanskrit scripts are were not very like, you know, Unicode wasn’t there yet. At that time, I I don’t know if It was there, but it is it was unknown to India.
India. Yes. Yes. The people around me never knew. They don’t even know the word.
Okay? So then they No. They don’t know it even nowadays. I mean, when I was like in Pune in the oriental institute or in the Dekan Sanskrit College, they are still not aware. So twenty years after, they are still not aware of the word Unicode, so that means that, yes, it’s very strange that India does not know nothing that happens outside India.
This is always, I get that feeling. Yeah. They they are attached to something, and they just hold it. They don’t want to go out of that. You don’t sell kind of.
See it. Like, they use the PageMaker. They use the Anu font. They use the PreetiRey fonts for their So this is why I love this It’s it describes the best in India. True.
True. Many many Indians are like that. I I agree. Totally agree. And give me one moment.
It got faded. Just one moment. Yeah. Yes. Okay.
So this is how it was. Then my brothers would go outside and find out what should we use for Dev and Agri? What should we use for Telugu for my sister? Need and they used to bring those programs and install in the computer so that I can use. So they used to discover.
They used to find out and all. They helped a lot. They helped. Yeah. I’m doing whatever, like, all the base for them.
Very groundwork they did for me. So they connected me how to use the Internet, my how you how to browse and all. My my younger brother would sit beside me and say, so you have to read this. The Google works like this. They used to explain that if you use this term, all the, this, all the outputs which come are not related to you, you should not open every link.
Here’s the all that’s all the basic things they taught me. And then I discovered one thing, like this natural language processing. I started browsing for it. That attracted me a lot. Then he also told me that work is going on in Thirupati University, this Vidyapita.
He also told me this information. So then I one, like, one thing my my classmate told me, another thing this my senior told me, and now I have every reason to remove. Okay? So then I I started browsing, then I bought this madam. Those people that natural language processing, they they they But which is strange because they are like Hyderabad, and you you you move away from Hyderabad, which is place, and you go to Tirupati, which is not place.
Actually, I met in Hyderabad. They said they are moving to different place from there. Think she said Bhopal or some other place. They were all going. If you want, you can come along with us.
But my mother said my health would not be very good, so my mother didn’t agree for that. Then, like, some the the initial NLP work happened in, actually. Before, was like in that all the ring was based. Okay? So this person was right.
My senior at that point of time was right, but by the time I decided and wanted to shift to, everything got closed here. So did not So you bought that seed, but that seed could not grow at that time At that time. In that place. Yes. Like, had I good health and had I, like, been blessed with good opportunity, they would never say no.
I would have been, like, one of them working with the, like, different kinds of projects and all. Understood. You would you would become the part of the Ambu Kulkarni’s team. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. I met her. I met her. She she really like she was such a, like, high position lady.
But when I went, she was, like, speaking to any, like, like, like, somebody’s with with with with with my understanding, she came down to my understanding level and communicated with me, tried to explain. We said this is what we are doing. If you can contribute, you can come. But at that time, my knowledge of Sanskrit was very less. Very less.
Like like, the word division and all at all, I I I craved the fur was not yet inside me. Mhmm. I was not, like, capable. You are not not yet ready. Yes.
Yes. True. To be able to actually help. Yes. Yes.
True. The field of Sanskrit computational linguistics. Yes. Though it was attractive for me, but I was I was not capable. I was not like a technically skilled to use the computer or I didn’t know the programming writer.
So I was neither from the programming background. I was not from the language background. Let alone grammar. Grammar was not even my cup of tea at that time, though I did it in my MA, but I was my knowledge was very less. Then the only attraction remains only the full remains.
Then comes this book to me, which had a name, that magical name like changed my life again. Okay? It was like name of my The whole book has several chapters and I still remember maybe the fourth and fifth chapter is written by this person And that gives, like, the grammatical, like, the the base needed for computational linguistics to grow. So he was just writing this chapter to give something it was very initial stages that the book this book came. He worked on those two chapters.
It gave all the inputs from Panini. So Panini was not a new name for me, but, actually, I didn’t know the actual, like, what actual work, how to connect and all that. He explained in very simple, like, for the student’s level. I said, man, I now know where to go. So this is the name of the person who is in the.
Let’s go. Come on. Let’s go. Let’s start for the journey, I said. Then all this she was saying no and all this happened, but that remained in my heart.
Then when 2007, I tried once for the admission and all. It didn’t happen in Vidyapita. Then again in 2008, we could go we could go back to Tirupati. And then the admission happened, they said, like, no like I said, where where is this where is this person called? Is he?
He said, no. No. He doesn’t stay here. He stays in, like, now he is in Rajasthan. He’s working busy there.
So imagine my mother hunting someone people change the places and you you you get always in the one previous place where the person was. It always happens. So so I went to Tirupati, shifted there, brought him a bot, like, got a house for rent. They started paying for everything we started. And now I know that that person for whom I came here to do PhD under him I want to take some guidance and all.
So he’s not there in. Right. It was, like, from February till June, my mother would say, like, each single day from February, like, in the towards the end of the February 2008, were in the twenty first. I still remember the date from then to like my my admission into a. Until that point, it was like every day up, down, up, down, up, down, whether I’m going to join the university or no.
I didn’t know. Used to everyday go to the university, meet the professors, talk about my aim, this, that. So when the admissions happen in India usually around June to July. June, July is the admission month. Then by that time, they denied.
They said, no. You cannot do PhD. You’re not ready. You’re You cannot do PhD, so they proposed to do another MA? Yes.
True. So they said they asked me a question, like, do you want the subject or degree? So PhD is the degree and subject is, like, computational linguistics or. Right. What do you want?
What do you choose? I said, I want subject. Then they said, you have to do it. Mean, if you want subject, you have to do MA. If you want a degree, I mean, PhD, then go for Sahitya because you have a specialization in Sahitya.
Mhmm. But there, then the competition linguistics course was there in Vidyapeta, but not much you know, it was in a very bad condition. Not not good professors, not good I mean, inside, they know nobody paid attention to that course. So they asked me to choose Vyakarana. So they agreed.
Actually, Vyakarana also, they would not agree. They said, okay. It’s up to you. The the professor understood my pain and said, it’s up to you. We’ll give you a chance.
If you can do it, do it. Otherwise, people fail because we are gonna MA level needs lot of, like, input from the BA level and all. You are not even traditional student. You’re not even, like, like, trained under some, like, individual scholar and all. Mhmm.
I said, better go for, like, something which suits you. I said, no. I will die for this subject. I I cannot, like, take another subject. I will die for it.
I cannot survive without competition linguistics anymore. It’s it’s a point of my life and death now. You you have to, like, guide me. Then he said, go for Vyakarna. That will also help you in, like, understanding the competition linguistics better.
And, yes, he was right. He was really right. Mhmm. And I from the from my linguistics, I shifted to Vyakranas. Now I get the ground of panini, lot of panini for two years, two complete years, totally shastra teaching, and knew what a shastra is now.
Mhmm. Shastra happens to be like much I mean, I think I did it in MA level, but as I told you, it was always like exam, like, not much into subject, though I I know what the subject is. So the second MA was the first time you actually got into the subject and not the marks? Yes. Yes.
Yes. Correct. Correct. I mean, marks also was important for me. For others, only marks are important.
But for me, like, along with subject marks are also important. That was my state. So in this MA, I did not care for marks. I cared only for subject. I developed it.
I studied and I I took the challenge. My professors helped me. I was not a very good brilliant in Vyakarana, but I managed. I managed it. So what kind of disciplines were in the second MA?
In the second MA, we had some part of Siddhanta maybe, And we had we had most from selections from. We had two texts from him. And we had some also. Also, had. And that’s all.
I don’t remember any other text. Mhmm. Mostly, we discussed this. Yeah. At this point, I got a, like, a very good feel of yeah.
A very good feel of it through the like, though I I did not understand much, I enjoyed the classes. I connected with the this thing because with this degree, it was all this degree would help me to, like, do the competition. That is what I want. But my my professor, sir, was right. I developed that insight now because of the this knowledge knowledge, like, what is the purpose of the Akarna?
What exactly the Akarna does and how it contributes to the linguistics field. It is one of the linguistically. Linguistics is bigger, and grammar happens to be a sub part of it. Now I have more to report that also. So by what year did you finish the second MA?
- Year 2010. From 2010. Last fifteen years is the actual time of the real work for Sanskrit. Yes.
Yes. Just that. And they’re like more grip came to me. These professors, yes, yes, they excellently helped me, but there are two points which happened. I want to relate.
I want to go back to my first MA in the in Hyderabad, the SAITIMA. I told you that I didn’t have much idea about Siddhanta Komadi Sutra, how it works at that point of time. But immediately after that, my mother did Telugu MA. My mother did Telugu MA in the distance mode. I used to visit her classes.
I used to be very silent. Nobody would pick me up. I was like accompanying my mother. Mhmm. In that, there were Telugu professor.
His name was Kesha. Kesha. Okay? He was explaining Telugu Sutra in the class. Like, Telugu also has got got wonderful grammar in the same lines as Sanskrit.
What what is the name of the grammar? It’s called Balavyakaranam. Balavyakaranam. The author name is Chinaya Suri. Chinaya Suri is the person.
Mhmm. And this person had this sir was, like, teaching how the sutra works and, like like, we have, like, Rama as pratipatika, and in Sanskrit, it is Rama which develops the the the added word will be Ramaha. Right. In the it is Ram Udu. Udu, we say Udu for the, like, male for a for a masculine, we have Udu.
Then he said, like, we have in the Vibhakti’s du. Du is the only Vibhakti which is added, then it will become Ramadu. Rama, if you add du, it will become Ramadu. But it is Ramudu. Then he told that comes from another sutra for Ramadapratipadika.
This comes and it joins here and then the I thought by again another like, you know, this insight happened. Another, like, flash happened. There, I connected. That excitement again, I remember till today. Mhmm.
The class whenever such things happen, Mark, I remember that that that, you know, that fanciful and that, you know, blissful kind of, you know, where I forget the world. Right. How I know that moment was, like, while I was undergoing, I did not know that it was so important. But at a later point of time, I realized that these were the connecting points in my, like, education system. So it was sometimes one professor, sometimes a word from a book or some some show, some talk show I’m just randomly hearing.
That happens. It it happens in everybody’s life, but this is how I connected. So at that point of time, this person helped me how how a sutra works and all. Then I connected with Samskrit, and then I started working. Like, then this MA, when I came to the second MA that is in the subject, this helped me a lot.
Okay? That is So your mother’s MA helped yourself as well understanding the basic principles of Yakarana. Correct. Correct. Correct.
And that to tell you to tell you who he explained, then I thought, okay, the word, they are talking of the different parts of the word, the sub parts of one single word, the the then they are trying to join. They are trying to work out whatever has changed from the basic form to the final form. So this is the whole idea about the. This is what I understood. Then the second step.
So when I did my second MA, the same condition again. So this is full of. It’s a huge of. And, like, my MA my the MA with the small part of was there. It it it is nowhere seen in this.
That knowledge is nowhere helpful for me right now in in my in the in the year 2008 to 2010. Then in the year 2011, I visited Ushpadik Shetji. So she’s from the Villa School, the place Chhattisgarh in Middle India. Somebody told us, like, once we are into the field of Vyakaran, we know some great people around those areas, then I we came to know about this person. So I actually wanted to send my friend there, but her brother said, oh, how can she send you a loan?
Then I had to accompany my friend. Okay. So you accompanied your friend and met a person who guided you further? Yes. Yes.
It is, like, one month, Shimira, the the camp that she does every year, and I have been a part of it with her. And that, again, got lot of input. It was not flashy for one second or two seconds. It was, like, total how the system works. So the whole system was a grammar camp.
Grammar. Total grammar. Total. And total. It is through, like So, like, like, ten hours per day grammar?
Not ten hours, but at least, yeah, four to five hours per day. Then I used to, like, I used to practice. We used to have a lot of discussions along with my friend and all this, like, happened. And that one month also helped me a lot to pick up the. Then I became I don’t say perfect, but at least some direction was there with me because Shastra is a tough job.
Shastra as they put it, it is twelve years of learning. It’s twelve years. Complete dedication that you can develop a shastra inside you. So, I did not give that much time in my life but whatever I gave made me right now, whom you are seeing, whatever knowledge, whatever this thing. I don’t say I’m still, I’m not a perfect person.
Like, even what I wanted to reach the state, I’m not in that state, but that’s why I call myself a linguist. I’m more a linguist than a grammarian. Okay. You’re a linguist, but you have written your PhD in Sanskrit, and you have done a lot of talking in Sanskrit for the Vyoma courses. Can you name out the courses?
I mean, you’ve reached the point where you can actually speak Sanskrit at the level of freedom you were aiming for, like right? Yes. Yes. By the year 2010, like, month, I started in Preeti. Preeti was all Sanskrit.
So with, like, the core students, with the professors, with anybody, like, in the university, within university, we had to communicate only in Sanskrit. So that developed in me the speaking skills and all. And because How many years did the did the last? I did, like, two years MA with. And from 2010, I win my net.
Like, there is one national eligibility test to something for, like, lectureship. So it’s called UGC NET, University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test. So that I cleared that I cleared in that year 2010, and I joined my PhD, professor. In 2010? In 2010.
Yes. And finalized it in? ’16. Like, ’15, I finished my I submitted my thesis, and I was awarded at 16. It was that.
Understood. So that means a total of, like, six years? Six years. Yes. Six complete years.
You can say on and off, like, one year one and half year it took for me to make the idea, like, what my PhD is about. To understand it, it took one and half year. So You didn’t have that idea of that. You didn’t have it initially. Right?
No. It’s not my idea. It’s the professor sir’s idea who took me his idea. He just said. And professor SS Murti, he is my guide in the Mhmm.
With department. Now he’s retired. Now he’s in. I think he’s he’s working in as the Emeritus or Yes. And So you were lucky to find such a professor of such a high level of standard?
Yes. Yes. He’s a very good grammarian, and he has been, again, traditional. He’s not a modern Sanskrit student. He’s from traditional background from the family.
His family is. He’s he’s like family name is like you have like a or you have your second name. So his second name is very famous for, you know, scholars and writers, literary people. So he’s from such a family. Yes.
We have a lot of people in from from good family backgrounds and good knowledge since, like, eras. Like, from their generations, there are like, they are with Sanskrit. They are such people. So he guided me in this dhatu karaka akaksha. That is the topic which was given from the computational linguistics background joining the knowledge.
And my work is more about theory. It’s not, practical application didn’t happen, though we had to develop it. But I can guide I can guide someone if they are making some, you know, the computer programming or something, then I can guide them how to do it. How to do what? How to do the connection?
Like, how to operate? Of what with what? It’s like the first, like, we have to understand what is the is the expectation. Like, when a is there, when a when a verb is there, it is expecting so and so. The so and so.
We cannot totally translate it to English, but we can roughly call it case. Okay. So I eat a mango. It is like I is the doer, the the agent of the action. Mango is the one who is the object of the action.
Agent of the action, I. Mango is the object, and eat is the verb. Now I eat what a mango. So this mango happens to be an an expectation of yield. So when I eat, I do have an expectation of some some food object, something which is related to food when I eat something.
Similarly, if I talk of I sleep, can I sleep an object? Like, can I sleep? No. So sleep is an intransitive, and the eat is a transitive. So what does it mean?
The eat needs an object, but sleep doesn’t need an object. So sleep is interest you doesn’t expect any. So now in the AI systems, in the in the larger systems of the machine translation in the AI, they are looking for limiting the you know, but, like, bringing down the language expands. They are trying to, like, what do you call it? Like when when when they when they are using a particular verb, what should the what are the cases that are expected?
They want to just tick mark. There are, like, seven cases, seven plus one, including vocative. So they want to bring down, like, eat will take karta. Yes. The agent is taken.
The karma, the object is taken. The the seventh case, the locative is taken. And it doesn’t doesn’t take the instrumental. I eat with my hand. Yes.
It takes instrumental. Does it take? I eat far, like, bringing down my hunger, satisfying my hunger. Yes. It takes the dative.
Does it take ablative? I eat from. I eat from a plate. Yes. It takes it.
So the eat will take all the six or seven cases it takes. So now we tick mark them. Now the AI is trained. So when when you look for eat or anything around eating, all the similar words that mean eat and drink and all this, so you can apply these these cases. You can look for them.
So when you are, like, using the verb sleep, then you need not look for a trans it’s not transversal, so you need not look for an object. Okay. So this is how, like, I studied. Like, I picked up the different then my professor sir gave me one more idea. Another like another professor for whom from whom for whom I came to Dilipati.
So he also gave me also gave me lot of inputs and he used to have like heavy discussions, hours together. I used to visit his home, and he used to guide me. My professors are he is this, like, Vidyapita professor. He also used to guide me a lot. Then then he told me, like, you have to what you call, make group.
Make group of verbs. Take don’t take individual dhatus. It will take long time for you. There are 2,000 and plus the and so many. So why don’t you take a grouping?
So how can I base my grouping now? No. I cannot do the grouping myself. Then there was this book called. My sir my professor sir gave me another book.
It is in Telugu script, and it is like Sanskrit text in Telugu script. Somebody printed it lately, and somebody gifted him. He said, oh, sure. Do you I mean, it will be a very good news to you. Will will you go through this and let me know?
Sir, I said, yes. So they are, like, meaning wise bhatu clusters, And it was, like, very limited. It was not very ex exhaustive work. It is limited. Then this achyana chandrika came, which is much exhaustive exhaustive, much more elaborate and covering many, many dhatus.
And I had, like, only gum, like, to go. It had eighty, eight zero. So many dhatus with along with the, you know, and all that listed total I was, like, dancing now. I was dancing with happiness, and I picked up, like, if I if I put this as for one group, like, what Karakas it takes, that was enough for me. Okay?
It is, like, one sorry. It is it is another not a question of, different hatus. It’s a question of groups of and the they take. Yeah. Yeah.
Based on meaning. Like, so the meaning there are many. Like, all these are there. And we have, like, funny things like gobble, like the like, gobbling. We have swallowing, some kind of stuff.
So such altogether, it had it had given me. Then I got help of somebody from Russia, a very nice person who helped me in my thesis and to work with it and with with his guidance and with his like, he developed a document which had all the examples. The the most challenging part in my thesis was to have the examples from the And this is where our love my love for the Hatus and your love for the Hatus united. Yes. Yes.
Yes. True. True. True. And I had that document from Anton.
Anton, I still remember him. He developed it for me, and he gave me, and I I I still have those with me. Sometimes I visit them, and I gave it to my friend also for her her. She wanted some work from that. I said, can take it, you can use it.
It’s a wonderful work even today, like I This is where the Russian and Indian Sanskrit ties got together. Yes. Yes. That is the point, and I’m very glad about it. Yes.
This is how we actually met, I mean, because you were thinking I’m a girl, and I I wrote about this topic because in 2014 was my PGD defense, but so I wrote maybe like one year before that, I needed help. I mean, there are so many data to cautious, and they are in so many ways different. So I wrote that post at BDP, and there was only one reply, that reply was from Ushasanka. And Masters Gatos thinks that Ushasanka is a boy. Okay?
That’s it. You you you can never be sure what, who we are dealing with in India. You you’re reading the name, you are never sure. Is it a boy or is it a girl? Sure.
Sure. In English doesn’t let us, you know, understand that. Somebody called you madam. In that, somebody wrote time and reply. Right.
They said, I didn’t help you, but they said, madam. So I thought, sure, this is a lady. I can work with a You you are safe now. Yes. And then I propose we do a video call because we cannot do a lot of how to work, how to part of work.
We we actually don’t see each other, and then the call happened and it was too late. Yes. Yes. But it was good. I I never, like, you know, regretted it.
It was like far more fetching for me. It was like the brother, sister day, the Raki, Raksha Bandhana Day, the Sanskrit Devas and all of year 2013. Year 2013, August. I don’t remember the date, but it was the the day the day by Indian calendar was the Akshay Vandan Day, we first time talk. And And your mother was there in the call, I believe?
Yeah. She was there, but not in the recording. She was there beside me sitting, but watching you all the time. And then she said, he’s a good boy. He’s a very good boy.
You can work with him. I was very happy. I was glad that she Because in India, I mean, it’s not in Russia, people don’t actually understand that in India, a girl cannot just go outside the house. I mean, without her brother. Yes.
It is that it is that situation. And even I was like like we say in Telugu Tali Chaturbita. That means, like, hitting hiding behind the mother. I I’m a girl hiding behind the mother. Not never, like apart from my universities, I never walk anywhere with confidence.
You know? Only in the school, college, and university, I’m like myself. All other places, I’m I’m a little, like, timid kind of. And to work with a foreigner was really challenging for me. Okay?
And, like, my mother foreigner, but the boy. Boy boy and the foreigner. Okay. Much different in culture, much different in lot of things. So we had to talk in the odd times, odd hours, and she would object sometimes.
Like, why are you talking in the odd hours? I said, we are discussing about now. He got time. That’s why. But she would always understand.
She would always support. And, like, I was for a long time, I was shy. For a long time, I was like, I don’t know if I’m doing right or wrong kind of, but we were always working. Like, I the the thing I like in you was you’re always connected with work, and you connected me with my real work. So that is where the change happened in that.
2013 is a year I will never forget. I will never forget that year. And through me, you got to know what’s happening in the bigger world outside India, which means the Sanskrit Columni Dictionary Project and the and Jim Fenderberg. So these are the people, my bigger family you came in touch with. Right.
I was always surprised how you met Indians, how you talk with them, how you connect with the scholars, how you go. Then you told me that you would, like, go to their houses, you would sit, you would discuss and all. You’d also want me to be every, like, third day, I would have a new person waiting for me on my Skype. Friend request sent. Now connect.
Now talk. And is also one of them. We connected Manoj Manojana from Manojana. Yes. Many people I met through you.
I’m, like, like, really thankful, and they still continue to be there in my contacts, and we talk, and it’s good. Like, it was then I learned, like then I said, please stop. I can’t connect with more people. So I’m I’m a, like, demit person. I cannot, like, go out from my, you know, home and discomfort zone.
Cannot go out. So then you stopped. So it was like, your PhD in. I I really loved work, Nawar. Yes, so it was only in 2019 when I went to Pune, I actually saw for the first time in the library how Pulsule looked.
I mean, of course I knew his PhD by heart, but, I didn’t even know how he looked and so in Pune, like only few years ago, I actually saw that person. Right, right, right. You shared that photograph with me also. It’s like like goosebumps time for me every day I would celebrate like a festival because I had to learn a lot every second day you would teach me whatever you you were demanded and it all still helps me like people ask me later. Like, how do you know all these things?
You are a command on computers. You are like, I I I learned Adobe. I learned I know how to use a PDF, how to use a a Google Docs, how to use a Skype, even, like, every little thing you would hand hold me and teach me, it was, like, really, really helpful in my all the way through, even today. And these were the days of the research? Yes.
Because lately, both my end and I believe your end as well, we had less time for research. We had to do more of teaching. I had a time when I had more time needed for book preparation and teaching. And and and you were going from a for an offline teaching as well. So can you come compare actually so you have an option of Indian students online, Russian speaking students online, and Indian students offline.
So what was your experience? It was your latest experience like last year, right? The offline teaching at the university. Can you tell about it? Yes.
So it was, like, in the we are like, last year, ’23. Right? Twenty three June, I went to that university as Vyasa. Then twenty four June, I came back. Twenty five June, I came.
’24 and twenty year, you were teaching. You had a dream to be a teacher, at a university. Right? Yes. Yes.
I am. And your dream got fulfilled. Yes. Yes. Even even before that, I was working in a university, like, named, University of Silicon Andhra.
I want to tell about that university first. So I was hired like, I was working in Bioma. Like, once my mother left me Like, what is Bioma? Bioma, I want to tell about Bioma first. It’s like, in the year 2019, my mother became divine, and, in after one month, I was in Bioma.
Bioma is an institute. It’s called Bioma linguistic labs. So it’s like language like, they work on Sanskrit projects. They are like teaching teaching, chanting, and, like, making some books, some modules for learning. So they engage different teachers from different places through online.
It’s a virtual place. It’s not a like, it’s an institute. It’s a now it’s a corporate organization. So where the people are employed, they are just we’re maintaining a website. So through this website, they call, like, different teachers to connect.
They use the Zoom, different platforms. So it’s become huge. Right? It’s now very huge. Very big.
Very they’re, like, more than 100 hundreds of different courses are there on mainly Sanskrit topics. Yes. Like like like the many many many things. Very very big topics of like individual small texts which are in the different Sanskrit courses. Like we have separate Sanskrit exams like private Sanskrit exams from Chitur Sabha, Sora Sarswati Sabha, then then Sanskrit Bharati, then Bharati, Vidya Bhavan, these are the four major ones which conduct the exams.
And those people, Vioma people give guidance for those exams also. There is related to Vioma called GGSS. It’s like so from that also through that also, there are a lot of courses in the offline mode. In fact, yes. So these two, like, brothers are the products of that that that motherly person, Ananta Lakshmi.
So she, Ananta Lakshmi Nathraj, she is the one who is the guidance guiding power behind this. They is Vioma is an outshoot of all their endeavors. They wanted to name it. So they have already it’s a long time to have been associated with GGSS since last ten plus five, maybe fifteen years past that they established RIOMA. And then they slowly, like, why not teach Sanskrit through online board?
So there was, like, first of its kind, they started it as a institution as a, you know, something which is the ND or some some enterprise, something like a, you know, a solid form of some dream. So then they started, like, slowly courses, developing products. They they developed the Sandeep product, how to understand yourself, how to how to understand, like like like a Sandeep, Samasa, like these different different points. Whatever they found, they they could put hand on, they started giving, and people like them and all. And they become the biggest one, I believe, online, isn’t they, in India?
Yes. Yes. There is one more called Indica. I don’t know if they are doing as elaborate as Vioma. I don’t know their fields.
Vioma does not apart from teaching also, they have lot of other activities, but I think Indica is more on teaching. I don’t know much about it. But, yes, biggest is yoga, and I’m associated with them. Very happy. They also started children’s wing.
They started the, you know, the adult exams one, nonexams just for interest. They were so many people around, like, forties, fifties, and until eighties, I I conduct their exams also. I’m a judge for the exams. You know? I I get to meet, like, excellent people from all over India.
Mhmm. From the from North India, from even like somebody from Russia also came to the exam. So it’s like that. It’s like many there there are many countries are also a part of yoga. So I’ve worked there for one year as a office in the office atmosphere as an employee, then I came out then they took me as a teacher.
I’m a full time teacher now with that. So then I fondly call them Anna, the Venkatana and Vishwanath. They are really good siblings of like like my siblings there. So I stayed beside their house and really cared me. They they were not just employers for me.
They still are like my brothers, and I visit their house. They also come here when they come to Tirupati. It’s like that. So it’s a very good relationship I’ve got with them. That’s my first work experience.
I mean, apart from teaching Mhmm. So I did all this work and my English knowledge was more pressing there. Then when I became teacher, they offered me the first course, the Sanskrit poets, famous Sanskrit introduction to famous Sanskrit poets. So I took ten, fifteen poets, I I think I took. Yes.
10 or 15 poets we took. You remember by heart any of the sentences in these lectures? Can you just read out just some Sanskrit just to have a sense of how easily you actually can speak in Sanskrit? You told it something in English and can you tell it the same time in Sanskrit just to show how fluent you are? Uh-huh.
So one day before the course started, it was like I was myself had a like, until so I knew how to write Sanskrit and speak Sanskrit by 2003 when I did my Right. In a, but I never worked my hand on it. In Vidyapita, got to one the next level, and then, again, I dropped off from that, and I didn’t know how good I was. Then this course happened, then I tested myself. I put one recording, and I started speaking.
Went for half an hour, and I was satisfied that, yes, I can speak. So the same thought I had Can you tell about that course in two sentences in Sanskrit now? The there were Sanskrit lives of Sanskrit poets and their work. Okay? So their their life and work was discussed in histories.
Okay. Histories were discussed. Whatever works he did, Kalidasa is one of them, the the poets, and whatever works he did, I I spoke on them. And that course was there for some exam. Okay?
So some exam course, it was. So that way, if it’s okay, like if there is a topic, then yes, we can we can speak like that. So I was impressed the day I understood that your PhD is in Sanskrit. So there are lots of PhDs on Sanskrit, but when I understood that it’s in Sanskrit and that your lectures at Vyoma are in Sanskrit, I thought great, great. It really impressed me.
Always got that I had that feeling that you were with Sanskrit since your childhood years, but now only now I understand that the level of the mastering came rather lately. Yes. Sure. I didn’t win Vidyapita. Yeah.
It happened 100% in Vidyapita. Totally realized there because of background that too. I mean, in with the people speak some, but they are not that grounded. You know, they speak all wrongs forms. They are not sure which case to use in which place, all that.
But I had that clarity because of my background. So they they are, like, you know, categories like people speak the best Sanskrit. It’s like that. What was the experience compared to your offline teaching year in the university and the years of online teaching to Russian students, to some Indian students? What’s the difference?
You find it hard, the offline schedule? What’s your experience? See, if we deal with, like, offline students, there is one advantage. One advantage is you can touch them. You can touch them by your aura.
There’s kind of vibrations what we call as the the the being of a person, the bearing of a person. So we know whom we are teaching, whether he is able to or she is able to understand by their looking at their faces, by their reactions, by the by the actually, it is known to the heart. Okay. In the online, we have that disadvantage. But I now discover that even that is not a stopping point.
So at one point, I used to think maybe in the online mode, there’ll be the teachers have some, you know, backdrop back sorry, back point where they have to be, like, I’m not sure if the student is able to understand or not. Because not because of the camera, not because of all this, but the direct you know, that that vibrations working well. But now it is not a now I understand. Like, even in the online mode, I understand. So there’s literally no according to me, as for because I’m teaching Sanskrit and chanting, maybe in some spiritual things where where the spiritual knowledge is required and where the religious things are required, I don’t think online is a good mode.
But as far as chanting is concerned, like some explanations, texts are concerned, I don’t think it’s a barrier. In the university, like, people used to come the students used to come to me, meet me. They used to say we understood this. We didn’t understand this. We have a doubt.
They used to bring the books, and can you correct us? We did this and all. So that that I won’t have with the online students. They can do they can make a picture of what they wrote, and so I can in in in my in my in the in the in the offline mode, I can really touch their books, see their writing, and, you know, it is more like physical. It’s a little enriching experience.
That’s all. I don’t think we miss anything much in online. It’s it’s equally rewarding. Both are equally rewarding. Yes.
The offline is more tiresome. Yes. True. Top line is more tiresome. True.
I didn’t I didn’t I mean, thinking that this line, but once you mention it, it is a 100% yes. It’s very tiresome. You know, because they are talking sometimes. They are like, you know, disturbing the class. So we have to, like, even younger or I thought only little little boys and girls make noise.
But, no, I heard, like, all 20 plus twenty years plus students sitting in the class making the hell, you know, the talk go away. So it was, like, so noisy in the class. I used to shout. My voice would go away. So now the online teaching says my voice.
Okay. I can say that. Right. So is there a difference between the Russian and the Indian students? Yes.
Yes. So we’ve been teaching we’ve been teaching Russian students five years at full mode and more than eight years at medium mode. So let’s say last five years, it’s like almost on daily basis. Right. Yes.
I’ve been connected with them. Russian students are they’re they’re see, they’re not academic. So this is where I have a little this thing to compare. When I say student, when we say student, it is not one single aspect that we are comparing. All my Russian students are nonacademic, and all my Indian students are academic.
That is one thing. So they are always thinking about exams, marks, and, you know, they’re more about they’re concerned about their ranks because of the future as a career, whatever. So they are not dealing with the subject directly, but Russian students are all non academic. They come with interest. They come with interest to learn.
They have the respect to learn, and they pay 100% attention to what is being said. They follow it, and they show results. I think in all these eight years of, like, passive and active teaching that I did, there is not even a single student who did not show even single small change for good. So, they all improved. They all showed improvement.
Okay. After that, they leave off. They again join back even then it takes only some time for them to connect back. They’re always showing him improvement is always tangential. That I observed.
They are sincere. They’re hardworking. And in fact, they taught me, like, how to learn. I remember, like, when I start see, it’s more as a teacher. One drawback is that you’re always teaching that you are learning for teaching, though I’m I’m a 100 learner all the time.
But it is only for teaching. So I wanted to learn something new so that I Now when I was comparing, like, how the sounds how the new sounds were, like, very tough on my tongue, how I was, like, deep feeling the difficulty, then I realized the greatness of my students, how they are able to do it, not with ease, but how much work they might have put behind this. You know, there are some sounds which are different from Russian to Sanskrit, and they are, like, very, very the time won’t go there very easily, but still these students thrive for it. They’re like, they they never undermine my guidance, and they have their own ways to like, they I don’t know how much they practice and what way they do it, but they’re still doing it so good. They’re all showing improvement.
This is very good. So And that was the reason of your learning of Russian, the understand the difficulties of the of the Sanskrit pronunciation of the Russian students. Yes. Yes. Correct.
Especially pronunciation. And I had one more class of music. Like, my cousin used to teach me music some three years back. I think I was learning music. And, like, since childhood, I had, like, part part part.
I I didn’t learn music continuously, but some at some point I would connect then again disconnect disconnect disconnect. It was happening so when I connected back with her three years back, then it was like good that also gave me insights how difficult to understand that the the where when we are trying to keep that that that in the right position. So where I’m facing the difficulty, I saw that the students had my Russian students had the chanting students had this difficulty themselves. So when they say, oh, I’m sorry. I’m making this mistake again and again.
I’m sorry. I said, no, don’t say sorry. I know what difficulty you’re undergoing so I could I could experience their pain. I could experience their difficulty where they had that that you know, sometimes my students said, I feel like this. They they just exercise their tongue for some time.
They’re not comfortable, like, you know, moving it fast here and there. Like, what two or three students, like, do this exercise of the tongue in between. I I know what they are undergoing. So this helped me a lot. So then I realized I’m a very bad student.
Okay. I gave up my question. But then And still, just to show your attention to what is happening in the process of teaching. I ask you to to sing a sample of what you still do remember from the Russian language. Toughest, that have to take some time.
I’m not ready with the You are thinking about the lullaby? Yes. I’m thinking about it. Okay. Take your time.
Yeah. So I I still am very comfortable with the first four lines, so maybe I can think that. Though I I I listen from time to time, not that I I totally, like, gave it up, but not very. I I I wanted to If you have a charming voice in Sanskritam, then that flows into the Russian as well, so don’t Okay. Okay.
It’s about my pronunciation more than my voice. I don’t much concentrate on the raga at this time on that melody and at this point of time when So everyone born in the Soviet Union, that’s a few 100 millions of people, know this melody because it was the one which was in the evening, heard before the evening story. So from the TV for tens of years, hundreds of millions of children will listen to this, lullaby. So that’s a very well known one. Yeah.
Update. And you had another one. What what what else was there? Yeah. It’s like, I don’t remember much of it.
I showed no only two lines of it. Well, two lines would go. I may be going wrong. I’ll be. Okay, I’ll something else.
Then she sings the two lines that was very attractive for me. And it goes on like different levels and all that mixing and really and I didn’t search it through the life of it. It’s based on life of a singer. I went through the, you know, song that the picturization of the song, then I understood that it’s a life of a female singer, how she faces challenges that comes up. And my teacher explained me the meaning of it and all.
I I really enjoyed this song a lot. So Right. So I do enjoy the way you read out Russian. And this is this is to show that, I mean, even the singers who can actually sing it perfect, not all of them can teach to sing. So that’s the things that I myself am trying to learn attending those chanting classes is to understand how to actually teach, because that’s not something that we were taught ourselves.
I mean, we were not taught how to teach. And different issues raise up. So we are conducting these Sanskrit chanting classes for quite a few years now and and for year 2026, we plan to go for the Gita chanting. The 48 verses from the Bhagavad Gita. We plan to go for the Surya stotra from the Mahaparata and I was requesting to go for a stotra from Abhinavagupta.
So three kind of sources for year 2026. So I believe the main chanting will be around the Gita. I have that feeling that it will, bring us the most students. And I do hope that starting from this year, we will find not only Russian, but also English speaking students. This is what I believe in, and this is why we actually met today that the English speaking students from Europe would actually hear and understand if they would want to to become a student of ours.
Yeah. To actually have a a place to get closer to the teacher. Right. So what’s your daily practice? Daily practice of has Sanskrit become a part of your daily life?
Or was it always so? It was always so. It’s like like I would I know, like, after later part, like, like, I don’t remember in the, like, childhood, it was it was more creative work, like painting, drawing, and some other thing which would attract me. But after I came to Sanskrit, I gave up everything. Whatever I needed, the solace, the happiness, the self feeling, everything came from Sanskrit.
So I would I told my I I keep telling my students also. I can stay without food in the mornings. I mean, in the night with one time food, minimum food for three days, I can stay without eating anything all day. In the night, I I take only some part. But without Sanskrit, I cannot survive even for one day.
From morning to night, if I’m not with Sanskrit, if I didn’t do any chanting class, if I didn’t read any, I didn’t do any, like, you know, like, typing work with the analysis, word analysis, or something. Something related where Sanskrit is not there. I’m down. After the second day, I’m ill. I’m totally mentally ill.
I observed it since last ten years. It’s been my life. Like, total day in, day out, I’ve been with Sanskrit, and it’s like that. After PhD, I continue to stay at home. This is what happened.
And through all this talking, what I didn’t mention, I want to mention that person right now, he is my guru. Okay? He’s my gurudeva who gave me this, like, how Sanskrit can be academic. Sanskrit can be some knowledge that you want to have. Sanskrit can be some livelihood you she can bring to you.
But Sanskrit becomes life. Sanskrit becomes breath. Sanskrit becomes your being. Sanskrit comes into you that people seeing you want to learn Sanskrit. So that thing came from my guru.
He trained me, Swami Prakashana Nidra Saraswati Swami. So he trained me immensely. Like, whatever background is needed, also direct knowledge. He also taught me I remember I used to visit him for my, like, ‘2 thousand three MA that I did, the Sahithya MA. He used to stay beside my house.
Like, he was in one room. So then I used to go to him, learn. Like, you know, he used to teach body, sentence, he would explain. The yoga darshanah, he explained with commentaries, and then he used to teach me sahita darpanam. Like, lot of things, Bhagavad Gita, of course, Abhijnana Shakuntalam, all we used to read the text together.
He used to explain me. So this is this. This is this. I didn’t even know that he’s like he’s a. He’s a.
It is much more capable of giving me, like, the spiritual knowledge. Can train me into. I always like looked at him as some person. He knows some script. So the first attraction, the first point that connected us was his Sanskrit knowledge.
Then later, then when I came to, I reconnected with him after some happened, then I reconnected, then he became my spiritual teacher. And he had, like, imbibed in me all this discipline, all this whatever is required inside me for Sanskrit, he removed all the, like, bad understandings and misconceptions inside me regarding life, regarding people, regarding world, and he prepared me for this day. He prepared me for becoming me. Like, he he has a great role to play apart from my grandmother, my mother, my father. So these all help me not directly.
If not directly, they helped me a lot in this this journey. Okay? So that is where they play a role through me. When I’m speaking, it’s not just me speaking. It’s they also like, the ability which was developed by continuously connecting with them is like it cannot it can never be undermined.
Okay? So that is my, like, reverence for him. He’s like, without him, I would not become this. So that is where Sanskrit and this discipline becomes like that is why I’m not able to stay without. So I have to do something or the other.
It it has become a religious austerity kind of thing for me. I can drop off, like, Shiva Puja for one day or two days, but I cannot drop Sanskrit. That is what he did to me. That is how he he he told me that mean I mean, even if somebody tells you that you you have to do something regularly to get connected to that, that itself would help you, isn’t it? So this regular touch with Samskritam itself has kept me going and feel that energy every day, not from food, not from water, not from sun, not from, like, people, not from some encouragement or some, you know, some flatries and all that.
No. I don’t depend on them for my so it’s only that some constant the constancy of purpose and how to commit to with yourself. Like, Sanskrit is now a medium that communicates that that makes me communicate with myself. So it’s not like spiritual knowledge or some religious thing that has made me like this. It’s only my love for Sanskrita and his inputs.
And, like, people like you, they have connected with me. Now I think, like, that work that Karma so Karma. You just name. Means only the Karma is the one which you have grip upon you cannot. Depend on like you.
I want to do karma if I get the fruit, I will do it if you don’t don’t think about fruit so that is he told me practically by living that life now I’m living that life, which he is doing it himself. I’m doing that life myself and I’m into the path. He’s he’s he’s a whole. I don’t know it is Vedanta. It’s the knowledge of the Brahman that he is connected with.
But for me, knowledge of Sanskrit is like knowledge of Brahman for the time being at least until I discover my my liberation until I discover my path of liberation. I think I’m already on the path. I’m already on the like, road of the the the that that Vedantic what what the the fruit of Vedanta, what is that? I think I I’m a channeling it to the work of Sanskrit. So that too much connection.
I cannot tell it in simpler words. It it’s like that. It’s a reality in my life. Can I ask you for a sample of chanting the same words in different modes as you have done before, like, in different tunes? Can you show how differently the same shloka can sound in Sanskrit?
Sure. Sure. Yes. Yes. Let me give me just one moment.
First, the normal only. Yes, this is one two second one is. My father’s tune, maybe don’t know how to develop it, but I’ll have to. No, that’s very difficult. I have to read that.
Maximum four, I kept. Do we had seven? We actually had as a total number, but four as a sample. Yes. Yes.
Others, I have, like There are seven ways to read the same shloka. That’s absolutely amazing. Actually, many people had like, when when like, that project we had that question we had from that one of the students, I think his name, I forgot. It’s name was when student asked us that question, then what are the how many singing styles are there? That made me work on it.
Then when I discovered and wrote an article on that, people thought that, oh, there are as many tunes as, like, the music goes. How many ragas are there in the music? So many tunes are there. But I didn’t mean that. That misunderstood me in this factor that I said, if if you belong to so and so place in India, so and so region.
For example, Northeast Region. Somebody is from Northeast Region. You ask a shloka. You ask him to sing a shloka. He is so this is how they tune.
Okay, so they naturally sing in this tune that you need not like you you then you make a. He’s from Northeast. Somebody from Maharashtra. So this. Then it actually comes to them.
Whatever shloka you give. They don’t by default, they don’t even Like realize that there might be different ways of reading the same. Correct. Correct. I don’t know when it started.
It it may be of very late origin. I don’t know how our four the forefathers did it because we neither had the recordings. We neither had the, like, no samples or their live people who are following some tradition. So maybe if it is unchanged for eras, maybe some very old tradition, then it’s only Ved. Ved is the only institution which is coming to us, and there are no tunes in Ved.
There are only, like, kind of, you know, going up, down, up, down that much only, but we don’t have tunes for Suktas, I don’t think. They just read plain plainly, and we only have them for. So are a different work altogether. They they belong to a different so this was like my if you are a Telugu person, so it’s some like, Telugu people don’t have a specific tune. So we are more trained from, like, the this Vishnu said that the first two tunes that I signed, maybe the Telugu person will stand start from there like that.
Okay. I just remembered that you could actually lately invented the new tune for the Varnamala. So can you please read out both the Varnamalas, the classical one invented by Usha Sanka and the new one invented by Usha Sankar. So can you? Yes.
Sure. Give me just one chance to drink some water. Okay? That’s some water. Maybe you should have asked me in the beginning.
We have so so much. I forgot that we had this Varnamala. Sure, sure, yes. For every class in the beginning and every class at the end, we have a Varnamala. So in the sample we have is the one invented by Usha Sankar.
So this is the original now will be heard. Okay. And sing with the beat. And we can go on like that. So it’s it’s a tune which comes in loop.
So that I like Right. So this is the first one. First one. First one, which came And lately, just like last year, you had the second one? Yes.
Yes. Yes. Very lately. That one is it’s also the same beat. But we cannot loop this one that is only like we cannot come back to again.
Naturally that first tune goes. Oh, these are the two tunes and I came to know from that music teacher, the music person who came to us that this is Mohan Araka. The first one is Mohan Araka. I do not know the second one. Yes.
Mohan Araka, she said. So now we know. Yes. Yes. And now now I I I want to connect this again to my father.
We I told you, like, he’s a they used to learn music when when when when we were very children, very kids, like kids, they used to learn. So he used to sing that. So there’s a kind of varna composition music. It’s like So like that, it goes like, I I I’m not You want to say that that that this raga came out of you because your father gave it in your childhood? Childhood.
Yes. Yes. So they they used to think a lot. You know, in the house, there was this week. Whenever they want to sing the.
Was like, look, we used to play and sing this. Didn’t even know that it’s a it has a raga. They have like that. There. Didn’t know anything.
We just playfully. We would play and sing this. So, we think maybe it remained inside me and Mohanah always comes maybe as a as itself. It expresses itself. I do not know.
I don’t have a great liking for this, except that that I heard it since my childhood. And for me, Varana means Mohanavarana. If anybody wants me to sing a Varana, I will sing Mohanavarana like that. Just a few more minutes. Could you tell me about what fields were you lately in?
So what are you doing? I know you do some translation. From what languages to what languages? What kind of works? What are you in?
Mostly, I’m into chanting as a major this thing. And then lately, since last two to three years, I’ve been with Samiti. So, like, Hyderabad, there is a Samiti. I’ve been teaching MA level students there. It’s a teaching for the for the higher text that we learned in my MA as I told you.
So those text I teach. Then in the Ariana University, now that’s a universities of Silicon Andhra has become Ariana, a r I a r I a. So there, I’m working. So there’s, like, when the students are there, we teach. Otherwise, we are just, like Like, what disciplines?
It’s also like Sanskrit. I’m from the department of Sanskrit. It’s like the certificate course, diploma course, and MA course. Mhmm. On the three levels I teach.
So they have when students are sometimes there, they’re not there. So it depends on, like, that. And then we are teaching for children. I teach them the. And then some some something like not not yet now, but previously, we used to have.
A group and these children like stories like stories is a very new this thing like I I’m an II didn’t know that I was a good or bad storyteller, although I would enjoy telling a story always, but as a like for the for the students, they started, like, are you I wanted to fill the time after the chanting happened. There used to be, like, ten minutes gap every time. So I thought, let me fill it with a story, then it became the story has become a main part of the class now. Mhmm. One thing.
There’s a new Maybe, like, stories that were never written before, stories of your own? No. No. Not stories of my own. No.
No. No. There are those which are popular in, like, Telugu children, Telugu people. And some like, some study Karidasa story, for example. So how he became like, he was a very tougher in the beginning, then he gets married to a princess.
It’s such a story. Some such a story. Popular stories. Yeah. Popular stories.
Not my own. Not my own. Though I’m a writer, of course, I write stories, but I don’t tell that to children. They are like, I write for. I write novels and all that for.
That is a different one. Then another thing is translations is from it’s a project from project. There is one ring of that. They invite scholars and they are getting all major text from Sanskrit translated to Telugu. So they did the Puranas.
They they were put on the Bhagavata Purana previously. Then this professor sir of mine, like Acharya sir. Acharya sir had got tenth, eleventh, and twelfth from that. So I had helped him, like, with the typing and all that I worked. Then I got my own, like, Mahabharata translation, Vanaparva.
129 chapters of Vanaparva. I got to do the translation. Translation to what language? From from Sanskrit to Telugu. So to Telugu.
So it’s like, we are working on it. It’s still in under me, like, it’s like It was never translated to Telugu before? No. It was translated, but they were not authentic. They were not authentic.
They were not complete. And even if people did, they it was not a shloka translation. Shloka translation. It was not per shloka. Per shloka.
It was, like, total Mahabharata into, like, what you call as a prose. Only prose Mahabharata, just the translation. Prose retelling. A prose Retelling. Yeah.
Correct. Based on the shloka. But now this is what exactly is inside the shloka that we have to translate. That is the work I do. The first full academic translation?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Sure. And then I’m working on this.
Once our chanting classes started, the students started asking for complete at once. So for that, I chose my YouTube channel as a best thing, and then I used to post the name of the YouTube channel? It’s the world of Sanskritam. World of Sanskritam was the first YouTube channel that I started for this purpose. Then the second And you have a second one as well?
Yes. That is light of Sanskritam. The light of Sanskritam, that is another one. Sarwani Prakasha. It’s like Sarwani Prakasha is the name.
Light of Sanskrit. That has all my classes, whatever I teach, like academic teaching and all that. They are available there for free, all your samples of stotra chanting. Yes. Yes.
In the world of Sanskritam, the stotras are all there. Whatever I teach to our students, I make one recording of it, one PPT presentation, and when Shiva Sagar helps me with the animation and all, matching the text with the audio, then putting it. It is all for, like, education purpose. Mhmm. So that that is one of mother, like, past times.
Like like, I can’t like, learning activities. It’s a past time for me, but for students and all, they look from a learning point of view, so it is useful for them. Then I also write songs for children. Lately, our Olga, Likvin and Koshi took one of the, like, song Children songs. Children’s song.
Yes. Yes. Like, what kind of song she took? And then I I don’t remember it. Then it’s likely children are asking the cloud.
Oh, cloud, please come. We will get hold you on my bicycle and take you to my plate. Please rain there. Okay. So it’s like that.
I’ll do some rain there. It’s a funny idea and one minute I have those songs. One more I wrote recently, I really liked it like. So something like that. So it’s like the piece attractive for children.
Sometimes the flash comes and I write the song. Okay? So it’s like that. Like that. So children will like such tunes.
Right? So So you and you do some translating of songs from English to Sanskrit? Yes. Yes. This lullaby also I translated into Sanskrit, that Russian song.
And yes. Yes. I was not aware of this. Of course. Exactly.
I I I want to read just two lines. Okay? First two lines. So for the Russian for RT, Russian television, we are ready, I guess, for the children’s section. Yeah.
I want to do more because I really like the some ideas. You see, they are foreign to me. So I am used to certain bhava jala. Bhava jala means certain thinking styles, certain expressions, certain life events, phenomena of life. We are, like, confined to India.
Somebody had said once, like, somebody whom I know, they said, you are, like, again, the word you use, So you’re just thinking that, you know, is great. Okay. Is great. But don’t you learn about other world? There are many people, many cultures.
They have their own expressions. Why don’t you try to learn? So that first, I I really loved when you offered to offered me to sing learn a Russian song and all, and you gave me this. I went through the the, you know, feeling that my teacher gave me all the translation. Really like like, So even the even the fairy tales have gone to sleep.
How can a tale go to sleep? It’s a very like, the books have slept. So I do have books sleeping and like, all this was very new and very attractive for me, so I was inspired to translate this into Sanskritam. And, yes, the film songs, the English sorry, Hindi film songs. One, Titanic is English song that I translated.
That is the only one. Now, later on, like, in Hindi songs, I translated many of them. Some devotional songs I translated from Telugu to Sanskrit, Hindi to Sanskrit like that. Keep on like doing it for exercise sake and for the single. I want to sing everything in Sanskrit and whatever I like in any other place.
I want own it in like when I think in Sanskrit, I feel like I want it now. So II feel like. That’s that’s another time. Whatever reading, writing What what else is there? So your how to research with Jim is down or teaching is yet still there?
Of course, Jim. I I I cannot, I mean, close this without Jim. Jim had, like, a very big impact upon me. Teaching him has been the best learning from for me. Like, apart from what my guru taught as a teacher and I as a student, that’s a different zone and different level.
But here, Jim is a student, and I’m a teacher. But still, I learn every day. I have something new to learn from that lesson, and he makes me discover what all I don’t know. His questions, his I’m not I’m no more working with any colon project, but I’m connected with him. I gave him choice.
Like, whatever you want, I will do it. Then he said, I want to learn Sanskrit. I want to, like, do some text this thing. And and this is a sample of someone who is, like, who started learning Sanskrit when he was already not young, who’s a non Indian, and still doing it on a daily basis. So, you can do work on Sanskrit, but that will be not in Sanskrit.
So he had done so many tens of years, like for last thirty years he’s still doing more than every institute in the world he’s doing in the field of Sanskrit lexicography. But that is the field on Sanskrit, but he wanted finally to have the time to do in Sanskrit, not on Sanskrit, and this is where the match is, that an American economist and an American mathematician meets the Indian way of teaching Sanskrit. Yes. Yes. And, like, I had a chance to compare my Russians.
I have, like, until then only, like, Indian students chanting and Russian students chanting samples. But now I have American, very staunch. He has not been out of America ever in his like, he has always been in America for a long, long time. And he has, like, two parts of America. He’s from North And South America.
He know he knows both. So that from that, I can see his Sanskrit chanting where it is he’s facing difficulties and all. So I have, like he gave me a lot of insights by his questions. He’s he’s more important in the cultural questions, questions around India, questions around people, questions around society, all these, like family, like many, many, many, like, topics come between us. He’s happy because I’m able to answer him patiently.
I’m happy because he raises such questions so that I have a chance to have an insight and get more understanding about myself, my how the principles of the how the life principles were designed from my dharma from dharma point of view. So a lot of things I get to learn from him. So it’s a it’s a good give and take along with him. So he helped me a lot, really, really, really. We are doing prakama darshan for now.
We are doing the Palagad series, prakama darshan, he’s happy. He does lot of work. He’s like, oh, stop. Stop. Don’t tell me.
So he does the prework before the class. He doesn’t want to do it in the class. He completes all the, like, the dictionary work, the the lookup and all, and he’s ready with his words. So where he is going wrong, I help him. So he frames the sentences, then he wants to construct his own sentences sometimes, and he wants to chant sometimes.
He want me to correct all these. Like, it’s lot lot lot of things in one. Every day, 4AM in the morning, I get up for him just for his class sake. So four to five or 05:30AM is his time, and my days really start with the Sanskrit. And, yes, we do a lot of things in English, but, yes, it is always like he reads the textile.
Previously, he used to we used to do the. So previously, like it was he used to just read and not read the text outside. He just read with his eyes and tell it English. I said, why don’t you read the pros also so that encouraged him to read read the sentence and then I get a chance to correct him and see deal with his difficulties and deal with my own like, where why this? Why this?
So the the do we have any, like, synonym for this? Something. Something. Something. So can you explain this?
Then I see my shortcomings where I am lacking, where the idiom works, especially Sanskrit idiom, how it works. I can go to much deep, deep, deeper things than I can imagine in in his along with his. So it’s not Sanskrit only. It’s not like we are speaking English, so it becomes English. No.
It’s more language insights that I go back back back deep into that stage where language is coming along. Yes. We’ve come to almost an end of our discussion, which should have been taken actually like ten years ago and still did not. So the last question for today, Didi, what inspires you most in teaching right now? Well, as I told you, whatever takes me deeper, it is not depend on the subject.
I discovered it even chanting. A few years back like when I was offered chanting teacher this thing in Yoma, I really felt like, you know, what chanting? Chanting is a kindergarten job. But no, I was wrong. So whatever allows me to discover that insightful, it is like it is allowing me to go deeper into myself is enjoyable to me.
It can be chanting like a kindergarten job or it is a, like, a PG level or a PhD level job. Whatever gives me that that the student is serious. The student also is a very important part of teaching because if somebody is not interested, then we cannot teach them. So I’m very lucky in that aspect that I got all the students who I’m whomever I have dealt in group or in private, as a single student or as a class student, everybody came up to be very interested in Sanskrit, and that really helped me to look into the deeper sides of Sanskrit language aspects. Dhanayavad.
And so if nothing starts with an invocation, can there be an end if there is not chanting? Yes. It is also again chanting only. The Swasti, we can say Swasti Prajadhina, that one we can say before stopping. Ashanti, we can do the Ashanti kavanas.
One moment. As we said, the bigger piece in the world. So some some some something like that. We we we always start, like, the classes in in not only the Russian classes. We start gym’s class also with the invocation, and we close with the swasti.
So we do it everywhere, always. So let us call it a day. Yeah. I hope that we have an increasing amount of students, enough energy to handle all of them in the Sanskrit Zealot Society, which I am guiding for the last twenty years and in the Sanskrit Research Institute, I want really to make a place in Russia, a sample of how actually Sanskrit should be taught with the help of Indians as well. So, I thank you for everything we’ve done together.
And I do believe we have a few things left to be done. Yeah. We’ll be always there together, and I really love your work. That that place you are giving for Russians to connect with, like, Sanskrit. Like, with India, they are connected.
I know Russians are connected with India in a bigger, like, lines. But with Sanskrit academically as a chanting work, as, like, understanding like, when I you have given me, like, how to translate, put the extra words in the bracket, and which word you are translating beside it, keep the original word, like English word, and then then the original, you know, Sanskrit word. All these things have, like, made me now I’m able to see the how to perfectly translate that. Like that, I I think I’ll reach at the high level, higher level than before while I I have been giving these texts to the students. I’m really happy with the works along with you.
They have developed a lot of insights into my own fields, my own country, my own nation, my own, like how to connect with life and work. Sanskrit has become the common point between us and moreover that too. II wish we come back to the. I wish we we I do still hope that, I mean, I had to print a book on that’s one point, but it it will not be possible if we don’t finalize something that we have started ten years ago. Yes.
I hope. Yes. Yes. I I’m, like, badly looking forward for see, all in spite of doing all these things, my PhD keeps on, like, poking me, like, pricking me. Like, it says, you’re not working on me.
You are not caring for me. You’re doing so many things throughout the day, but I’m not there in your day. So I want to go back to I hope we have enough time and strength for the research work that has to be finished. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Looking forward for that. Apart from this chanting classes, of course. So I want to see more of Marcy’s and Usha working in the direction of Dhatus, more on Dhatus that we connect again, Coming back to our self. May it help us.
Namaste to everybody. Hello.
Стрим состоялся 10.01.2026
