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In the Gajjar household, the day begins with a suprahbatam and ends
with a shubhratri. To the uninitiated, the two italicised words may
sound like Hindi but are in fact Sanskrit version of good morning and
good night.
The Gajjar’s are just a handful of families (48) in the city and
state trying to keep alive Sanskrit through regular use in everyday
conversation. In fact, Satish Gajjar and his family converse only in
Sanskrit. The 38-year-old resident of Surendranagar said he took to the
practice eight years ago.
“When I married, my wife Gayatri did not
know the language. But as I insisted on only speaking in it she too
learned it. The first year was difficult but then she took picked it
up,” said Gajjar. Incidentally, he speaks to his parents in Gujarati.
His
8-year-old daughter Devki and 3-year-old son Vidit also converse with
their parents in Sanskrit. “Vidit is too young to converse but whatever
words he has learned so far all are in Sanskrit and hence follows it
brilliantly,” said Gajjar.
When asked if he doesn’t worry about
his children being affected by the use of a language that majority don’t
use, he said, “They study in Gujarati medium and are fluent in it as
well. Sanskrit is like any other language, the only difference being it
is not much in vogue but I don’t think speaking it puts my children at
any disadvantage whatsoever,” said Gajjar.
Mihir Upadhyay, a
Sanskrit teacher, is another man who uses the language to converse at
home. “At times, we do take to speaking in Gujarati but Sanskrit remains
the dominant language at home. My wife is a Sanskrit teacher as well
and hence it is easy for us,” said Upadhyay. He said, in all, there are
around 48 families in the state trying to keep alive the language
through regular use.
“My mother learned the language from me and now we often converse in it,” said Upadhyay.
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