Hindi Bharat ki bindi

RAJNI ANAND LUTHRA on Hindi Divas celebrations

Hindi Bharat ki bindi. Sydney poet Darshan Behl’s words described aptly the mood of the day at Hindi Divas celebrations in Sydney recently.

Hindi Divas is celebrated on Sept 14. It was on this day in 1949 that India ’s Constituent Assembly adopted the language as the official language of the country. Today it has grown to become the second most spoken language in the world.

A day-long Hindi Mela was organised in Sydney to mark the event – a celebration which included Hindi students strutting their stuff, poets from within Sydney ’s Hindi-speaking community offering their latest, and the launch of an Aboriginal DVD with Hindi commentary.

Hindi school

The event was held at Thornleigh West Public School , Thornleigh, where Sydney ’s leading Hindi school conducts its weekend classes.

Mala Mehta, the founder of Sydney ’s Indo Australian Bal Bharati Vidyalaya (IABBV) and the foremost campaigner for Hindi in this country, said, “We, as Non Resident Indians, try to hold on to our culture and values as best as we can. By connecting ourselves with Hindi we are able to do this most effectively. It also enables us to pass on not only the language but also aspects of our culture to our children here”.

IABBV marks its 25th birthday this year, and so Hindi Divas took on an even greater significance for its students and teachers, some of who have been with the school since its inception. For this occasion, Mehta organised to bring together other Hindi schools in Sydney, notably the NSW DET Saturday School of Community Languages and the Girraween Hindi School , as well as Hindi lovers within the community who have continued Hindi-related activities in literature or the performing arts even after migrating to this country.

But the stars of the show were definitely the students, K-12. They have shown a commitment to their native tongue over and above their regular school, sport and extra-curricular activities, and who give up their Sundays in pursuit of Hindi.

The students all presented little performances to the visiting guests. There were poems and songs, dances and skits on a variety of topics (family relationships, nature, devotional, dohas, even comedy, and some tributes to literary greats by the older students). The Years 1-3 students’ act on Chiriya was YouTubed and has been seen by many in the community (“Ek chiriya ke bache chaar, ghar se nikle pankh prasaar, Purab se paschim jaayen, uttar se dakshin ko jayen, Ghoom ghaam jab ghar ko aayen, mummy ko ek baat batayen, Dekh liya humne jag saara, apna ghar hai sabse pyarra”). The skit on Anna Hazare also went down very well.

“The students made us all very proud,” Mala said later. “Their joy and enthusiasm increases manifold when they find themselves performing in front of distinguished audiences”.

One distinguished member of the audience the kids were happy to meet, was singer Kamahl, who also recited some poetry. Not a native Hindi speaker, he chose to speak in English, lending that very famous voice this time to Rabindrathan Tagore, Nobel Laureate and India ’s greatest poet, whose 150th birth anniversary is being marked this year.

Other dignitaries included Phillip Ruddock MP, Mr David Elliot (Member for

Baulkham Hills representing Mr Victor Dominello, Minister for Immigration and Community), Nick Berman (Mayor Hornsby Shire) and Dilip Chopra (Councillor Hornsby Shire). Community leaders heading various associations were also present.

Students received awards for excellence in Student Achievement and for Outstanding Effort in Hindi. Teachers of the school, all of them volunteers, were felicitated as well.

The Indian Consulate in Sydney and community organisations sponsored the prizes.

“We also acknowledge the NSW Department of Education and Training Community Languages program for the limited support that it provides our Hindi School as well as many other community language schools”, Mala said.

A Hindi poetry recitation was also held on the occasion. Akansha Kandulal and Shreya Parwal

Took the prize in the Years 1-4 category, Rishab Babji won in the Years 5-8 category, and Nirali Atul Chandra Goel took the award in the Years 9-12 category.

And of course can Bollywood be far behind at a Hindi event? A happening dance number ended the event for the kids quite appropriately: contemporary Bollywood is certainly doing its bit to keep the language interesting for kids of the diaspora.

DVD release: The Dreaming

On the occasion of IABBV-organised Hindi Mela, Rekha Rajvanshi, long-time teacher at IABBV and founder of the Indian Literary and Art Society of Australia (ILASA), released a DVD that she has worked extensively on. Entitled The Dreaming, this is an Aboriginal animation film produced in Hindi and other languages by Keith Salvat of the Aboriginal Nations Australia Pty Limited. The Hindi translation was done by Rekha Rajvanshi, and the voice over was provided by Anupam Sharma of Films and Casting Temple .

“When Keith approached me, I was excited even though I knew it would be a challenging job,” Rekha told Indian Link. “It took a while to accomplish, because I dedicated much time to learning the correct pronunciations of the Aboriginal terms and names. But I think it was a great way to connect with the culture of the first Australians. In the end, this is the general aim of the entire project as far as I am concerned – getting Hindi-speaking Australians to learn more about the culture of their adopted country”.

Rekha is an accomplished writer and poet with many publications to her name. A NAATI accredited translator, Rekha has translated many official documents and websites from English into Hindi. At the last NSW election, she translated Labor Party campaign material into Hindi and even taught the ex-premier Kristina Keneally to speak a few lines in Hindi.

The Dreaming, which has already won several national and international awards, is available in ABC shops or can be bought directly from Aboriginal Nations Australia.

Kavi Sammelan

The ILAASA and IABBV organised Kavi Sammelan turned out to be a perfect way to spend the afternoon. The audience settled in with their cups of chai as MC Rekha Rajvanshi started off the event. Star-billing was accorded to Melbourne poet Subhash Sharma, who flew in just for the event.

There was a wonderful variety of poems presented. In keeping with the general theme of the day, some poets concentrated on the Hindi language (Suresh Makkar, Subhash Sharma, Darshan Behl), while others chose nationalism as their topic (Suresh Makkar, Vimal Luthra).

Quite impressively, many presenters chose to be very topical, showing that their continued engagement with issues that bother us as Indians, as migrants here, as Australians, and as citizens of the world. Poems were presented on the degradation of the environment (Ajay Ghosh), on the power of the people (Ajay Ghosh), on terrorism (Ajay Ghosh), on Anna Hazare (Santram Bajaj), and even on sensationalist newspaper wallahs (Yadu Singh in a laudable maiden attempt)!

Mention was also made of anniversaries and festivals close to the time, such as Father’s Day and Ganesh Chaturthi (Dhanraj Chaudhri), 9-11 (Yadu Singh), and the birth anniversary of the great Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (Arvind Verma).

Relationships were another favoured topic: we heard of grandmothers (Vimla Luthra), mothers (Kannada poet Anu Shivram in a maiden Hindi attempt), on parenthood (Ramprakash Mehdiratta) and on long-time sweethearts (Ramprakash Mehdiratta).

Memories, always a cherished topic for poets, were dealt with by poets Siddhant Nakra and Gargi Tripathi. We also heard Anu Chhabra and Subhash Sharma on memories of ‘back home’: while Anu’s was a sombre and thoughtful reflection, Subhash was completely humorous, and yet, both won over the audience completely!

Humorous poems also came from Harmohan Walia (with a tongue-twister like presentation on Dil),

Pradeep Upadhyaya, Mukesh Jani and Subhash Sharma (whose take on PM Julia Gillard had the audience in splits: Julia O Julia, tera kaam khatm ho liya, Rudd jaisa dekh tera haal aaj ho liya!)

Other poets spoke of the lack of time in modern life (Kusum Chowdhary) and hope that springs eternal (Shashi Baranwal).

Rekha introduced each poet, often in verse, and sometimes in the words of one of the poets present in the audience, in a wonderful gesture of peer-appreciation. In the traditional manner, all poets were felicitated with a shawl at the end of their presentation. Again, it was interesting to note that the speakers were honoured by their own peers, on this occasion.