I am glad my daughter studies in a “Hindu” school. It is not easy nowadays to get an admission into a “Hindu” school given how the RTE act discriminates against “Hindu” establishments while privileging minority institutions.
The decision to move to Mysuru from Bengaluru has obviously helped. Mysuru is less crowded, less competitive, and importantly more culturally rooted, unlike Bengaluru where the majority have been deracinated from their cultural and religious moorings.
Importantly, she gets to read and learn Sanskrit, Kannada, and Hindi along with English. She gets to chant the Bhagavad Gita and Vande Matharam without having to worry about being “Secular”
I myself unfortunately studied for 12 long years in a christian missionary school. It is only now when I think back to those years that I realize how I was not exposed to a single Hindu custom or culture during those 12 long years. Syncretic culture is just plain bullshit. I remember listening to parables from the Bible, attending Mass before exams and participating in Elocution and poetry competitions where it was always about Shakespeare, Wordsworth and a litany of English authors and poets. No Vande Matharam, no Indian poets and nothing from the Hindu culture or History. I was just lucky that despite all this my upbringing at home kept me tied to my roots however tenuously. It has been a long and (still ongoing) uphill task as I make up for the “lost” years trying to play catch-up
I have over the last few years made every attempt to make up for the lost time as I battle on – learning sanskrit, reading and understanding the Vedas and Upanishads, the Gita and all of the other treasures that are scattered across the immensely vast landscape of Sanatana Dharma.
The responsibility of preserving our culture lies with us, this generation – it starts with Hindu parents telling their children about who they actually are and introducing them to the fountainhead of spirituality and culture. Else, I am afraid in a few decades Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma as we know it will be long gone…
Politically Right Views (Ramesh Venkatraman) 