Manabadi

Society influences the language one speaks, It is natural that kids pick up common languages spoken in the society quicker. Telugu and it's literature is so beautiful, that it always keeps you wanting for more. You have various dialects across the state, but the beauty of it is all the dialects are musical to the ear. In an effort to impart Andhra cultural values, Silicon Andhra's step towards mana badi - teaching telugu to kids born and brought up in the US was enchanting.The first thing Kashyap thought was to start a school in foster city as it has vast population of telugu families. He thought we could teach too, after all both of us inherit the art of teaching from our moms :-)

We started the school on Sunday, April 1st. Kashyap was skeptical about the response, In a way he felt strange too that he had to convince people to teach telugu to their kids, but to our disbelief we had 10 students to start with. The first class was an experience of it's own. It was fun to be with kids, A terrific experience when kids repeat what u teach them in chorus. As a parent rightly said it was like a telugu medium school :-), and we were the telugu teachers. My pedananna will laugh at me if i tell him that i of all persons am teaching telugu.I enjoyed the experience

The first time i learnt to read and write telugu was from my third language mam Snehalatha Miss at Devi Academy. Mind you, My third language was telugu , and I learnt "Iddenalu Oddinchu", "Peddala maata chaddi moota", never tried to understand what it meant. I took it up because i had no other choice. I studied for three years, and then back to a safer domain Hindi.

It was much later that i realised the beauty of the language, By then it was too late to start from basics. I miss reading the telugu literature. Now , I don't know much of it.

I recollect my telugu learning days , my regret about not having read telugu literature, and now i feel pretty excited about "Manabadi". I wish both kids and parents take it up seriously and relish the beauty of telugu.

I wait for the class, because I get to learn new poems. I keep thinking of ways to keep the kids excited about learning. It's fun.