By Acharya S.P.Dwivedi
Poets, writers and journalists from across Canada gathered , on the invitation of Alberta Hindi Parishad, at the Center of Council of India Societies in Edmonton on November1, 2014. They informally discussed the issues related with Hindi teaching, publication and promotion.
Acharya Dwivedi found that mostly, Hindi teaching is being carried by the temples and a few organizations such as Ottawa Hindi Society and Alberta Hindi Parishad and some of the schools in Ontario also provide the Hindi teaching facilities. The University of Toronto, MC Gill and Calgary offer the undergraduate courses. Hindi radio and television programs are broad cast mainly from Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto and, newspapers and magazines are being published from the same above cities. Obviously, to promote Hindi we need more print and electronic outlets.
Prof. Jagmohan Humar thought that unless we speak Hindi in our homes only then it will be continued by the next generation or else it may disappear slowly from the families.”There is interest in young generation but we have to make teaching interesting and useful”, Yogesh Kumar commented. Rajiv Ranjan said that it is the responsibility of parents to see their children are learning Hindi and practicing at homes or not.
” We are not serious and persuasive about teaching Hindi to our children” , Kulbir Mehra told . According to Pundit Shiv Shankar Dwivedi – mother language is the symbol of individual’s identity and we should be proud of promoting it as our cultural heritage. He further said that we should use simple language in literature and in our communication too. Dr. Prithviraj Kalia, who is a prominent journalist, declared that the modern technological tools such as blogging and web are used by Hindiwalas but more is to be done on this front.
Evening’s highlight was Kavi Sammelan which was conducted by Hindi and Sanskrit scholar- Pundit Shiv Shankar Dwivedi. He frequently applied Hindi Rubaiyat to introduce the poets successfully. Acharya Shrinath P. Dwivedi, DR. Jagmohan Humar, Dr. Desh Mitra, Rajiv Ranjan, Dr. Prithviraj Kalia, Pramod Kumar, Sarla Sharma, Sita Sarasvat, Pemla Malhotra and Sendy Gill recited their incredible poems, ghazals and songs and were hugely admired by the enthusiast gathering.
