School Days: Sanskrit Period

Sanskrit was introduced as a subject in Class VIII to Class X, taught by Meenakshi Bapat teacher. We learnt about the difference between letter and half a letter. We had to learn different tables like Devah and Maala. We also had to traslate paragraphs and poem verses from Sanskrit to English. Poem writing was a task, a minor mistake and your marks are cut. We learnt a lot of meaningful shlokas. And we used the sanskrit animal names on our younger siblings. Sometimes it felt like the language is very difficult to grasp but eventually after a lot of hard work and dedication, it was easy. But this was half Sanskrit, so we could walkthrough with ease. Bapat teacher helped a lot in initial learning phase, she did the pronunciations multiple times and made us write the verses multiple times till we got used to it. We had synonyms and antonyms, fill in the blanks with appropriate verb forms of the word, etc. I still remember Recognize the Forms was the toughest thing in Sanskrit exam. All the years of learning a new language in school is a memory now.