Today in this part of the world it is September 14th and this day is celebrated in India as National Hindi Day or Hindi Diwas (day). The main reason to celebrate this day as Hindi Diwas is because the Constituent assembly of India adopted Hindi as the official language of the country on this day in 1949 under the Article 343. This started being observed after stalwarts like Beohar Rajendra Simha, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Kaka Kalelkar, Maithali Sharan Gupt and Seth Govind Das lobbied hard for the cause. These are great poets and writes who promoted the Hindi literature in the country, I remember studying some of their work in Middle and High- School.

It is said that Hindi language is spoken by as many as 250 million people as the original language and it is the fourth language of the world, after Mandarin, Spanish, and English.

I remember in School days this day is a celebration of the Hindi language and its cultural heritage and values among the people of the country and abroad as well as I reside here now and see those happening in here as well.

"You have got to know your language to understand your culture." ~ Beatrice Taylor

Various Hindi literary festivals, Hindi poetry sessions, Hindi essay writing competitions and speech contests are organized and I remember participating in those and getting the first prize in the competition.

I am born in a Keralite family where the language spoken is Malayalam and I was raised in a city called Pune, in Maharashtra State in India, where the language spoken is Marathi. Since Hindi is the official language of India we get to learn in School.

"Speak a new language so that the world will be a new world." ~ Rumi

I am don't know when and how I fell in love with this language that I used to read a lot of books and I used to write letters to the authors who were still alive. It was a fun exchange of letters as I would ask questions to these authors based on the book I read and I try to ask why the end is like that or why in the middle certain situation happened and you didn't gave a continuation to it etc. 

I started writing poetry in elementary school in Hindi and it continued, but when I started getting highest marks in Hindi language at High-School, that's when I got the confidence that one can score in language too. There was the myth where everyone used to tell one can't score much in language. 

I had some of the friends who would be jealous on this as my Hindi teacher always appreciated my approach towards the language and my references in the answers during examination time. 

"Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going." ~ Rita Mae Brown

My Hindi teacher would often use my example in other classes and friends from that class used to share these information.

The modern standard Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in northern India and in southern side of India not everyone speaks this language, hence English as International language is used in India for official purpose.

It's interesting to read history and understand how languages formed and how we started communicating, writing, reciting and using it across the continent around the world.

"When you lose a language and a language goes extinct, it's like dropping a bomb on the Louvre." ~ Michael Krauss

Happy National Hindi Diwas to those who still can speak and write this language! 

~ Dawn

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