wiping away a heritage

The way we Indians are letting our old assets waste away is an intellectual suicide. One visit to museum or national library will prove the story. There are so many things which are being wasted there, which should not have been done. One visit to the Kolkata museum can leave you fuming. I was a regular visitor of museum till I fell in clutches of a drunk supervisor, I was reading an sms inside the museum and he lectured me for more than one hour. After that, I never dared to visit museum alone, which means I did not went there at all. During that last visit too I saw numbers of priceless antiques lying under the sun and shower getiing ruined. May be this is what happens when every civilisation dies, india has reached its extreme during Middle Ages now it’s the downward swing of the pendulum. But somewhere in the horizon I can feel the changes coming. Changing of human beings toward a better world.

Any way, at present my main heartache is the way our old literature is dying due to negligence of our educated people, by educated I mean those people who have vast knowledge in our ancient literature and have the capacity of translating them to English or hindi.

Well, I have been an avid reader since my childhood, in the long span of my reading history I have read hundreds of books. But lately I don’t have money or time to go to libraries or make a library of my own. And this is the time when I have realized and bitterly regretted the way we are ignoring the vast literary asset created by our ancestors, if we put it on the net in an easily accessible way it will only enhance its popularity and a lot of persons will be enriched by it. People who are eager to know the ancient Indian literature.

Any one who has read our old books like ramayan, mahabharat or bhagvad gita know that these are treasures of wisdom. Apart from these there are so many unsung songs like panchtantras or works of kalidas, chanakya etc. If these things are put up on net in an easily accessible manner I think a lot of persons like me, who want to seriously know our culture in details will be deeply indebted.

I have tried for atleast three or four times to get any site from where I can get the entire Ramayana, Mahabharata, Vedas, Srimadbhagvat gita or panchtantras but failed. It just did not worked. I wanted to know the true story, as written in Mahabharata or ramayan about some not so famous characters like shantanu, ganga, bhishma, bali, hanuman, mandodari, indrajit etc, but could not get it. There were different version of each stories which hardly collaborated with each other and on different blogs or sites like wikipedia, I could not locate any site like Mahabharata or Ramayana.

Nor have I till date located any site which translates the meanings of sanskrit or indian words, whereas a few days ago I was looking for the meaning of a spanish word I got it in the single hit.

If we don’t take care to share this immense treasure, handed over to us by our ancestors it too will waste away like our heritage things. These things are like flowers, they should be cherished and their fragrance should be let to spread wide.

And if I am extremely fortunate and wrong, and there is any such site, from which I can get the entire story of Mahabharata in details, or Ramayana, or Panchtantras, and if any one knows that site, I will be immensely grateful if he or she shares it with us.