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“Only if ganga Maiya (Ganga river), Baba Biswanath (Lord Shiva) and Banaras is brought to the United States, will I ever agree to go there and live.” - Ustad Bismillah Khan, Shehnai Maestro.

It is not just the physical space that defines the ghats of Banaras (or Varanasi, it’s current official name). It’s a five millennia old civilization distilled. Banaras is one of the oldest continually lived cities of the world and its ghats are a totem of Indian spirituality and culture.

For visitors, it is an unparalleled visual and spiritual encounter - the devoted descending into the Ganga for Surya Namaskar at the crack of dawn, the thousands of diyas and scented flowers floating on the waters, the pundits and the rituals, the crowds and the commotion..Millions of devotees visit the city each year to wash away the sins, or simply, to wait for death.

It is estimated that there are over 100 ghats in the city. many of the ghats claim their origins from the Gods. For instance, Dasaswamedh - one of the main ghats in the city - is said to be the exact spot where Lord Brahma sacrificed 10 horses. Another ghat - Manikarnika- is said to have got its name when the Goddess Parvati - having lost her earrings (manik) on the banks of the Ganga - asked her husband Lord Shiva to search for them. Thus, devotees say theLord is forever present at the ghat, hunting for the never found earrings.

Because of deep spiritual links, Banaras is the cultural hub of north India. It is believed to be the city of Lord Shiva, who resdes here along with his consort, Parvati. The city, for thousands of years, has been a center for learning. Banaras Hindu University was established here in 1916 by Pt. Madan Mohan Malviya.

India has always been a linguistic hothouse. This has been accentuated by generational divides where parents and children speak different languages.

Urbanisation has taken people away from their roots, language included.

Leaving the shores for jobs and education has made its own contribution.

I know of a diplomat from Singapore who speaks in Bhojpuri (a dielect of Hindi) with his parents, migrants from India; and English with his children.

This is the trend in much of urban South Asia, where education has divided families, making them more cosmopolitan in the process.

I found some interesting reports recently, coming from different corners of the world, about how Indians communicate.

In Toronto, a Hindi language instructor has begun a language-and-culture course to meet the growing desire of Indo-Canadian children to speak to grandparents and relatives in India who cannot speak English.

“Grandparents help kids stay in touch with their roots,” says Nisha Taneja, whose two daughters have been learning Hindi for two years.

Punjabi and Bengali classes are also being offered in Hamilton, which has 24,000 South Asians, The Hamilton Spectator reports.

The third report, from Sydney, says a Hindi language course offered by the University of Sydney’s Centre for Continuing Education (CCE) is popular among Australian students.

Introduced last year and run by Philip Claxton, it is a thriving component of CCE’s languages unit. “Bollywood is responsible for the interest in Hindi,” Claxton says.

“Studying Hindi is all about crossing cultures and improving my own higher-order thinking,” says Howard Shibuya, a Hindi student.

Surprisingly, the target audience for Hindi is not the traditional India-bound entrepreneur.

Claxton says: “These are people ranging from heritage students who have an Indian background to those whose partners, fiances, spouses speak either Hindi, Urdu or Punjabi, to those who have an interest in religious traditions.”

A professor of anthropology at the University of Western Ontario says: “The first generation is busy adjusting to a new place, the second generation gets interested in identity.”

Obviously getting back to your mother tongue or Hindi can be useful in many ways. So learn Hindi.

“The Kumbh mela could only take place in India. At what gathering of one religion would you find such a variety of teaching, such an acceptance that there are many ways to God?” - Mark Tully, Author.

Kumbh mela is said to be the largest congregation of humanity to assemble for a religious occasion. And it is not difficult to see why?

Kumbh mela takes place when the planet Jupiter enters the sign of Aqurius and Sun enters Aries.

An estimated 70 million people congregated at Allahabad during the 2001 MahaKumbh.

The sadhus of the 13 prominent akharas (sects) have the right to bathe first in the Sangam on the days of Shahi Snan.

Every 12 years, crores of devotees congregate on the banks of the Sangam - the confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati - in Allahabad, to participate in the festival. In fact, taking a dip in Sangam during the Kumbh is considered so auspicious among Hindus that it is believed to wash away the sins of countless births.

The origin of Kumbh mela can be traced to a story mentioned in Vishnu Puran (an ancient Hindu religous scripture). According to the story, the devas (angels) and asuras (devils)joined hands to churn the Ksheer Sagar (ocean of milk), with the objective of obtaining amrit (the nectar of immortality). However, when the kumbh (pot) containing the amrit appeared, a fight for the pot ensued. During this tussle, a few drops of amrit fell at four locations on earth. These places - Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik - became the locations for the Kumbh mela.

While the Kumbh mela is held at each of the four locations after every three years, the main mela - Maha Kumbh - is held at Allahabad every 12 years.

The major attraction at the Kumbh are the naked naga sadhus who come out in resplendent processions on the days of the shahi snan (royal bath), considered to be especially auspicious for bathing.

The Kumbh mela is an unparalleled spectacle, of people who are drawn to it by unquestioned devotion. Perhaps, that is why it is also referred to as world’s largest act of faith.

The three-day (July 13 -15, 2007) eighth World Hindi Conference in New York concluded with an appeal to India to make a concerted effort to mobilize other nations towards giving recognition to Hindi as the seventh official language of the United Nations.

The six UN languages are English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic.

The conference also appealed to expatriat Indians to pressures their respective governments to support this move.

Over 1000 delegates attended the three-day conference. From India alone, around 500 delegates attended the session, which has been jointly organized by the External Affairs Ministry and the Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, New York.

The primary objective of this year’s conference was to project the significance of Hindi to the world.

According to the ‘Comrie’ Survey (held in1998), Hindi is the second most spoken language of the world after Chinese.

The SBS Atlas of Languages, authored by Bernard Combrie and his colleagues, provides a detailed account of the language families of each region of the world, and identifies and explains interesting and sometimes unique features of grammar and vocabulary.

It also examines the archaeological, historical, cultural, social and political background where this has had an impact on the dissemination, development or decline of a language.

In his concluding remarks, Karan Singh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s special representative at the conference, emphasized the need to make Hindi a global language.

The concluding session saw 14 proposals being put forward. They were:

(1) To make Hindi teaching and the Devnagri script popular.

(2) To prepare a standard syllabus

(3) To give recognition to Hindi teachers working on foreign soil

(4) To tone up the World Hindi Secretariat

(5) Promote the opening up of regional offices of the secretariat

(6) To launch a Hindi language-centric web site at the world level.

(7) To publish a simple book in Hindi on technical subjects.

(8) To prepare a data base about foreign institutes and teachers teaching at these institutes.

(9) Expatriats should help in popularizing Hindi globally

(10) India to establish a research centre in Wardha for foreign scholars.

(11) To establish a Central Hindi Institute to promote Hindi globally

(12) To establish Hindi Chairs at foreign universities.

(13) To promote Hindi as the language of modern science and commerce

(14) To promote the use of Hindi at all the conferences organized by the India in India and abroad

The concluding day saw several foreign Hindi scholars being given awards for their proficiency in the language.

An Israeli scholar was also honoured for his contribution in popularising Hindi in his country. Genady Shlomper has been teaching Hindi at the Hebrew and Tel Aviv Universities for years, and has facilitated the graduation of over 260 students.

The head of Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan Trust in New York, Dr. P.Jayaraman, also received an award for his active participation in organizing the conference, and for working tirelessly in promoting the language in America, despite being a Tamilian.

“Despite India having so many languages there should be one link language.Whether it be Tamil, Malayalam or Kashmiri-all of them are Indian languages, but only Hindi can act as a unifying factor,” said Dr. Jayaraman.

What was interesting was the participation of an Arunachali woman Joram Yalam in the conference.

A PhD in Hindi from Delhi and a Hindi teacher, Yalam described Hindi as a simple and beautiful language that was not widely used or promoted in the North East. She called for greater effort in this direction.

Mauritius has shown keen interest to host the Ninth World Hindi Conference in 2011.

So far, seven such conferences have been held. They were held at Nagpur (1975), Mauritius (1976), New Delhi (1983), Mauritius (1993), Port of Spain, Trinidad (1996), London (1999) and Paramaribo in Surinam (2003).

Ranked among the seven wonders of the world, praise for this wonder in marble has never ceased ever since it was unveiled to the world almost four centuries ago.

What can be said about the Taj Mahal that hasn’t already been said?

“The sight of its beauty creates sorrowing sighs and makes the sun and moon shed tears from their eyes.” - Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, in his biography Badshahnama.

“A tear drop upon the cheek of time.” - Ravindranath Tagore, Nobel Prize Winner Poet.

“A perfect pearl on an azure ground - with an effect so dazzling that no other work of art can ever produce” - Hodges, British Painter.

“An embodiment of all things pure.” - Rudyard Kipling.

“There are two kinds of people in the world - Those who have seen the Taj Mahal and love it and those who have not seen the Taj and love it.” - Bill Clinton, Former US President.

What makes the Taj so universally appealing?

One reason is it’s physical perfectness. The main marble tomb stands on a square plinth, with four minarets on each corner of plinth, giving it a symmetrical design. The surface of the tomb has been extensively decorated with exquisite caligraphy.

What adds to the Taj’s beauty is not just its physical perfectness but also the story behind it - of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz which gives that extra touch of romance to the monument.

Maybe it is this diversity in which lies the beauty of the Taj - to be different things to different people, yet still be beautiful to all.

Some Facts about the Taj mahal that may be of interest are -

• Built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his queen Arjumand Bano (Mumtaz Mahal).
• Took 17 years and about 20,000 workers to complete.
• In 1983, it was declared a world heritage site and UNESCO described it as the “jewel of Muslim art in India”.
• Most visited monument in India that attracts almost 3 million visitors every year.