By Cl. Ethan Fortes for BISMumbai

Don Bosco High School & Junior College, organized a Hindi Elocution competition to celebrate Hindi Diwas. The participants consisted of students from Classes 5 to 10.

The participants were grouped into three categories. The first category comprised students from Classes 5 and 6 were to recite a poem, the second category comprised students from Classes 7 and 8 were to narrate a value-based story, while the third category of students from Classes 9 and 10 had to deliver a motivational speech in Hindi.

The judges for the occasion were Mr Syed Rizwan Ahmed and Mr Amol Salve. Mr Ahmed is a former journalist and TV writer, who also worked as an editor on Zee News in 1996 before he began freelance writing in 1998. Apart from his journalism career, he also scripted a number of anchor scripts for various shows like ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ and ‘Fear Factor’. He also worked as a Hindi consultant and writer for Big Boss right from Season 1 to 12. Mr Salve serves as the assistant headmaster of the secondary section of Bhonde School, Lonavla, and has a lot of interest in preserving the Hindi language.

After the participants finished delivering their respective speeches, the two judges shared their thoughts and insights with regard to Hindi Diwas. Mr Ahmed spoke of every language being a part of one’s culture and heritage, and how many of our Indian languages, Hindi in particular, are slowly dying because of the use of English as the common mode of communication. He urged the students to always promote and uphold their mother tongue as that is the one defining factor of their culture. Along the same lines, Mr Salve too shared about the need to preserve our traditions, cultures and heritage. He added that one’s language is part of one’s identity and culture, and to lose it would mean that one has lost one’s own identity.

The competition ended with the announcement of the winners in every category. The audience and the participants departed with a desire to work towards preserving their culture, language and heritage.