Indian Culture is the perfect blend of traditional values and modern approach. Indians are modern in their thinking but are also connected to their roots of traditions and ethics. Being one of the oldest civilizations in the world, Indian hospitality and beliefs are famous worldwide. India has its heart in Vedic culture along with adapting the modern lifestyle. Mattur village situated in the Karnataka state of India displays this fact perfectly. It is a village with at least one IT engineer in every family but the most amusing fact is that the locals communicate in Sanskrit. On entering any home in Mattur, you will hear Katham asti (How are you?), Bhavatha nam kim (What is your name?) and Coffee va chaayam kim ichchhathi bhavan (What will you have, tea or coffee?) in our eloquent and Vedic Sanskrit.
This tiny village is located in the Shimoga district of Karnataka, placed on the banks of perennial river Tunga. Sanskrit is an ancient language and this village made sure that it flourishes. The villagers lead a simple Vedic lifestyle, sing ancient poems and communicate in Sanskrit. It is very delightful and amusing that Sanskrit is the primary language of the whole village.
Mattur is basically an agrarian village where livelihood generates from farming and cultivation. The habitats cultivate nuts and paddy and speak in a rare dialect called Sankethi, which is a mixture of Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada, and bits of Telugu. It is read in the Devnagiri script.
The village schools teach students to chant Vedas in the traditional ways. The village elders personally supervise the five-year course of learning which is compulsory for every child. This makes Mattur an exclusive place and thus every year; various foreign students come to the village to learn Sanskrit through short duration crash courses.
The students of this village have even gone abroad to study and made India proud. All houses in the village have Sanskrit graffiti on their walls. It is believed that Sanskrit helps to develop the academic potential and logical ability of everyone. This is even proved as all the families in the village have at least one Software Engineer.
The village has trained over 30 Sanskrit professors for the country who are teaching in other states and even in foreign countries.
These things about Mattur has given us a reason to be proud of as in this century when less than 1% population speaks Sanskrit, the villagers have made it a part of their daily life. Their commendable effort is worth praising and also people should learn from them. It can be rightfully said that our ancient culture and heritage will be well preserved in the years to come.
