Culture survives when shared

[Music]

namaste

warm welcome and jose lopez i am cineta

so we will be starting with our

presentation slides and

where i’ll be showing some of the

scripts

how many of you are familiar with this

script and can you please name that

cases english

next any guesses

dev nagari what about this one

okay next this

next okay the last one

what is this

well this is our beautiful script runs

on a script and i will be sharing my

journey

with ranzanas and nepal bhasa

our language scripts they live and die

with the use it’s not a coincidence that

english is one of the most popular

language in the world

textbooks most of the online contents

most of the popular movies all they are

in english

sadly my speech too

so back in 2011 i joined

a cultural beauty pageant called miss

neva

it was the moment when i actually

developed my interest towards nepal vasa

nawaz scripts and also our culture

i really wanted to win the title and i

won it

and after that i also wanted to do

something for my society

something for my culture i still

remember

my brother used to say winning is

nothing

it’s just a step towards the journey but

if you don’t achieve with the title then

you will be one of many winners

and i didn’t want it to be that that

motivated me to think

and also grow and do something

contribute for my society

so after being miss never 2011 i

joined miss neva team as the instructor

of nepal vasa

from the contestant to the winner from

the winner

to the instructor that was a beautiful

journey

meanwhile while teaching nepal vasa to

new batches of miss

neva and miss little niva the first

question that i used to ask them was how

many of you can speak nepal vasa

how many of you are comfortable speaking

your own mother language

how many of you are going to reply

your answer in your own mother language

the number of hands raised it was

decreasing every year

that made me sad that made me worried

and top of that i was seeking for the

answer why

why this new generation are not

learning and they are not interested in

their own culture in their own language

in their own script

i was seeking for answers and from 2011

to 2021

some of the major reasons that i have

found our community

is is turning into a multicultural

community

because of which acculturation and

assimilation is very popular and people

are

influenced by other culture other

languages and they’re

leaving their own culture and language

behind

there are so many youths they don’t find

it

cool to speak their own mother language

like speaking english or any other

languages

along with that there are so many

parents they don’t want to teach mother

language to their kids

because they don’t want their kid to

have

new accent and

there are also some people who don’t

find the economic benefit

after learning their own culture then

they don’t find any point in learning

and sharing the culture language and

script

along with that there are still some

youths

some people who really want to learn

nepalbhasa

learn new scripts their own language and

scripts but they are not

finding proper content and also platform

to learn it

i was worried but i had no idea how to

start

the kickstart is very hard and then the

journey was continuing the teaching

journey for miss neva was continuing but

i knew that i had to think of

something different approach so that it

can create

impact in a large amount

in 2017 i was introduced that there is a

class going to happen

and the class was about new i script in

nepal lipigooti

and it was introduced by my brother

ananda

to be very honest while i joined the

class

i had nothing in my mind just to learn

and

add one more skill in my cv

because i knew how to speak nepal vasa

and if i know how to write in our own

device script then that will be a plus

point

isn’t it that was the main idea but then

as i started learning i found that the

letters the scripts they are not just

a medium to right or medium to

communicate

it’s way me more than that

i found it a very meditative way

to calm down myself that was the time

i was undergoing a transition period

from my academic life to professional

life

i was trying to find my own identity

i was having identity crisis

i was trying to find the purpose of my

life i was scattered

i was broken and that was the time

runs and i script became answer to

myself

and that became a medium to calm down

myself

and also heal the wounds that i had then

i started

finding one more passion and wherever i

go

wherever i used to go i used to write

drums on a script

be that be in the cafe colonies

home anywhere everywhere at any time

and i started expressing my feelings

through

alphabets to runs in a script

my happiness my sadness and top of love

i started showing my love to my loved

ones

through the script that’s my father

so in the memory of my beloved father i

used ranjana script and i expressed my

feelings

and i made his photo that’s how the

journey was going on

at the same time i knew that the

traditional

class is not going to create any impact

we have to think some alternative

approach because

in the class only those who know about

this group they come but what about the

people who even don’t know the existence

of the script

and me along with my like-minded friends

we thought of an idea if people they

don’t come to the classroom to learn

then maybe we can go to them and teach

them i repeat that’s the guru mantra of

our campaign

if people don’t come to the classroom to

learn

we have to go to people and teach them

that’s how the ideas popped up and then

we

started to conduct runs on a script

workshop in

open area under the roof of the sky

many times so in 2018 april

we conducted our first runs on a script

workshop

it was about two hours and so so the

main two approaches that we applied was

first

it was free of cost second

there were no boundary no boundary of

a’s

no boundary of caste no boundary of

gender

no boundary of ethnicity and even not

nationality

anyone can come there and learn see

whatever they wanted to do they were

free

and after the first walks off we were

bored with immense

love immense support and people wanted

to do that

workshop more often the workshop was

very spontaneous and it was the first of

its kind

the journey was continuing

you might be thinking the journey was

very easy but no there were negative

comments too

there were questions why free why in a

public area

why in an open area why

are you teaching that to non-neighbors

why

are you using other languages other than

nepal bhasa

why are you trying to break the system

of traditional classrooms

those were challenges but we didn’t

listen to that

because we believed in our cause and we

were sure

that sooner or later

we are going to create an impact in our

society

that drived us and we’re still

going on for now we have already

conducted our workshop not just

inside kathmandu but also in different

districts of nepal

along with that we have also represented

our initiative

khalidra in an international typographic

conference

named ataipai and we are very proud to

say that we are the first

nepali to represent nepali typographic

scraped in that global platform

a taipei

the journey wasn’t easy but it was

surely beautiful

we continued to walk along with

the public workshops we knew that we

have to do

something more than that and what was

driving us

the smiles that we could see in the face

of the people when we teased them script

and especially most of the people used

to say that

you have taken us back to the first day

of our school

it’s similar to that because holding the

pain

writing the strokes it’s completely

different

and they explains that it’s like going

back to childhood

along with that people were finding not

just a medium

to speak and write they were also

finding

a piece of art that was a beautiful

journey

from the learning of public workshop we

decided to

do that virtually especially during

covet 19.

and during the pandemic we conducted

facebook live

workshop through which we taught a lot

of people how to write runs on a script

and then the engagement the comments

misses they all were our inspiration

later on we decided to design course for

online runs in a script and online nepal

vasa

during the time and that’s how we also

designed

one minute nepal bhasa tutorial through

which

anyone could learn nepal bhasa not just

neighbors even non-neighbors

even those who can’t speak nepal bhasa

or even nepali they can speak they can

learn about bhasa

that’s how we design one minute nepal

vasa tutorials

through the journey it was not easy

because

that was voluntary initiative

lack of resources of course was blocking

us

sometimes we even used to ask ourselves

why are we

putting so much effort on this we’re not

making money

and we are not we were not sure if we

were creating impact

but we used to achieve we used to find

we used to receive a lot of messages

some of the messages that i’m going to

share

my husband is a newer i

am not from newark community but i find

it very hard to cope up with the family

i was trying to learn about bhasa but i

was not finding the platform

through your tutorial video i have been

able to learn

few words thank you for connecting me

with the culture of my husband and thank

you for connecting me to his family

those messages really inspired us and

one of the another misses that i’m going

to share a mother sent me a misses and

said

i am a newer mother but i don’t know how

to speak nepal bhasa

my daughter wants to learn and i’m not

being able to teach her but then i found

your video

now me and my daughter

we are learning nepal vasa together

watching your video

so those simple thing that might sound

very simple to you

but that really energized us and that’s

how that’s what made us keep on moving

and doing something for the society

if not for thousands of people but at

least we have been able to touch

life of a single person and that

difference really matters to me

and that difference really matters to

all of us that’s how we create

a difference in a huge platform and

today

i feel very happy and at some point i

also feel proud when people

use runs and i script in different forms

graffiti

accessories tattoos

designs and many more this is i really

feel

happy when i see parents teaching their

children

how to speak nepal bhasa because we are

trying to make

it cool we are trying to make it in a

mainstream we are trying to make

it more visible that was the main reason

we did it in an

open space so that people not just

attendees come there and learn

even they can share that with their

family the live demonstration that we do

during our runs in a script workshop

people come there and then the

appreciation not just generated from the

attendees

also from the family members you might

be wondering how

i’ll share you an example when we write

the name

of a person a person of course take that

back to their home

because it looks like an art and nobody

wants to throw a dart

and when they go back to home they share

that with their family members friends

and even post it on social media that’s

how

writing the name of a single person

actually created generated the interests

of at least five more people

that’s how the ripple effect created

and that’s how we are working on because

we want to make

our culture our intangible heritages

more visible

so that people who have never seen that

can see that

people who have never realized the

importance of it

will realize the importance of that and

people

who are saying it just waste of time

will appreciate one day

that’s the motive of our campaign and

now

what i would like to say is at last just

two things

first please inform yourself about your

cultural language scripts

and don’t keep it with yourself only

share that to your friends family your

daughter

your son your sister your brother anyone

share it inform yourself about the

culture and share it

because language scripts and culture

they are not just a medium to

communicate but they are our identity

they are who we are it actually

describes our identity

runs in a script it’s just one of the

many thousand

beautiful scripts nebal bhasa is just

one among beautiful poetic mother

languages

they are in the words of lust if you

don’t wake up

if you don’t get inspired to learn

and teach then get ready

the next generation will surely curse

you

let’s be the preserver of our past for

our future generation

let’s save it let’s share it and lastly

i’d like to end my speech

with anifa vasa coat there is a

beautiful quote in nepal

if language and scripts survives

your ethnicity survives if your

ethnicity survives

your identity survives so

share your culture save your culture

thank you