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