New Delhi: Five years and two degrees later, Pooja is unsure of what value her higher education in Sanskrit will hold in the future.
How many times will she have to appear for the National Eligibility Test before qualifying as a lecturer? Will she ever get a job? Or will her efforts be rendered futile and she will have to sit at home?
These are some of the many concerns worrying 23-year-old Pooja, who initially wanted to pursue a course in History, but took up Sanskrit after failing to make the cut in her preferred subject.
As a fresh batch gets ready for Delhi University and other universities across the country, questions on usefulness, viability and the way forward also trouble those who want to pursue ancient and Indological languages like Pali and Prakrit.
Pooja rues the limited number of career opportunities that follow a degree in Sanskrit but has also fallen in love with the language. “People keep asking me what I will make of a degree in Sanskrit in today’s time. One can either become an academician, a translator or take up some job in the media industry,” she told PTI.
“But as I started studying the subject, I realised Sanskrit is a beautiful and liberal language,” added Pooja, who did her bachelors and is completing masters in Sanskrit from Delhi University.
According to Pankaj Mishra, an associate professor of Sanskrit at St Stephen’s College, the diminishing interest in the language is due to paltry job opportunities with miserable pay.
“Translators are paid as low as Rs 200-300 per page, which is less than what a daily wage labourer gets,” Mr Mishra said.
A sense of “inferiority” in those studying and teaching Sanskrit, particularly because of their inability to communicate fluently in Hindi and English, is also to blame, he said. While the highest cut-off for English and Hindi went up to 98 and 91 per cent respectively this year, the corresponding score in Sanskrit was 85 per cent. Of the 69 colleges in Delhi University that offer arts and commerce courses, only 29 offer courses in Sanskrit.
