I never studied Hindi as a subject during school as Hindi wasn't included in my state board syllabus. I used to go to a small matriculation school during my initial primary school years where I got exposure to the basics of the Hindi alphabets.
In 9th grade, I had shifted to a new school and one of my new friends there mentioned that she was going to give her Visharad exam. After enquiring with her, I understood that there is something called Hindi Prachar Sabha and they have these 8 levels of exams. This has nothing to do with the school curriculum and she was pursuing it out of her interest.
My dad or anyone else never pushed me to learn Hindi. But I wanted to learn, as I was inspired by my friend (who I had considered my competition too!). I don't remember how, but I stumbled upon a Hindi class conducted in the morning hours on the veranda of a nearby school.
An elderly person whom we used to address as "Ram Ram Sir" was our teacher. Classes would happen between 7-8 AM on weekdays. He didn't charge a penny for his classes except for a small exam fee. I went to his classes regularly during my 9th grade and completed two levels - Prathamic and Madhyama.
As I look back, I'm so grateful for that one year of learning Hindi from "Ram Ram sir", which helped me understand, speak (a little bit), read, and write Hindi. Though I had lost touch completely with reading/writing Hindi after that one year, somehow the basics stayed with me. I was able to help my daughter with her Hindi HW until around 4th grade. The advanced level of grammar and comprehension is beyond my understanding!🙂
As I'm now stepping into the world of Samskritam, the prior knowledge of Devanagari script has given me the confidence that I will be able to learn the language on my own with consistent effort.
Thank you "Ram Ram sir". Because of teachers like you, we (TN state board kids) were able to get at least some exposure to Hindi.
It is high time we learn as many Indian languages as possible, along with our mother tongue.
If not, we lose access to the valuable treasure trove of wisdom and literature written in native languages and we end up relying solely on English translations and commentaries.