Eight-year-old Aniruddha Kandadai has been creating a Sanskrit dictionary on YouTube. Using doodle videos, he helps English and French speakers learn the classical language through his Amakosha series.
Son of Bhavana Pradyumna and Pradyumna Kandadai, the couple who founded Carnatic Conservatory of Paris, Aniruddha surprised everyone by identifying ragas when he was just 16 months old.
He learns Carnatic vocals from his mother and is also simultaneously learning konnakol and mridangam. He can read and write eight languages — Sanskrit, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, English, French and Russian. He began learning Sanskrit a year ago and says he wants to make the language more accessible and fun. He chose a doodle video format, drawing inspiration from his mother who does similar videos about the Bhagavad Gita. As one going to a French school, he chose to create the series in French and English. “My mom does her Bhagavad Gita videos in those languages as well,” he says. It takes Aniruddha between one and four days to create a video, and he uses up to five shlokas to teach a set of lexical terms. His mother helps with the grammar and finds fun facts. Learning Sanskrit vocabulary helps one learn other Indian languages well, he says. Visit Carnatic Conservatory of Paris on YouTube to watch Aniruddha’s Amarakosha.