ARCHANA RAVINDER
India Post News Service
FREMONT, CA: Fremont mom Ruchira Agarwal decided to take the plunge when she quit her well paying job at one of the big technology firms during boom time to take care of her son Kunal. Agarwal much like all Indian American parents trying to raise their child in the United States was quick to realize that instilling the necessary Indian language skills was an arduous task. ‘English was everywhere’.
“We tried one parent one language technique with our son, where I used to speak to him in Hindi and my husband would converse in English but that really did not work. Kunal who is today five years old can understand Hindi but not speak the language,” says the concerned mom. “The whole language environment is missing here and to expose my son to the language all that I could do was show him Hindi movies, which is something that I surely did not want to do,” explains Agarwal. “With the language comes the culture appreciation,” notes Agarwal. “There were videos available for older kids like Ramayana, Mahabharata but again not very conducive for growing up children,” adds Agarwal.
The resolve in Agarwal to do something to change the situation became stronger when she had her second child Anya, who is now 20 months old. “We wanted to expose her to the language right from the beginning,” notes the mom and that’s how Baby Hindustani, was born. “Children growing here need to be given an external language stimulus,” notes the Founder. Agarwal’s company brings out innovative and educational videos for kids aged 1-5.
These 30-minute fun filled videos modeled on the Baby Einstein videos introduces the child to basic vocabulary and the rich sounds of various languages using everyday objects, colors, numbers and commonly used short phrases all set to the music of Mozart. These videos teach the child to memorize by repetition, which she explains is done so that the child does not lose the words while internalizing it. “Kids learn (while) having fun,” says the Fremont mom. Agarwal has based her videos on scientific studies, which have shown that the child always reacts to visual stimulation first. “Children learn by association with colors, objects in these videos.”
These videos, which were released in September last year, have already started generating interest among parents in the Bay Area who are keen on developing the language skills in their child. “Couples who have had mixed marriages or have adopted their kids from India would also find this an extremely useful tool,” says Agarwal.
The videos would also be available in the DVD format starting the end of this month. Agarwal says, she has been getting enquiries from parents from other parts of the US. The videos priced at $14.99 are currently available in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati and English. On being asked, why English videos, Agarwal responds, “My son watches the Baby Einstein videos with great interest so I felt it would be nice if I could replicate that with an Indian feel to it. So that children are able to relate to the video.”
Agarwal is currently promoting the videos word-of-mouth, through friends, parents, childcare centers which focus on multilingual training. Among the future plans says Agarwal; “I want to bring out language videos in Bengali, Marathi and culture training videos for children.”