Click for video Hindi USA is an amazing organization whose acomplishments deserve to be more widely known. The brainchild of one man, Devendra Singh, it was started over a decade ago to teach Hindi to children at various levels from age 5 onwards. Hindi USA runs 22 schools in New Jersey, with a total of nearly 4,000 students. All the teachers are unpaid volunteers. It has developed its own comprehensive teaching material and curriculum, and is run very professionally. The students pay a tuition fee, and are held to a high standard of attendance, homework and performance. A growing number of Indian American parents have started taking their children to learn Hindi at these schools. I have known Devendra Singh for many years and watched his determined, no-nonsense and results-oriented approach to complex organizational tasks. A very striking difference between Hindi USA and most US-based organzations that promote Indian civilization is that many organizations tend to focus on lots of up front public relations announcements and celebration of promises that sound great. But if one does a post-mortem analysis some years later, one finds relatively little accomplishment compared to what was promised and celebrated. In the case of Hindi USA, the emphasis has been exactly the opposite: All these years they focussed on producing concrete results. Only recently, after their huge output is so clear, is it getting the wider publicity it deserves. I was honored when they asked me to deliver this year's keynote address. The event was attended by almost 2,000 persons over two days. One of the highlights was a kavi sammelan with a panel of judges and awards at various levels. Click for video. (Given that my Hindi is rusty, I did my best using a combination of Hindi and English.) | 
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