HYDERABAD: Reading is one great habit which lays the road map for a child’s future. Parents play a major role in inculcating that habit in their children. As parents are always busy, children are sometimes left to fend for themselves in their crucial years of learning. The magic of books, however, still works, so much that some children are spontaneously drawn towards the better world which books offer. Meet Saanvi Jamalpur, 12, a Class 8 student of Don Bosco High School in Bandlaguda Jagir, who has scripted her own journey with the good books since she was two-years-old.
“My parents were both IT employees and we were living in Bengaluru. They used to leave me at the daycare, where I used to read picture books, children’s books, and as I started growing up, I started reading short stories and fiction novels, in addition to encyclopaedia, mystery, adventure, sci-fi, mythology and books on general knowledge,” she tells TNIE.
JK Rowling, Enid Blyton, Jeff Kinney and Roald Dahl are among her favourite authors.
When the Covid-19 induced lockdowns forced people to stay at home, Saanvi made the most out of it. Having read all the books that were left, there was only one book which caught her fancy — the Bhagawad Gita.
Her mother Sunitha Jamalpur, recalls, “Initially I told her that it is a sacred book and we have to follow certain rules before reading it, as we are not supposed to read it without taking a bath, or after eating meat and so on. She took a bath and came to me and asked if she could read then.”
Within a year, Saanvi had mastered all the 701 slokas in the Gita. In September 2021, she found her way into the World Book of Records by reciting 58 slokas of Bhagawad Gita in five minutes. She won the Asia book of Records for the same feat. She got a distinction in the Srimad Bhagawad Gita Recitation Exam held by the Avadhoota Datta Peetham in Mysuru the same year.
“The Mysuru exam was extremely difficult because they could ask her to recite the sloka from any chapter of the book. They would say the first two words and she would be asked to recite the sloka till they asked her to recite another sloka. Sometimes the beginning words can be similar in different slokas, so it was tricky,” Pradeep, her father says.
For Saanvi, Bhagawad Gita is not just a holy book, but a manual for the human mind. “It teaches us what we are supposed to do, and not supposed to do. The meanings in its verses are fascinating and deep. It shows us the path to attain God, and explains the concepts of body and soul, karma and dharma,” she says.
Saanvi’s thirst for knowledge drove her to learn and make many educational videos on various topics including space, human body, Covid-19, dengue, vaccines, moral stories and other subjects, which she has been posting regularly on her mother’s Facebook page, so that her knowledge could be shared.
She wants to grow up to become an astrophysicist at the Indian Space Research Organisation, so that she can research the data transmitted by the satellites in space, and endeavours to see the satellites launched not only in our solar system, but in other galaxies as well.