Meet Dusyant Sridhar, 28, During the day, he is a techie in jeans and T-shirt working for Tata Consultancy Services. After office hours, he is an Upanyasakar in white veshti and angavastram with a naamam on his forehead, discoursing on ancient scriptures. There is no conflict in these two roles for him, and he switches from one to another quite effortlessly.
His journey as an Upanyasakar started with a discourse in Tamil on Seetha Kalyanam when he was a young engineering student at BITS, Pilani, in 2004.
By now, he has given 1500 discourses in Tamil and English, in India and abroad.
He is very popular. Says an elderly fan, "Slokas and stories just flow from him. It is a delight to listen to him singing and speaking without any pause or interruption. He has been gifted by God with an unusual power."
When talking to a young crowd he intersperses his lectures with Harry Potter, Hrithik Roshan, cricket and video games.
Born and brought up in Bangalore to modern and unconventional parents -- his mother used to wear skirts and sing in a choir -- Dushyant was spiritually inclined even at the age of two.
When his mother introduced him to Sanskrit, a new world of ancient literature opened to him.
What was the response to your upanyasa?
After the event, the VC wrote me a mail asking me to meet him. He congratulated me and asked me to complete the entire Ramayana in my four years at Pilani.
That was a great encouragement and I did just that.
Do you think the younger generation is not interested in spirituality, religion etc?
The way religion is projected today, even I wouldn't be interested.
If you make religion interesting and make a connect, the young will come to listen to you. When I say that probably Sita didn't see Ram earlier as Facebook didn't exist then, I connect to the new generation. You have to make religious lectures contemporary.
I give examples of films so that youngsters connect. I watch all kinds of films including Bipasha Basu's Alone and Hrithik Roshan's Krish and Bang Bang.
I give lectures in schools and colleges dressed in shorts and T-shirt and talk in a language they understand.
I never say Hindu dharm hi sarva shresht hai. It is sarva sresht because it believes every other religion is sarva shresht.
Do young people come to listen to you?
I have travelled to 36 cities in India and I give a minimum of 200 lectures a year.
I have noticed that 70 per cent of my audience is over the age of 55 or 60.
Children don't come for my lectures and I don't encourage them to. I prefer talking to them in their schools.
But when I go to the US and Canada, 70 per cent of my audience is under the age of 40!
Some 400 of my lectures are on YouTube. I upload them after each lecture. Close to 55 per cent my listeners on YouTube are under the age of 40.
I never say Hindu dharm hi sarva shresht. It is sarva sresht because it believes every other religion is sarva shresht.
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