Ian Woolford, a lecturer in Hindi at La Trobe University in Australia, has been garnering laurels for posting his videos reciting Hindi poems in his pure Hindi diction.
His Twitter handle @iawoolford, has about 68.3 thousand followers.
The UK born American in Australia has most of his tweets related to Hindi literature. But he does not shy away from making comments on Indian dishes and political issues of the nation as well. His sense of humor is also amazing.
Ian Woolford’s Hindi pronunciation and diction will make it difficult for you to believe that he is an American.
Recently, Ian expressed his joy after Hindi programme survived elimination at the La Trobe University.
“Good news! The La Trobe University Hindi program has survived elimination. I now have the happy task of sending 100s of thank you letters to the students, community members, academics, diplomats, and members of parliament who contributed to this effort,” he tweeted from his twitter handle.
His posts include a wide range of poems which have been written by modern Indian poet Kumar Vishvas as well as the lines quoted by renowned poet Pradeep.
According to him, despite being an American living in Australia, he became fascinated with Hindi.
“My association with Hindi has been since childhood. It was at the age of 12 when my mother enrolled me in a school in Trinidad that I started chanting Hindi bhajans and folk songs with school friends there.”
He further says that during his graduation from Cornell University, he started his formal education in Hindi. Music and Asian studies were his main subjects. Music still means a lot to him, he says.
He admires poems written by Mahadevi Verma and says, his point will be incomplete if he does not take the name of Tulsidas who scripted Ramcharitmanas.