dehradun perhaps inspired by us president barack obama who famously addressed audience in delhis siri fort auditorium in january quoting ddljs popular semispanish dialogue senorita bade bade deshon mein you know what i mean doonites are taking up to learning espanol while many classes that teach how to speak spanish have sprung up in the city several schools in the city are also offering spanish language as a subject to students we organized spanish week for students in october on a historic day october 12 as it was on this day in the year 1492 that italian explorer christopher columbus who was sailing for spain had reached america with his spanish fleet said neeta bali kasiga school principal students presented a documentary on how columbus had discovered america besides a video demonstrating the importance of spanish a spanish poem muerte en el olvido or death in oblivion by a famous poet angel gonzalez was also recited by a student students also sang spanish songs such as no te apartes de mi or dont go away from me and color esperanza or the colour of hope said bali she added spanish is such a wonderful language and is spoken by millions of people worldwide seeing its reach and the interest of students we started teaching it as a separate subject in fact almost 105 students of kasiga participated in the spanish week the spanish week also saw students don the chefs hat and prepare spanish omelettes doonites are also taking an interest in learning more about spanish history as witnessed last week when the doon library research centre in collaboration with mkp pg college organized a bookreading session to commemorate the 80th anniversary year of the spanish civil war 193639 a number of students and history buffs turned up to know more about this important period in spains history and were transported back in time to the spain of 1936 through the readings john mason former headmaster of the doon school read out excerpts from ernest hemingways novel for whom the bell tolls to students and attendees to make them aware of the ugliness of war during the spanish war period through the words of hemingway hemingway was a journalist who travelled to spain to cover the civil war for the north american newspaper alliance while reading out the excerpts mason noted that since time immemorial poetry and literature had always had a strong influence in matters of war manoj panjani and rajen brijnath from the doon library and research center highlighted the cause of the spanish civil war and focused on that era of history which symbolized the clash between the ideologies of liberalism socialism and communism versus conservatism traditionalism and fascism ishaan sharma assistant professor of spanish at the doon university spoke about life in spain after the spanish civil war homage to catalonia the novel which is george orwells personal account of his experiences and observations in the spanish civil war was also read out to