Vijayalakshmi Ravi was born and grew up in Karnataka, India and went through primary, middle and high school learning in Kannada. She studied Kannada as her first language during the pre-university and university levels. While living in India she taught schoolchildren and high school students in Kannada for six years. When she moved to the United States, she taught her children to read and write Kannada, because they couldn’t learn it in America. Both of her children can now sufficiently read Kannada stories and write short passages. She hopes to teach many more children to come of the wonders of the Kannada language.