This is an extremely interesting perspective. I actually had the opposite experience. I was forced to learn sanskrit throughout my high school career and I absolutely hated it. I'm an extremely practical person and I have no use for the language at all.
There is no contradiction actually. While talking about the state of Sanskrit in school education, Chamu Krishna Shastry says[1] that schools are factories for producing students who hate Sanskrit.
IMO, whatever other reasons there may be, a most compelling reason for learning a language is its poetry (Robert Frost defined poetry as that which gets lost in translation), and here Sanskrit poetry is unlike anything in the world. You may like to read this collection of essays[2] that my friend wrote during his first real encounter with Sanskrit poetry.
Yes. (Mohan kindly included my name as "edited by", but all it means is that I read his essays and gave some feedback / made minor suggestions, before he posted it.)
The key phrase is "was forced to learn". I am not forced. I am doing it because I want to. I am also a very practical person. Sanskrit is a very useful language to me because it gives me great happiness.
