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The Alphabet of DevaNagari (or other Indian scripts) is called 'Varnamala'. If you ask an Indian to recite alphabet of any Indian script, most likely he will fumble! If you are an Indian, use and promote this technique to memorize the 'Varnamala' (or Varn-mala).

How to memorize the Varnamala (Hindi Alphabet)

Generally most of the Indians remember certain fragments of Varnamala. If they recall the leading (first) Akshar (alphabet) of a sequence, they will recite the rest of the sequence! Most of the sequences consists of five Akshars. Lots of people recite most of the vowels. They know that these vowels are in pairs, which helps. The Varnamala is also known as 'Ka kha ga' (क ख ग). So they also remember first consonant sequence (or its three letters). [Similarly Alphabet means alpha and beta; first two Greek letters.]

Following are the leading Akshars of the sequences.

We need to think of Varnamala as a list of sequences. We need to repeat these leading consonants of all these sequences; again and again.

As we easily recall the vowels ('a' sequence) and the first sequence of sparsh consonants ('ka' sequence), we should memorise the rest of the first Akshars. After dropping the first two, we are left with six Akshars. We can form three words of two consonants each to further simplify the mnemonic!

  

So, memorise these three words! Most of us tend to forget Varnamala (वर्णमाला) after passing out of school. If you find it helpful, ask every-one (who speak an Indian language) to visit this page. I (Akhilesh Gupta) have presented it to over 800 people and nobody complained! I am not sure whether young students can use this technique! But Aditi (when she was 9 year old) and her friends were delighted to learn this mnemonic (स्मृति सहायक)! This mnemonic is also helpful to those who use other Indic-scripts.

† do not pronounce this Nagari consonant as regular pronunciation of its english transliteration.

Akhilesh Gupta designed this mnemonic. The first public presentation of this technique was in 'Technical Seminar and bilingual Computer Exhibition' organized by ‘Technical Cell - Department of Official Language (Rajbhasha Vibhag)’, Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India, on 15-16th of Feb. 2005 in Bangalore.