Sanskrit learning resources

I was searching for something in Sanskrit that meets below criteria.

1. Reliable Sanskrit (Because I don't know the language in first place, didn't want to read things that may end up teaching me incorrect things.)

2. Written in form not too difficult to read (i.e. not one pad per para) + hindi translation available to make sense of even that 'not too difficult'.

3. Doesn't suffer from limited vocabulary (this was a major concern after somewhat burning my hands.. neurons... previously elsewhere). 

4. Interesting (Reading it should be enjoyable, shouldn't feel like learning 'work')

5. Arisen/written originally in that form, not translation of something that has arisen in non-Sanskrit Sanskriti. (Language cannot be separated from culture without destroying both, No?)

6. Available in both audio and text (flexibility to slow down to understand).

Landed at Mahabharat. 

Audio: https://archive.org/details/mahAbhArata-mUla-paThanam-GP

Text: https://archive.org/details/Mahabharata04SanskritHindiPanditRamnarayanGitaPress


and regarding learning the language, here is everything from Varnucchararan to Mahabhashya.. (honestly, I am so awestruck finding all these at one place that it s yet to occur to me that I should start going through it.)

https://archive.org/details/AshtadhyayiBhashyaCollection

and if you thought I probably don't deserve above finds if I cant even start putting minimum effort to make use of it, well, even I tend to agree with that thought, but, seems there is extra concession available for very uninitiated like me..

these lecture audios...
https://archive.org/details/Ashtadhyayi-Prathamavritti 

(if you like to always know what's going on, start from lecture one, but if you are extra lazy like me, who, even when faced with something where you have no idea what's going on, can still simply close eyes and keep listening till clarity emerges on its own, I recommend - highly recommend you start with lecture numbered zero.)

Story

We don't know what was his age. We don't know which part of the country he came from or where he was. We don't know if he was born in wealthy family or otherwise. Whether circumstances were favourable or he faced obstacles at every step, we do not know. All we know that he was.

There was something else too. A problem. A problem that had shown signs of having established strong roots some 6000 years ago. It, at that time was fought back strongly – very strongly, with what can be easily called a mini world war. That war, scariest war of the humanity thus far, was won then. but unfortunately, after taking some time (probably thousand or two years) to regroup, adharm had steadily gained again. It had not lost many battles after it. Darkness had thickened even more in last 1000+ years. Now, the task of getting rid of अधर्म simply appeared mind numbing.

Darkness was spread so widely and yet, it was further going to thicken at a rapid pace due to what was happening. It was Vikram Samvat 1814 and current developments were going to make it 1757 CE for those born couple of centuries later. 

Some one and half century after first arriving on our shores, east India company was now successfully enslaving Bharat.

and, at that point, he was. He did not worry about what he could not do. He simply did what he could. He gave every bit of his existence in gaining knowledge that was still not completely erased. He did not know when, how, he may find next keeper of this knowledge or that if he even would. But that too did not bother him. For, he did not worry about things he could not do. He simply did what he could. So, he gave every bit of his existence to gaining and preserving the fire of knowledge and he patiently waited without wasting even a single second to 'act of waiting'.

Twenty years later, a child is born. He too is a likely candidate to accept the baton of knowledge preservation like any other child born anywhere in history. Will he succeed? How things will unfold with the child? Will he turn up deserving? Willing and able to give what it takes to keep the fire from being extinguished? And even if everything goes well, even if he turns out to be rare able someone, will fire be still burning when he grows up and is ready to take the charge?

Child loses his eyesight when he is five. At 12, parents. Finds himself with non caring caretakers and not happy with the situation, he runs away from the home. Nature apparently repeats patterns endlessly. Odds of the problem spanning thousands of years, encompassing nearly whole of humanity looked eerily similar to the problem of 'He about whom we know nothing but that he was', trying to preserve yet unerased knowledge. The blind, orphaned child that had ran away from home reaches him.

Some six-seven decades later, that child, now an 82 year old, sees a seeker of knowledge approaching him.

Fire was preserved.

Part-2

Yes, that was a short story covering some 125 years. Treacherous, seemingly hopeless, endless fight by nameless, selfless many - three of them featuring in our story, with the third one ending the hopelessness, ensuring that we were back in the fight.

As stories often demand, it was ended at a logical end point.

But then, that attack on Adharm almost out of the blue was crushed as swiftly. Our hero after surviving many assassination attempts in very short two decades of active life, was finally fallen in nth attempt. His jivanjyoti ended on the day of Dipawali but by then he had lit enough diyas that would keep our hopes alive, even if war was nowhere as fierce to even be called a battle now.

Almost a century later, a frailish teenager village child with somewhat big tummy and slim legs, suffering from facial paralysis due to which his had no control on his one eye, learns that our state's education system is designed to make us slaves and refuses to submit himself to it.

He walks in a Gurukul, guided by the fire that was preserved a century back, determined to do what he can, not worrying about what he cant.

No marks for guessing what anyone like him must face to survive. From street bullies to global ones and all varieties in between. Yet even flag bearer of them, the Wikipedia ends with describing him as someone whose 'face has become ubiquitous'.