It was not the usual Friday where I would wait for the evening to herald the start of another weekend. I had to be at a get together/potluck at 6:30 pm. What to cook and how, what to wear etc, were the part of my usual thought process. I landed at my friends place as planned. I had totally forgotten that there was to be a speaker at the get together. So basically I was more interested in the food and the usual hi, hello....
And so it was.....amazing food, hi, hellos.....they went on for an hour and more.
And then there was this cheerful,self effacing man whom everyone pointed out as the speaker. It was new for me to see a speaker ,at a friends place, over a get together. Aged between 65-70 , this man was an honorary writer and eminent literary figure in the Kannada Sahithya Academy. As a mark of respect for him, a classical singer from India was put on speaker phone and she sang some of his famous song compositions. I must admit, rhetorics add as much rhythm to the song as to bring out the right emotion .
And then he spoke......with absolute ardent passion for the Kannada language, its history and legacy. Proficient in Greek, Kannada, English,Bengali and Hindi literatures his talk spanned the prominent works in each of these languages. For the first time I realized from his scientific references and explanations that Kannada is as rich as Sanskrit in its contributions to various languages. He tossed and turned between prose and poetry excerpts of Wordsworth, Keating,Kabir,Purandara dasa,Kanaka dasa, Shakespeare, Pampa,Ranna, Basavanna, Akkamahadevi ,Tagore , Kuvempu,Da Ra Bedre, Karanth, Bhairappa.....like people switch between letters to make new words.
He referred to different versions of Mahabharatha, which the ancient Kannada poets wrote for sheer satisfaction and expression of their poetic and intellectual desires. As he dramatized each incident from different versions of the great epic, the emotions spanned from anger, lust, greed, love, fear, pathos, longingness......can I even capture them in words? Different versions glorified characters like Karna or Duryodhana who were otherwise treated to be fairly negative characters in the original version of Mahabharatha.
There were too many things running in my mind.....because his talk was artistic , emotional and equally scientific in its reasoning. I suddenly felt so grateful to all the Kannada poets, writers and teachers who had influenced my thoughts.
"Language is just like the earth which gives us life and sustains us. We should sustain it too"......is what he said concluding his talk....which none of us realized to have spanned 2 hours. Only a man with such regard for literature and language could have attained a mastery to such heights.....
It sure was a talk to remember!
