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!
9 comments:
Kannada is one of the most prominent and ancient language in the history, but unfortunately kannadigas does not realize this and respect it.... that's why kannada is in trouble in karnataka itself...
And yeah, Karna & Duryodhana are predicted as bad guys in history, but the truth is that they were true friends, loyal, and stood for the people they loved, even when they knew they were wrong.....
As they say, every coin as two face... like that everything you see has two face.... one good, one bad.... it is just what you want to see in that person....
It is always hard for us to except the BAD from good person and GOOD from bad person.... it takes lots of fairness to see that above all the clouds of perception.......
check this out about kannada....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kannada
@dreamer
Yaah I have seen that reluctance with kannadigas.
Regarding judging bad and good characters in Mahabharata, I think I am more amazed as to how many ways Karna and Duryodhana have been personified by different authors...
My Hindi teacher back in school used to talk like that. He used to explain the finer points of Kannada Lit and Mahabharat et cetera et cetera whenever had time.
Yaah...we had a lot of poems from Mahabharata and Ramayana at school in Sanskrit and Kannada classes
History is a victor's version, or atleast of the powerful.
History is often accused of giving a hindsight view to the future generations rather than actual view.
In Mahabharatha, atleast the popular version, brands the principal negitive characters in black-white rather than grey.
If Mahabharatha were to be true, Duryodhana may not a bad-warrior as the name depicts. This appears to be given in hindsight. After all, no one could be named such as a child as the future is unpredictable.
The same way NVC, Soviets are the bad guys in the West and would be written as such in American history. The opposite might be true in the Soviet history. Its just that which version surives to the next generation.
Actually, there were no World wars. Those words were coined after the wars. If it were 1916, no one in this world would have known it as World War!!
There is no universal good and evil. History, in all its deficiencies, paints heroes and villians. Its written by humans and humans tend to err.
@msp
Quite an insight. Also in tandem with Dreamer's views.
I think everybody has an element in them which can relate to specific characters in history. Everyone has a Dharmaraja or Karna element in them. So we can always look into history for self introspection I think. Might work out beneficial...
@child woman:
I beg to differ from dreamer.
What I am trying to say is, Karna and Durydhodhana did what they thought was "right".
Suyodhana (Dhuryodhana) would have thought (He usually doesn't think too much on his own. Probably was a puppet in hands of Shakuni, whom he would have thought is thinking it right for him.) he was standing up for what is right. Karna would have thought that he is right to stand by his friend in time of need.
Also, I don't see that world in black and white but in various shades of grey. So, I cannot quantify GOOD and BAD. As I mentioned earlier, there is no eternal rule to quantify and measure them. What we have is the relativity and this differs with respect to each person.
@ msp
hmm....!!
Well ur view is right according to you and his is right according his thinking!
I am njoying both views....blissfully
Thanks!
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