A scientific mind

" పరలోకం అనటం తోటే ముఖాలు ముడుస్తారేమోయి ? గణిత శాస్త్రంలో ఒక్క నియమితమైన వస్తువు యొక్క వెల కనుక్కోవలసి వస్తే , ఒక లేని అంకమును సంకల్పించుకొని దానిమీద గణితం చేసి ఆ యదార్థమైన దాన్ని తెలుసుకొంటారు. అందుచేత నీవు ఊహింపతగినది అయిన పరలోకం ఉందనుకో; అప్పుడీ లోకం యొక్క నిజమైన వెల నీవు కట్టగలవు "

- పులుల సత్యాగ్రహము నుంచి. ( విశ్వనాథ )


విశ్వనాథవారి వాక్కులే ప్రేరణగా...

O dear mind ever precise
fed on rational thought and word
nurtured on questions wise
and a belief in self seen touched or heard

Dear mind ever in the agruing act
look at those exponents in fields scientific
that venture into complex and abstract
in an effort to make sense of "the unspecific"
Much closer home in Math, to be able
to find the value of a known entity
you create an unknown variable
to arrive at the answer in its entirety
Why then the dear one your stubborn refusal
to accomodate the thought of a world spiritual

అటజనికాంచె A gem from allasAni peddana's manucharitra

"in an instant the pious one reached and espied

heavenly water gates birthing whorls and eddies

unending resounds abounding a beautiful sky

footfalls of lumbering elephants shaking the trees

deceived peafowls unfurling a riot of feathery hues

a snowy peak's divine beauty no longer abstruse"

That's a translation of a beautiful and immensely popular poem from allasaani peddana's swarOchishamanu sambhavamu popularly and perhaps incorrectly known as manucharitra. 

The original poem is as follows

అటజని కాంచె భూమిసురు డంబరచుంబి శిరస్సరజ్ఝరీ

పటల ముహుర్ముహుర్ లుఠ దభంగ తరంగ మృదంగ నిస్వన

స్ఫుట నటనానుకూల పరిఫుల్లకలాప కలాపి జాలమున్

గటక చరత్కరేణు కరకంపిత సాలము శీతశైలమున్

Thanks to Sri BhairavabhaTla Kameswara Rao for explaining this poem so beautifully in his blog (telugupadyam.blogspot.com). He mentions that onomatopoeic quality of the highlighted lines and I tried to capture that sabdaalankaaram in my translation though it can never match up to the unparalleled way peddana wove his magic. 

The background of the poem is when Pravara travels to Himalayas with the help of a magical paste he manages to get hold of from a wandering saint. As an inert Brahmana till then who hasn't moved from his city, he has an abiding interest in seeing the sights of the world. The moment the saint agrees to give him a handful of the paste, without a second thought he heads to Himalayas. What follows is an interesting encounter with a heavenly beauty Varudhini. But before that, a bit about what Pravara saw at the foot of the snowy peak. And that's where peddana excels in paining a motion picture for the readers using the right amount of sabdaalankaaram making the poem a gem.

The first highlighted and underlined part 'paTala muhurmuhur luTha" tells us about the water falling on mountain rocks both in its meaning and also through the hard sounding syllables. The part I wanted to bring this out was in "heavenly water gates birthing whorls and eddies".

In the same way 'abhanga taranga mrdanga' tells us about the musical quality of the sound emanating that confuses the peafowls to think that the skies are melting and unfurling their beautiful shimmering feathers.  And this part in "unending resounds abounding".

That's my effort as I tried to capture the beauty of the original gem in my translation. It is up to the readers to decide whether I succeeded in my attempt or not. 

On the Gorakhpur tragedy

Holding a mirror

Soy, O boy reading the angst ridden lines
of a mother in a tongue i'm not so fluent
a pang of guilt reminded me of the times
when my conscience played truant

So what if I had to open
a dictionary to comprehend
a realisation that to care to know
effort ensues to go with an emotional flow

Shall we then spare a second
to understand where it all started
for it would be time well spent
to see why political discources
are deemed normal in the wake of departed

let us then not be deceived
that need of the hour is a game
played to assign suitable blame
when the ravaged bereaved
ungrieved souls haven't yet healed

but i am cautious too,
to lay bare my thoughts
with no guile or pretence
in a group that can at times be cold
and weigh thoughts by an opinion poll

when an odd joker in the pack
stands up and says hark
not knowing a diddly squat
am glad we managed to bell the cat

in peroration, while we preach moderation
i beseech you to care for rhyme and reason

(Posted in IIMC34 group on 15th August in response to a post on Gorakhpur tragedy)

Heads to be chopped off

A poetic problem given by Sri Dhanikonda Raviprasad on Facebook translates to

Heads should be chopped off
As scribes unite in this noble task

--

Over centuries Faiths sprung on Earth
Fulfilling unspoken needs of the populace
At times of moral vacuum, from the dearth
Arose Seers populating spiritual pathways

Each with their own mantras and liturgies
Diverse means leading to the same blissful end
Varied rites of passage, dispensing peace
Rays of hope for those on the inner mend

Deviant scribes that seek a gainful standoff
Awoke too, piety their garb, solemnity a mask
pens of such boneheads should be chopped off
As writers all around unite in a noble task

Teaching the world to live and to let live
From virtues we learn and the follies, forgive 

Notes from armchair world

Here is a thought having seen many arguments on Facebook or WhatsApp discussing the wrongs perpetrated in this world. May be it applies to folks like me sitting in the sidelines and making these comments too :-)


There is an irony lurking in this my friends
running as an undercurrent ever present
as arguments framed to gain credence
championing injustices of past and present
when done and dusted finds the agents
cooling their heels in nice watering holes
to wash away the heat of the arguments
forwarding sardar jokes or writing FB lols
as it slowly laughs itself to death saying
in matters changing the world, those who do
do not pause for a minute to argue

Saradindu Bandopadhyay's By the Tungabhadra

History in schooling days was "a few pages a king"
Their victories pithy lines, failings a few words
No interest the dead prose held, no joys it'd bring
For the wards looked for grades,  all else blurred

I learnt such lessons, coming on top in memorising
Lacking an interest that glues in the learning
Forgot them easily when the next year's came in
For, the wards looked for grades, History was boring

And by a fortunate chance I outgrew that influence
as my interest spurred me and grew on feeding
on stories historical dependable research their essence,
bringing to life many that led great lives, king after king

coming on the heels of Kalki's magnum opus for me
reading Saradindu's story found me in delight giddy

A comment from a friend Suvojit while discussing historical fiction resulted in my search for Saradindu's By the Tungabhadra. The background information of the novel was interesting to begin with and a Bengali author of renown picking a South Indian Kingdom as backdrop piqued my interest further. To me, like with most Telugu people Vijayanagara saamraajyam began and ended with SrinKrishnadevaraya. His larger than life persona has permeated many movies, books and embedded itself in the collective Telugu people's memory to an extent that it eclipsed the brilliance of other greats who ruled Vijayanagara ably for many years.

Saradindu's novel is a fictional story of love and intrigue set in the times of the second Devaraya also known as Praudha Devaraya. I did not read any Saradindu's works prior to this though I was reasonably acquainted with Satya sodhana of Byomkesh Bakshi.

Reading the comments and praise the novel had gathered from those that have read the original version, especially the usage of classical Bengali with a great deal of precision to create Vijayanagara's atmosphere, makes me long for an ability to read and understand the novel in its true form. Adding to that were a few quibbles I found about the translation. More on that later.

Firstly, the story moves at a good pace right from the beginning and true to one of Saradindu's twelve tenets, it does not get bogged down at any place with elaborate or unnecessary descriptions of places or characters beyond the minimum required to conjure a real image in the mind of the reader. Historical details are cleverly embedded into the storyline and do not appear artificial or forced in any instance. The plot is very interesting with a good number of twists and turns.

The author's choice of names is interesting too. One of the key characters is called maNikankaNa which reminded me of 'maNikankaNanyAyam' (also called parvAtAdhikyatAnyAyam) which refers to stating the obvious by tautaulogy. Then it dawned upon me that this simple garrulous girl's name was probably an eponymous choice by the author. Also his usage of Jayadeva's lines and some linguistic feats like punning on danDapANi add to the beauty of narration.

That said, I found the translation a tad underwhelming at places. There is no sense of grandeur that Saradindu apparently induced into the original. Then the translator mentions danDapANi is a.pun on sticks and water when referring to the name of a person found floating in water with two sticks. Clearly the translator confuses paani (water) with pANi (holding in one's hands). Then in one passage describing sunset he refers to lotuses blooming and lilies folding when it should be the other way. These being some obvious slips on metaphor, I am not sure if he has made any transgressions on translation. With all this, it is a good deal of credit to the original material that the story still shines through.

The atmosphere created by the story is lingering that I wish to explore Kalki's Sivagamiyin Sabadam immediately.

Brown's passing

A childhood ritual followed annually
as we moved up a class, got new books
new to us but hand-me-downs verily
revolved around giving them new looks

Unused pages from used notebooks changed
into homemade ones as the name connotes
to keep the pristine look unchanged
of classwork they were our "rough notes"

new notebooks would be diligently draped
and labels with names stuck on their visages
brown covers cut aptly and shaped
before we wrote on, to the smell of new pages.

Only a few deserving books were colored brown
the rest were blurbed with newspapers of renown

years ago those skills I gained
lay dormant to come alive again
when my little one approached holding
her new book its edges folding
the cute pouty face evidently pained

I realized as I warmed up to the task
Brown's passing has come to a pass
as kids nowadays prefer
a shiny see-through cover
that protects but doesn't mask