Standing tall

Titled Bhimyanam,the book comprises 21 Sargas (chapters) and deals with all important aspects of Dr Ambedkar’s life. “It would be incorrect to call this book just a biography,” says Joshi,adding,“The book is written in the form of a Maha-kavya,or as we call them in English,an epic,on the lines of the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. It is written in Sanskrit to pay tribute to Dr Ambedkar,whose love for the language virtually knew no bounds.”

Joshi,who began working on the book in 2005,says that he was partially able to read back then when he started his research. “I began by reading biographies that were penned down by other authors to get an idea of the person that Dr Ambedkar was,and as I began reading more and more about him,I realised he was one of the few leaders in the country who never ever got what was rightfully due to him all his life. And despite enormous odds he continued to do what was right. That was something that kept me going even when I lost my eyesight and began writing my book in 2006,” he says.

About writing the book Joshi says it was something that he couldn’t have achieved without the help of his wife Aruna and his student Madhusudhan Joshi. He says,“There were times when I would just write down what I had to on sheets of paper,not knowing that I was overlapping lines or even that there was no ink in the pen. And when I would discover the same later on,it would be a tough task to recompose the entire passages for the story but then with their aid I eventually did it.”

He also says that not many people knew that it was Dr Ambedkar’s father Ramji’s desire to see him learn Sanskrit. And that it was against insurmountable odds that Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar actually managed to do so. “He did it even when he was refused the right to learn the subject at the Elphinstone High School as he was a Dalit. Back then,  Sanskrit was strictly the privilege of the higher castes,” he adds.

Joshi,who was a teacher at Fergusson College and also a guide at the Pune University for Sanskrit students,says that Dr Ambedkar was a staunch believer that Sanskrit should be the national language of the country. He says,“Once when the issue came up for debate in the parliament,one of the members asked him a question in Sanskrit to question his love for the language but Dr Ambedkar promptly replied back in the same language. It just goes to show how good his command over the language was and how humble he was.”

Giving a further glimpse of the literary genius of Dr Ambedkar,Joshi says,“ When Dr Ambedkar went to America to pursue his higher studies he would study for long hours in the library. His efforts can be gauged from the fact that while he studied for three years in the US,he managed to work on four PhD level papers,of which three were published. And this was something that most PhD level students would usually do in seven to eight years. It just shows how deep his love for accumulating knowledge was,and also gives us an insight into his analytical mind.”

Bhimayanam,as Joshi says,contains many such little insights about the personality that Dr Ambedkar was. “More importantly,the book is a source of inspiration for even students as after reading the book they can actually see for themselves,how when someone has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge they can go on to achieve even the impossible,” he elaborates. The book has been published under the ‘Sharada Gaurav Granthamala’ series by Pandit Vasant Gadgil after six years of dedicated work by Joshi,who is also a recipient of Maharashtra government’s Mahakavi Kalidas award. While the state governor is expected to formally launch the book soon,Joshi says his work is far from being over. “On the anvil are two projects — the first being a Marathi translation of this book with the original Sanskrit chapters retained in it so that people can relate to it better,and the second is a biographical sketch of Swami Vivekananda,which will be written in Sanskrit,” he says.