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Journalism of Courage
Try this sloka for size: Paryank granthibanda dvigunita bhujagaslesha samveeta jaano/rantapranavarodh vyuparata sakalajnana ruddhendriyasya/ atmanyatmana me va vyapagatakaranam pashya tas tatva drushtya/shamborvah paatu shoonye kshanaghatitalaya brahmalagnah samadhih. Api ch: Paatu vo neelakantasya kantah shyamambudopamah/ gauribhujalata yatra viddhul lekheva rajate.
It means, loosely translated: May the abstract meditation of Shiva protect you that Shiva who sits in the yogic knee-bound Paryank posture, whose inner life-force is so controlled within that all movement has ceased and who, with his eye of truth perceives himself as the Universal Soul with no duality between the two. Moreover: May the dark-cloud-like neck of Shiva protect you, that neck on which the pale creeper of Gauri8217;s arm flashes like lightning.
Learning by rote was obviously not meant to be the end. You had to understand things: That was the point of creating 8216;8216;mental textbooks8217;8217; in the oral tradition. You literally carried your library in your head, for who, in a dangerous world, could rely only on hardcopy as the sole repository of knowledge?
What8217;s nice about this new awareness of Shudraka8217;s verse is that Mrchhakatikam is the most modern and realistic of Indian plays. Many of us saw it as the Hindi film Utsav only in 1985 though Shambhu Mitra did his version earlier for the Kolkata stage. Parisians saw it in translation on stage back in 1850 and 1895, while in Germany it drew big crowds between 1892-3 and again in the 1920s. It feels like suddenly spotting Serendib, that despite being Macaulay8217;s child, one8217;s head accidentally carries a real piece of Shudraka. I8217;m sure, between us, we carry entire archipelagos!
