The last word: Backbencher’s attempts at verse show his class

PUNE, March 7: Backbencher and dreamer that he was, teachers preferred to let this `dull' boy live in his own world, looking out of the wind...

PUNE, March 7: Backbencher and dreamer that he was, teachers preferred to let this `dull’ boy live in his own world, looking out of the window at the clear blue sky and sketching trees.

But little did they know that Chandrashekhar Gokhale, whose answer books were full of red marks, would hold sway over the imagination of lakhs of people with his “four lines” (Char-oli). The four line verse (in Marathi), compiled in both Mi Maaza and Punha Mi Maaza, has already sold a record two lakh copies each. Sensitive and shy, Shekhar literally trembled when he recounted the moment when `the’ Asha Bhosale asked for his autograph.

For someone who did not have any friends in school, Shekhar has indeed come a long way. Though this `dullard’ did not make it to the list of teachers’ favourites, his panache for looking inwards at the young age of 10 led him to the road to fame. “I have never read Marathi poems. I just write what I feel and see,” says Gokhale. Nature, death, hypocrisy are among the many themes that finda distinct mention in his poems.“Martana mala vatle/mazhe ayushya nuste vahun gele/jagayche mala/jagayche mhantana/jagayche rahun gele” (I felt my life just ebbed away while I was dying. I want to live, kept repeating I want to live, when life passed me by),” recites Gokhale.

Asked about his lack of literary erudition, the muse in him springs forth to reply: Mi aahech asa jara/ekta ekta rahnaara/walkepaan suddha galtana/ tanmaytene pahnaara (I am a bit like this/prefer my own company/so even if dried up leaves fall to the ground/I can only watch them with pure concentration).

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