Bharavi's atonement

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About 1500 years ago (give or take a hundred years) there was this child prodigy, Bharavi, born in India (E, S, W, or N....let's not quarrel like our 'historians').

Before he was 10, he mastered all intricacies of Sanskrit like its Grammar, Prosody, Figure of Speech; and started composing wonderful Sanskrit Verses extempore.

He was therefore the cynosure of the town, district and province by and by.

Laurels, Encomiums, Degrees and Awards were pouring in from all corners.

But he had a grouse: While his mother was the typical 'Fond Parent' (of RKN), his father was rather reticent, lukewarm and muted in extolling his son's precocity .

This rankled badly in the mind of Bharavi who thought his father was smitten by envy.

By and by he was married to a beautiful lady (I know). Bharavi revealed his misgivings about his father to his newly-wed wife on the very first night (fool of an ass!).

She promptly urged him to take steps.

Next night he decided to 'eliminate' his envious father. He hid in the attic of his parents' bedroom with a huge boulder in his hands, ready to hit his father's sweet spot on the head at the right moment (child prodigies are prone to be rather weird during the first few nights after marriage).

After dinner, his parents were lounging on their sofa-cum-bed, chatting. Bharavi's mother sensed that something was amiss (call it the 'feminine intuition'). And asked her husband if he was aware that Bharavi was upset by his behavior in not praising his 'prodigious' son.

Bharavi's father replied famously:

"Don't think I don't know my own son's greatness. I am more proud of him than everyone else combined. But he is still young and childish. He has vast potential to become the Greatest Poet in India. A father's open praise of his immature son acts like a brake on his development since the kid has no more incentive to grow. As such he is getting more than enough adoration from everyone else who loll in his Present but don't care much for his Future. That is why I have to restrain myself with a heavy heart to not go overboard.

My praise now will be a curse on my son."

Bharavi turned blue at this revelation, jumped down from his perch, fell prostrate on his father's feet, confessed to his evil intention and sought appropriate atonement.

Bharavi's father lifted and embraced his son, but agreed with him that a 'mild' punishment would indeed do good (DC).

He then pronounced: "Leave my home tomorrow morning with your wife, go to her place, spend six months in your in-laws' home and return to your rightful place in my home thereafter".

Bharavi thought that his father was too kind to him in granting an extended honeymoon.

And you can guess what happened then (don't tell my wife, but I couldn't stand my in-laws for more than an hour at a go, it was mutual; LIP & RIP).

The first week was great. Bharavi was treated like a god. Next week the 6-course-dinner dwindled to a 4-course one. And so on in a rapidly converging series

After a fortnight his father-in-law was grumbling that price rise being what it was it would be nice if Bharavi did something for the family instead of enjoying all the while. And Mrs Bharavi suggested to her hubby why not tend to the cattle by taking them out in the morning and bringing them home by nightfall.

Bharavi agreed; he was indeed looking for an escape-outing.

And like SDM, he didn't need much paraphernalia to compose his verses: it was all in the head.

Bharavi's pop-in-law suddenly died and it fell to Bharavi to earn his keep and his wife's too.

But like SDM he was good for nothing else than his intellectual outputs.

And his wife was grumbling that the shopkeeper of their provisions was demanding overdue payments on his Credit Card.

Bharavi then composed a sweet verse praising SK (short for shopkeeper) sky-high; and asked his wife to pass on the palm leaf with this verse to him as part payment.

It turned out that SK was a connoisseur of Sanskrit (like HNB was to SDM's math). And when he read the verse, SK knocked off all the dues and told Mrs Bharavi that henceforth he would take payments only in her hubby's verses.

And so everyday, Bharavi, apart from his own 'papers' had to write an easy verse for the consumption of SK. And SK was reading them, re-reading them with great pleasure, and stacking them on his fumigated attic so that they wouldn't be 'termitinated' (like I hear what happened recently to the papers of one of our own Drs ).

And in six months the stack grew to a delightfully huge bundle.

Their six months' internment over, Bharavi and his Mrs returned to a fond welcome to his parents' home.

And now under the fondest encouragement of his father, Bharavi became the contemporary of Kalidas in Bhoj Raj's Court and became one of the topmost Navratnas.

And wrote what to this day is considered one of the greatest extant works in Sanskrit: "Kiratharjuneeyam" [Don't ask me to tell this story too!].

But that is beside the point.

SK had to leave India's shores once every year to get through his Export-Import trade. He usually was away for a month on the high seas on this business (like my son's quarterly business trips to the US and Europe).

On the next trip overseas, SK's ship ran into rough seas, sank, and all the businessmen aboard had to hold on to the first available wooden plank, drift on the high seas and hope to see land on some island or the other, growing beards, and waiting for a 'relief' ship.

That took SK a good 16 years. (Recall Ulysses's or Rip Van Winkle's return home after 20 years).

On the midnight of his home-coming, expecting wild jubilation from his wife, SK found instead that his wife was in bed with a handsome youth.

Enraged beyond himself, he drew his sword and swung it back to behead the two at one neat stroke (16 years away from home is too long for reason to prevail).

And the sword hit the attic on its back-lift and disturbed his palm-leaf bundle and one leaf gently descended on his shoulder.

SK recalled his fascination for Bharavi's verses with pleasure and began to read the one that fell on him, forgetting his wife for the nonce (that is the power of Literature Appreciation).
[Here I wish I knew a little Sanskrit rather than this foul alien tongue; I could then have recited this famous verse of Bharavi].

And the verse said sweetly: "Better pause a moment than rue a lifetime".

This injunction appeared god-sent to SK, who sheathed his sword and shook up his wife.

She at once fell on him, embraced him, showered hot kisses on him and so and such; and introduced their handsome son sleeping beside her; and asked SK to take him to the full-size mirror inlaid on their Godrej Almirah and see for himself how like a clone of SK their blessed son looks.

There was no need of a DNA test: SK embraced his son who turned out to be exactly 15 year-3-months old (give or take a week).

THE END
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P. S. It is my pleasure to announce that about seven hours back I received the Mailing Address of Dr D Jain. And I was thrilled to note that he also attached a Gift Article dedicated to me pertaining to his other Literature Proficiency.

Other Degree Recipients! Please hurry up! There will be no second printing! Book your Degrees NOW!

A quarter century ago when the Calcutta Metro was in her infancy, I used to take a ride on her every time I went to Calcutta just to listen to that husky female voice announcing over their CCPA System:

"Doors are closing! Darwaja bandh ho raha hai! Dorjata bando kora hocchey!"

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