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RKN wrote the above passage more than half a century ago when the word 'pundit' meant an expert and didn't yet acquire any negative nuances.
The first time I heard 'pundit' was in our school. Our Telugu teacher was called Telugu Pundit. Everyone else was called just teacher...like English Teacher, Science Teacher, Maths Teacher, and even Drill Teacher.
Our Telugu Pundit was well-read in all branches of Telugu literature such as Andhra Maha Bharatam, Potana Bhagavatam, Pancha Tantram. And could quote poems from them at will. But he never indulged in Lit Crit. And he didn't know even the English alphabet...he spurned English like our Raam Bhakt Leader did recently (after sending his kids to the UK and the US).
In order to become a Telugu Pundit, he had to pass exams like Praveshika, Visharada, Praveena. And those who passed exams not only in Telugu but also Sanskrit went to college and were called Ubhaya Bhasha Praveens (dual-language-pundits...like our Dual Degrees at IIT KGP).
Then came a new breed of Telugu Teachers who passed BA and MA and even did their PhDs in Telugu awarded by Universities...like my younger sister Dr Uma Devi. These had to learn a lot of English and pass exams in Eng Lit as well. And their erudition in Andhra Mahabharatam and stuff was rather sketchy except they had to mug up selections from them in their syllabi. But they had to do Lit Crit.
When this crop of youngsters began to replace and upend the old Pundits slowly and remorselessly...the Pundits came up with the derisive slogan:
"There are two types of Telugu Teachers...Pundits and MAs"
meaning that MAs are no pundits (experts).
The next Pundit (spelled Pandit) that we had to mug up his name was:
"Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru"
And I asked Father if he was a pundit in Telugu, Hindi or Sanskrit. And he laughed and said:
"None of them...he writes in English and was educated at Harrow and Cambridge...Pandit is his surname. He belonged to the clan of Kashmiri Pandits and kept his Brahmin caste in his name."
And then we had a lesson on Vijayalakshmi Pandit, who, we were told was the sister of Nehru and kept her title, both nee and naa...she married another Kashmiri Pandit. Her sister, Krishna, married Raja Hutheesing and so lost her punditry.
Well, Nehru may have been rather proud of his Pandit ancestry but not so anyone of his progeny...I have to only hint to our NaMo that his adversary dropped his caste title out of acute shyness...he could as well have been Pandit Rahul Baba (read this blog post as soon as you can...I am going to delete this para from the next edition...I need my pension badly).
Instead, the progeny of Nehru preferred the other famous title: Gandhi...I thought in my school days that they had the genes of our Mahatma.
Sigh!
My greatest misfortune has to do with my last name: Sastry.
My Father didn't christen me like that...He had only two names and Sastry is not one of them. I was happily just Gurram Prabhakar. But when Father admitted me to his high school he had this inspiration. He thought I would be pleased with a third handle to my name.
This reminds me of the Readers' Digest joke of 1960s. This Arab was illiterate but was too proud to resort to an LTI (Left Thumb Impression). So when he went to open his meager Savings Account in his local Bank, the Manager asked him how he would like his name to be spelled and how he would sign it.
This Arab thought a minute and replied:
"Let it be XX...I can sign XX...pretty easy"
So the Manager agreed and it worked for a decade nicely.
Then came the oil boom and the Arab became a millionaire and he went to his Bank Manager to change his name to: 'XXX'
And the Manager asked him why. And his esteemed customer replied:
"Everyone is asking me what my last name is"
Brits are also fond of hyphenated names like Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, the chap who was hell bent on stealing the Empress of Blandings...he has a wiki-page...look out for it.
Anyway, Father thought I better have a third handle to my name and inserted Sastry after G. P.
And that was my undoing...since it was a sure giveaway that I am a hated brahmin by caste...in AP none else than brahmins were Sastries. And I was subject to overt and covert reverse discrimination till I reached Bengal which, our Sunanda Datta-Ray avers, has no caste.
But, as soon as I declared my name at IIT KGP in 1965, I was asked by everyone if I was a relative of the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.
This eminence was born with the title Srivastava which was a sure giveaway that he was a kayastha by birth. And LBS was averse to castes and changed his last name to Shastri...he passed several exams in Sanskrit at the Kashi Vidyapeeth and acquired the Degree that was conferred on him: Shastri.
Which is roughly what I could have done, renaming myself as:
"G. P. Ph. D."
And LBS had all of six kids. All his sons took their acquired title from their father and called themselves Hari Krishna Shastri, Anil Shastri, Sunil Shastri, Ashok Shastri et al.
I don't know if all of them had acquired degrees in Sanskrit from the Kashi (or any other) Vidyapeeth.
But in today's UP, everyone knows that they and their progeny are nothing but Kayasth Srivastavs...ask Yadujee or Mayadi...
The more you tend to hide your genes the more they tend to pop up...
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...Others may see in an automobile only an internal combustion engine turning the wheels, taking people where they wish to go and stopping where they want to stop: but to an auto pundit the very fact to its being able to carry people about is perhaps the least important of its aspects. The auto-pundit looks for other values in a motor-car. For him it is a living organism which is capable of self-expression. It expresses itself through a delicate idiom of its own. You must see the expression on his face when an engine is started. He listens to its sound with all his being. His ears listen, his eyes watch, his nostrils quiver, his nerves become taut and ready to respond to the slightest vibration. Every part of his body, every sensory means of perception has its uses for him at this moment...
...RKN in Auto Pundit
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RKN wrote the above passage more than half a century ago when the word 'pundit' meant an expert and didn't yet acquire any negative nuances.
The first time I heard 'pundit' was in our school. Our Telugu teacher was called Telugu Pundit. Everyone else was called just teacher...like English Teacher, Science Teacher, Maths Teacher, and even Drill Teacher.
Our Telugu Pundit was well-read in all branches of Telugu literature such as Andhra Maha Bharatam, Potana Bhagavatam, Pancha Tantram. And could quote poems from them at will. But he never indulged in Lit Crit. And he didn't know even the English alphabet...he spurned English like our Raam Bhakt Leader did recently (after sending his kids to the UK and the US).
In order to become a Telugu Pundit, he had to pass exams like Praveshika, Visharada, Praveena. And those who passed exams not only in Telugu but also Sanskrit went to college and were called Ubhaya Bhasha Praveens (dual-language-pundits...like our Dual Degrees at IIT KGP).
Then came a new breed of Telugu Teachers who passed BA and MA and even did their PhDs in Telugu awarded by Universities...like my younger sister Dr Uma Devi. These had to learn a lot of English and pass exams in Eng Lit as well. And their erudition in Andhra Mahabharatam and stuff was rather sketchy except they had to mug up selections from them in their syllabi. But they had to do Lit Crit.
When this crop of youngsters began to replace and upend the old Pundits slowly and remorselessly...the Pundits came up with the derisive slogan:
"There are two types of Telugu Teachers...Pundits and MAs"
meaning that MAs are no pundits (experts).
The next Pundit (spelled Pandit) that we had to mug up his name was:
"Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru"
And I asked Father if he was a pundit in Telugu, Hindi or Sanskrit. And he laughed and said:
"None of them...he writes in English and was educated at Harrow and Cambridge...Pandit is his surname. He belonged to the clan of Kashmiri Pandits and kept his Brahmin caste in his name."
And then we had a lesson on Vijayalakshmi Pandit, who, we were told was the sister of Nehru and kept her title, both nee and naa...she married another Kashmiri Pandit. Her sister, Krishna, married Raja Hutheesing and so lost her punditry.
Well, Nehru may have been rather proud of his Pandit ancestry but not so anyone of his progeny...I have to only hint to our NaMo that his adversary dropped his caste title out of acute shyness...he could as well have been Pandit Rahul Baba (read this blog post as soon as you can...I am going to delete this para from the next edition...I need my pension badly).
Instead, the progeny of Nehru preferred the other famous title: Gandhi...I thought in my school days that they had the genes of our Mahatma.
Sigh!
My greatest misfortune has to do with my last name: Sastry.
My Father didn't christen me like that...He had only two names and Sastry is not one of them. I was happily just Gurram Prabhakar. But when Father admitted me to his high school he had this inspiration. He thought I would be pleased with a third handle to my name.
This reminds me of the Readers' Digest joke of 1960s. This Arab was illiterate but was too proud to resort to an LTI (Left Thumb Impression). So when he went to open his meager Savings Account in his local Bank, the Manager asked him how he would like his name to be spelled and how he would sign it.
This Arab thought a minute and replied:
"Let it be XX...I can sign XX...pretty easy"
So the Manager agreed and it worked for a decade nicely.
Then came the oil boom and the Arab became a millionaire and he went to his Bank Manager to change his name to: 'XXX'
And the Manager asked him why. And his esteemed customer replied:
"Everyone is asking me what my last name is"
Brits are also fond of hyphenated names like Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, the chap who was hell bent on stealing the Empress of Blandings...he has a wiki-page...look out for it.
Anyway, Father thought I better have a third handle to my name and inserted Sastry after G. P.
And that was my undoing...since it was a sure giveaway that I am a hated brahmin by caste...in AP none else than brahmins were Sastries. And I was subject to overt and covert reverse discrimination till I reached Bengal which, our Sunanda Datta-Ray avers, has no caste.
But, as soon as I declared my name at IIT KGP in 1965, I was asked by everyone if I was a relative of the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.
This eminence was born with the title Srivastava which was a sure giveaway that he was a kayastha by birth. And LBS was averse to castes and changed his last name to Shastri...he passed several exams in Sanskrit at the Kashi Vidyapeeth and acquired the Degree that was conferred on him: Shastri.
Which is roughly what I could have done, renaming myself as:
"G. P. Ph. D."
And LBS had all of six kids. All his sons took their acquired title from their father and called themselves Hari Krishna Shastri, Anil Shastri, Sunil Shastri, Ashok Shastri et al.
I don't know if all of them had acquired degrees in Sanskrit from the Kashi (or any other) Vidyapeeth.
But in today's UP, everyone knows that they and their progeny are nothing but Kayasth Srivastavs...ask Yadujee or Mayadi...
The more you tend to hide your genes the more they tend to pop up...
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