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It feels good to talk about Kamaraja Nadar. He was born in a Tamilnadu small town in 1903 to lower middle class parents of a non-brahmin community and promptly lost his father at 6 and dropped out of the village school at 14 and took up a small job as a sales boy. And got inflamed by Gandhiji and his satyagraha movements. Gandhiji found out that Kamaraj had great organizational skills and used him appropriately. And Kamaraj went to jail several times and rose in the Congress hierarchy. And served two terms as CM of Tamilnadu and thereafter as an MP in Delhi.
And ended up as a posthumous Bharat Ratna in 1976.
Want to join Congress and follow Kamaraj's footsteps?...we now have a youthful Gandhi as VP. Come on!
So, Kamaraj never had higher schooling and never spoke English although he acquired enough proficiency like my mom who bowled me leg and middle during my niece's marriage. All my six sisters gathered at home before we moved to the Marriage Hall and we were debating if we should give our gift-checks to our niece at home or in the Hall. After quietly listening to our arguments, my mom (82) declared:
"Those who seek 'publicity' can give their gifts in the Marriage Hall. Others can dispose them off here right away"
The whole sentence was spoken in Telugu except the word 'publicity'. It was such an apt word that there is no pithy equivalent to it in our mother tongue. And my mom never went to a high school...
When I was in my school-final and had acquired a working knowledge of 'heard' English (as opposed to the 'spoken' one) there was an election meeting on the outskirts of our village. The meeting was being addressed by the Congress President U N Dhebar, a Gujerati stalwart with nil knowledge of Telugu. So he spoke sentence by waiting sentence in English and his sentences were duly translated one by one on the go by our local politician whose knowledge of English was just a notch above mine. And it was a great pleasure to listen to his translation which had as much resemblance to its English original as a kitten has to a puppy. While the Congress President was talking about national issues like Five-Year Plans and Socialistic Pattern of Society, his Muthukur translator confined himself to local drainage, irrigation, and the abolition of cockfights...
I had a grannie (twice removed) who had unfortunately lost her hearing totally in a bout of pox. But she was the epitome of curiosity. When I visited their home at Nellore soon after joining IIT KGP, she welcomed me with open arms and embraced me but then started asking me many questions in Telugu which I understood but didn't know how to answer since I hadn't learned her sign language. So, her granddaughter took over and she started translating my answers into eloquent mute signs. She could convey that I work near Calcutta by lip-synching. And further info by hand and finger and head and neck movements at the end of which my grannie got to know what I do and how much I earn and if I smoked and ate non-veg and if I had acquired a Bengali girl-friend and if not why not...
Then there was this brahmin lad who was born in 1879 in a village near Madurai in deep Tamilnadu and lost his father at 13 and was raised by his uncle at Madurai where he went to the American Missionary School. And at 16 he suddenly got spiritual illumination and was fed up with his Bain's English Grammar and ran away to Tiruvannamalai at the foot of the hill Arunachala where he stayed till his death at 70 in 1950. Gradually an ashram grew up around him and he was called Ramana Maharshi. His specialty was that he rarely spoke to his chelas who sat in his presence and imbibed whatever solace they wanted from him, by his mere proximity.
But as his reputation grew, his disciples from all over India and abroad were visiting his Ashram and were asking questions philosophical and personal. And he never spoke English despite his Bain's Grammar or because of it. So he needed a translator from English to Tamil and vice versa.
There was then a Professor of History (MVR) from the Madras University who left his job and shifted as a resident disciple at Ramanashram. So, whenever a translator was needed, MVR was called in to do the job. But at the end of everyday, MVR used to jot down the questions and answers in English and show his jottings to the Maharshi for his corrections and approval! Eventually these got published as Talks with Ramana Maharshi (500 pages) and translated into all major languages.
One day however, a Kashmiri Pandit, Prof Kak, was visiting the Ashram. Unfortunately, Prof Kak knew only Kashmiri, a language none knew at the Ashram. So, the Maharshi asked him to go ahead and pose his questions in Kashmiri in the presence of the other curious crowd of chelas. And as the questions were put to him, Maharshi sat silently with a steady gaze on Prof Kak.
After half an hour of such intense 'dialogue', Prof Kak bowed and thanked the Maharshi for answering all his questions and removing all his doubts...
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"There
was but one great Tamilian leader called Kamaraja Nadar in the 1950s who
understood the value of discreet silence in public. It used to be said
that he never spoke Hindi or English as a matter of policy, and when asked any tricky question by his
Interviewers, he would prefer to just say: "Paarkalaam!", meaning: "Let's see!"
But my IAS B-i-L of the Tamilnadu Cadre told me one revealing story about Kamaraj. Apparently he was addressing National Media in his frugal style in chaste Tamil and was being translated into English by his Tamilian IAS Officer. And Kamaraj said: "The nation needs nalla opposition" in Tamil. And his IAS Officer translated the Tamil word: 'nalla' as 'good'. And Kamaraj wasn't happy with 'good'. Then his Babu said: 'effective'. And this word too was rejected by a wave of the hand. He then tried the buzz word: 'wonderful'. And was shut up.
And Kamaraj himself had to rescue his Babu saying:
"nalla opposition means 'sound' opposition"
But that was the Nehru-Gandhi Generation..."
But my IAS B-i-L of the Tamilnadu Cadre told me one revealing story about Kamaraj. Apparently he was addressing National Media in his frugal style in chaste Tamil and was being translated into English by his Tamilian IAS Officer. And Kamaraj said: "The nation needs nalla opposition" in Tamil. And his IAS Officer translated the Tamil word: 'nalla' as 'good'. And Kamaraj wasn't happy with 'good'. Then his Babu said: 'effective'. And this word too was rejected by a wave of the hand. He then tried the buzz word: 'wonderful'. And was shut up.
And Kamaraj himself had to rescue his Babu saying:
"nalla opposition means 'sound' opposition"
But that was the Nehru-Gandhi Generation..."
It feels good to talk about Kamaraja Nadar. He was born in a Tamilnadu small town in 1903 to lower middle class parents of a non-brahmin community and promptly lost his father at 6 and dropped out of the village school at 14 and took up a small job as a sales boy. And got inflamed by Gandhiji and his satyagraha movements. Gandhiji found out that Kamaraj had great organizational skills and used him appropriately. And Kamaraj went to jail several times and rose in the Congress hierarchy. And served two terms as CM of Tamilnadu and thereafter as an MP in Delhi.
And ended up as a posthumous Bharat Ratna in 1976.
Want to join Congress and follow Kamaraj's footsteps?...we now have a youthful Gandhi as VP. Come on!
So, Kamaraj never had higher schooling and never spoke English although he acquired enough proficiency like my mom who bowled me leg and middle during my niece's marriage. All my six sisters gathered at home before we moved to the Marriage Hall and we were debating if we should give our gift-checks to our niece at home or in the Hall. After quietly listening to our arguments, my mom (82) declared:
"Those who seek 'publicity' can give their gifts in the Marriage Hall. Others can dispose them off here right away"
The whole sentence was spoken in Telugu except the word 'publicity'. It was such an apt word that there is no pithy equivalent to it in our mother tongue. And my mom never went to a high school...
When I was in my school-final and had acquired a working knowledge of 'heard' English (as opposed to the 'spoken' one) there was an election meeting on the outskirts of our village. The meeting was being addressed by the Congress President U N Dhebar, a Gujerati stalwart with nil knowledge of Telugu. So he spoke sentence by waiting sentence in English and his sentences were duly translated one by one on the go by our local politician whose knowledge of English was just a notch above mine. And it was a great pleasure to listen to his translation which had as much resemblance to its English original as a kitten has to a puppy. While the Congress President was talking about national issues like Five-Year Plans and Socialistic Pattern of Society, his Muthukur translator confined himself to local drainage, irrigation, and the abolition of cockfights...
I had a grannie (twice removed) who had unfortunately lost her hearing totally in a bout of pox. But she was the epitome of curiosity. When I visited their home at Nellore soon after joining IIT KGP, she welcomed me with open arms and embraced me but then started asking me many questions in Telugu which I understood but didn't know how to answer since I hadn't learned her sign language. So, her granddaughter took over and she started translating my answers into eloquent mute signs. She could convey that I work near Calcutta by lip-synching. And further info by hand and finger and head and neck movements at the end of which my grannie got to know what I do and how much I earn and if I smoked and ate non-veg and if I had acquired a Bengali girl-friend and if not why not...
Then there was this brahmin lad who was born in 1879 in a village near Madurai in deep Tamilnadu and lost his father at 13 and was raised by his uncle at Madurai where he went to the American Missionary School. And at 16 he suddenly got spiritual illumination and was fed up with his Bain's English Grammar and ran away to Tiruvannamalai at the foot of the hill Arunachala where he stayed till his death at 70 in 1950. Gradually an ashram grew up around him and he was called Ramana Maharshi. His specialty was that he rarely spoke to his chelas who sat in his presence and imbibed whatever solace they wanted from him, by his mere proximity.
But as his reputation grew, his disciples from all over India and abroad were visiting his Ashram and were asking questions philosophical and personal. And he never spoke English despite his Bain's Grammar or because of it. So he needed a translator from English to Tamil and vice versa.
There was then a Professor of History (MVR) from the Madras University who left his job and shifted as a resident disciple at Ramanashram. So, whenever a translator was needed, MVR was called in to do the job. But at the end of everyday, MVR used to jot down the questions and answers in English and show his jottings to the Maharshi for his corrections and approval! Eventually these got published as Talks with Ramana Maharshi (500 pages) and translated into all major languages.
One day however, a Kashmiri Pandit, Prof Kak, was visiting the Ashram. Unfortunately, Prof Kak knew only Kashmiri, a language none knew at the Ashram. So, the Maharshi asked him to go ahead and pose his questions in Kashmiri in the presence of the other curious crowd of chelas. And as the questions were put to him, Maharshi sat silently with a steady gaze on Prof Kak.
After half an hour of such intense 'dialogue', Prof Kak bowed and thanked the Maharshi for answering all his questions and removing all his doubts...
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I remember reading somewhere about similar silent 30 minute conversation between Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi and famous author Somerset Maugham ! With such noble souls, silence is truly Golden !
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