A rangOli story - Part IX

Days of happiness and nights of contentment marked the calendar in our house. mallI is also an avid reader. She searched the books in our house and was glad to find a few that suited her interest. It looks like her subject is love, her object is love and her life is love. We felt a wave of joy pass over us whenever we glanced at Chandru and mallI. If I were a poet, I would have written a song on the moon and the jasmine. Unfortunately, only my heart sings a wordless and a tuneless song, yet resonant and melodious! How is it that many say east cannot meet west? East has to meet west when everything is circular, is it not? And love is always circular! One day the discussion turned to rangOlis and I was explaining chikkammA’s theory of sItAdEvI’s interest in rangOlis. Then mallI digreseed to bhavabhUti’s uttararAmacharita. Everyone knows that the later story of Rama, as conceived by bhavabhUti, is perhaps the best drama in Sanskrit that has the sentiment of pathos. The next day Sita will be banished to the woods. The previous night Rama and Sita were in their bedroom lying together and whispering sweet-nothings. But the Sun god does not stop his motions for the lovers even if they belong to his own lineage. A new day dawned, but the old talk continued and continued. The poem bhavabhUti conjures at that time is considered to be the finest love poem in Sanskrit. I was also explaining to her the solitaire we play with shells. This game was supposed to have been invented by Sita during her stay as a prisoner in Ravana’s garden. We have a wooden piece with seven hollows on either side. They are filled on either side with one shell, two shells, three shells, … , and finally seven shells on either side in the last pair. The seven shells on either side were taken together and dropped one by one in a circular fashion at the end of which the shells in the two opposite hollows facing each other were dropped one by one and so on. When all the shells in the hollows are emptied, we get back the original arrangement. This is called Sita’s shell game. Nobody knows whether a woman like Sita existed, whether a ten headed Ravana existed. But a rangOli like Sita’s maze and a game like Sita’s solitaire gives a peculiar personal cultural dimension to the whole legend and its appreciation was not lost on malli even if she was not born in India.

Chandru and mallI must leave soon. Just then the unexpected occurred. mallI was feeling a bit jaded and so I asked Chandru to take her to a doctor in the town. May be the new atmosphere and lack of food and habits she is normally accustomed to in her place and other factors caused the tiredness. Her delivery time was still at least two months away. But on her way to the town, she began to experience pains of labour and as soon as she reached the doctor’s place and the doctor examined her, it was felt she must be admitted to a nursing home and on the next day she delivered a prematurely born baby. Except for diminished weight at birth, the baby was healthy considering her premature birth. However this threw a big spanner into their plans. Chandru had to extend his stay by a few more days and malli and their baby a few more weeks till the mother and the baby are healthy enough to travel and also till the baby gets the necessary documents for travel.

mallI was narrating how sweet the pain was during her labour. She was telling that it was like the light at the end of tunnel and the rains after a hot summer. There is only word to describe it – joy! All women narrated their own stories of childbirth and now it was mallI’s and tomorrow it will all be all mine. Will it be ravi or sandhyA? Who knows what the four headed God has in store for me? His job is to write episode after episode on every face he creates, no two episodes being ever the same. Many writers compare the family life to an ocean. Yes, ocean has several manifestations, sometimes angry, sometimes cruel, sometimes serene and sometimes happy. The ocean of our family is filled with giant waves of joy reaching the moon!

... to be continued

Note 1 - In the above story mallI was referring to the poem given below.
uttararAmacharita is a part of Great Sanskrit Plays in English translated by P. Lal. New Directions, New York, 1964.

kimapi kimapi mandaM mandamaasaktiyOgaad
aviralitakapOlaM jalpatOrakrameNa
ashithilaparirambhaH vyaapR^itaikaikadOshNOH
aviditagatayaama raatrirEva vyaraMsIt
- uttararAmacharita (1.27), bhavabhUti

Lying closely
embracing each other
cheek touching cheek
softly
gently
we were whispering
sweet nothings
and
oh
the hours passed
and a new day was breaking
but
we were still …
whispering

(loosely translated by me)

There is a story behind this. It seems after finishing his drama bhavabhUti shows it to kAlidAsa for his comments. kAlidAsa was enjoying his tAMbUlam with lime (chunnam). He read the whole drama and said that one dot is in excess. The word for the dot in Sanskrit is chUrNa. chUrNa also means lime used for the betel leaves. Since kAlidAsa was chewing on his paan, did he mean that it has a wee bit excess lime? In Sanskrit the dot is the symbol for the anusvAra or m sound. Or did he mean that there is an extra m sound somewhere? bhavabhUti thought that it is an extra m in the above poem. Evam means thus. If Evam is used in the above poem, it will mean that the night ended thus. Eva means only. If Eva is used above, it means that the night has ended, but their conversation continued. bhavabhUti corrected the Evam in the above poem to Eva and thanked kAlidAsa. The story goes to kanchi and we resume our normal activities

Note 2 - The next episode will appear only after about ten days as I have a few other engagements.