First language Kannada

I guess this is a problem of people of my generation and present day may not even relate to it. Or maybe I have written about this in my previous posts (I will check).

Back in the day when we transitioned from grade 7 to 8, we had to identify one language as primary (first) and secondary invariably was English (unless English was primary, those schools were far and few) and one tertiary language. Mind you till grade 7 we were doing the same and in most schools Kannada was the primary language.

Anyways, come to grade 8, a new choice popped up called Sanskrit. Considering students were starting from scratch they would start with alphabets and grammar and by end of grade 10 they would have graduated to reading some amount of Sanskrit let alone converse. So, in terms of GPA or what we used to call easy scoring subject, Sanskrit was top choice.

Yours truly was also the same mentality and by divine grace I met with a Kannada teacher MS. Gowramma who suggested me to take Kannada as primary language and my dad also suggested the same. There was initial resistance in me but I did take it up. Along with meeting such wonderful friends in that group, one thing it developed in me was the love for language, years later reflecting back on what I studied back in grade 8, 9 and 10 specially in what was called non detail were some intense texts.

Years later that spark has kept up and I don’t say I am an avid Kannada reader, same time the history buff in me would pick up a Kannada book about Karnataka Ithihasa than an English commentary.

Analyzing past events through present day lens

Remember Ramayana, the death of Ravana and return of Rama to Ayodhya and within in no time Rama decides to send his beloved wife Sita back to the forest. Of all things that happened in Ramayana, this is the one aspect I couldn't come to terms with and hence I asked our beloved late Rajima and her asnwer was as always cut throat and to the point "You guys with all your live-in relationships and all will never understand why, and will keep blaming Rama for doing the wrong thing"

A decade or so ago, I was talking to a senior colleague of mine about 401K and causally and off handedly mentioned to him how people in my parents generation often took out loans on their Provident Fund (Indian equivalent of 401k), first he looked straight in my eyes and said "they did it to take care of you and your education" and he went on to say his own stint of withdrawing from 401K funds in his younger days.

Let’s try another simple one, back in the days before age of cell phones or even phones and tracking and all such, even if the arrival of my dad from work got delayed by few hours (2-3) we had to wait calmly and patiently. Can I imagine such a thing in present day? It was normal for those days.

There are many such incidents like these that I keep encountering these days leading me to think, if I can’t even fathom what it was like 3 or 4 decades ago, what gives me the ability to understand, comprehend to what happened or even written a few thousand years ago.

Yes, Rajima had that talent, delivering great lessons in a sentence or two.

Ps: this is another take on my previous post of “Rama and Sita”

Was Rama right

 The other eternal question stems from the Indian epic Ramayana, after all things endured by Sita, why did Rama decide to send her off to forest.

About a decade and half ago, I was doing this course on Krishna avatara with Late Rajima and I can’t think of a better scholar than her in Indian epics. I took the courage to ask her but didn’t know where to start. I was beating around the bush to ask her and she said “ask whatever it is directly”.

Me: was Rama not at fault for exiling Sita

Rajima: your generation of live in relationships and multiple partners and so on will never understand Rama and will keep blaming him

At that moment, I was confused and didn’t understand what she was saying.

Fast forward to today, a memory flashed across to me, I was in grade 6 or so and me and my friend were arguing that the embracing scenes between hero and heroine in a movie are shot without them embracing in front of the camera.

Meaning, one can argue that our back ground was conservative enough that we couldn’t comprehend a unknown male and female embrace even for acting.

Now, if I were to extrapolate to few thousand years backwards, I think I get my answer.

That said, I still don’t know if Rama was right.