The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
A hard-core book lover, I have been following the Penguin Blog for some time, and was thrilled when they launched Blog a Penguin India Classic. All I had to do was sign up on their site and send them a mail with my postal address. They would send me one of their Indian Classics (a random choice) and all they wanted in return was a review of the book! The opportunity was too good to resist, and I immediately sent them a mail. I expected the book after perhaps a week or so, but imagine my surprise when it landed on my doorstep the very next day!!
The book I received was 'Divya' , by the talented Hindi author Yashpal. Now, my knowledge of Hindi classics is sketchy, thanks to the useless state board Hindi syllabus in my school. I have always wanted to read translations, but have put off buying these books because I have never been able to decide which books are really good translations, and worth buying. As to the library that I belong to, they have none of these books. What a pity.
The book seemed interesting, and having a bit of spare time, I started reading it, and found that I just couldn't put it down!!!! I finished it within two days (remember I am a wife, daughter-in-law and mom - otherwise, in my carefree college days, I would have finished it in one sitting!) and the very next day, sat down to write a review. This proved to be rather difficult, for I have never written a review before. I must thank Ramya of Ramya's Bookshelf. I went to her site (which I have been following for a while) and re-read a couple of reviews before starting again. I finally finished writing it yesterday and sent it to them.
Surprise! Surprise! I received a mail today from them saying that they were putting up my review on their site, and even better, mine would be the first one to be posted!!!! I am so thrilled! Check it out here.
well done again!!
ReplyDeletegood for you, I say!
ReplyDeletePretty cool blog you've got here. Thanks for it. I like such themes and everything that is connected to them. I definitely want to read a bit more on that blog soon.
ReplyDeleteAnete Kuree