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...
Ah! At last! I can hear the pitter-patter of the drops as they fall on my window pane….. When I open the window, the smell of wet earth fills my nostrils… how I have waited for this! Since the first week of June, we have been preparing ourselves for the monsoon, and every day that passed without rain was a depressing one. Then, we were hit by the water-cut, which only made things worse. All over, people are praying for rain. While some look at scientific methods, others perform havans. Some, like my mother-in-law and her friends, read slokas which are guaranteed to bring rains. Whatever the method, the aim is just one – a normal monsoon – not just for Bombay, but all of India. As the days passed, and July approaches, the hopes dipped, and all over, there was talk of a missed-monsoon and drought! But at last, there is hope! Since the last two days , it has been raining here (at least in our locality). The Met Department says these are just pre-monsoon thundershowers, but whatever the...