Like most students of our time, we had one year of
compulsory Sanskrit classes. Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that
it left a deep and indelible mark on my mind, and perhaps in the minds of most
of my class-mates as well…
It did not make literary geniuses out of us – nor did
it actually enhance our vocabulary, because our mother-tongue – Bengali, had
evolved from Sanskrit anyway. We did learn some new words for everyday things
and the origins of some of the words we use everyday; the latter being an item of
information that is perfectly useless for the rest of one’s useful life –
unless one is bent on making a living out of origins of words; in which case
one would die very early from hunger.
The contribution of that language course was in a
completely different sphere. It trained us to have regular, consistently
fearsome, nightmares – an experience that has served me well in later life –
people now look upon me as the “fearless ’un”.
Don’t get me wrong – Sanskrit was not the cause – it
was the teacher. This fellow, and I forget his name, was a glossy, ebony
version of Mr. Weatherbee of Archie’s comics. A huge black 8 in spotless, white
dhoti and kurta, with a smile that could curdle the blood of most boys just
entering their teens.
He would come into class, carrying a bunch of
moth-eaten books in one hand and a cane in the other, like some medieval
warrior with a sword. He would carefully place the bunch of moth-eaten books on
the table – but the cane would never leave his hand. One day it would be
Sanskrit Literature, the next day, Grammar. Most of us were so confused by the
routine that we carried both books to school anyways. Else, it was three lashes
of the cane on the right hand for not having the correct book in class.
The literature class consisted of little Sanskrit
stories told in a completely incomprehensible language, with unpronounceable
words, sometimes joined together to make bigger unpronounceable words. We
always wondered about those fellows of yore who had Sanskrit for a mother
tongue. Those kids must have had a terrible time trying to tell their mommas in
Sanskrit that they were hungry, because Sanskrit demands that one possess a
perfect set of teeth and an acrobatic tongue coupled with about 10 Terabytes of
cached memory to store all those noun and verb forms for instant access…. but
that is not part of this narrative.
Our teacher would read the stories out aloud and
translate into Bengali, spreading gentle smiles of comprehension all across the
room. And then it would start. His eyes would wander all over the class and
come to rest on the first unfortunate fellow of the day, who would be asked to
read the passage just covered.
Two lashes of the cane on the calves if it didn’t
sound like he was reading Sanskrit, (and it never did). We all wore
“half-pants”(“shorts” in today’s parlance) in those days, and there was no
protection….. Then another student would
be called up, then another, till someone was able to read something that
sounded like Sanskrit. Most had a difficult time controlling the spit from
flying out while endeavouring to pronounce properly.
The following day, in the Grammar class, the routine
would be slightly different. The randomly selected first unfortunate fellow of
the day would be called up in front of the blackboard and asked to recite some
noun or verb table, with our man standing right beside him, cane pointing to
the roof. Halfway through the
recitation, the inevitable goof-up would take place – and the poor student, merely
Bengali-trained, would get tongue-tied.
And then believe me, here is what would happen – in
slow motion. Mr. 8 would take three steps backwards, gently, ever so gently,
lay his cane on the table, and haul our little Sanskrit criminal towards him by
the collar. Then, with his right hand, he would take a large pinch somewhere
around the tummy area of the boy. He would close his eyes, grit his teeth, and
start twisting the piece of flesh he had between his fingers, saying, “Porishni
keno ?” (“Why have you not memorized the
piece ?”)
Our friend would wince, and slowly bend over till his
head touched the table, unable to scream or speak……. They would stay in that
position for a few seconds, before he thought it proper to release his grip. The
story would be repeated for the next little criminal who could not recite the
tables, and the next, and the next… Most of the times we forgot to recite out
of sheer terror.
Rumour had it that he also taught at the girls’ school
next door. I never found out what he did there.
The grammar book was called “…some… Upakramanika”….My
impression about Vidyasagar, the author, was one of pure contempt. Did he not
have better things to do ? Were we supposed to honour this fellow for
unleashing pure, unadulterated terror in our lives ? All those hundred and
twenty pages of that book posed some of the biggest challenges of our early
teen years…. Not the desire to master the language in the way that V-fellow
did, but to go through life with the sole objective of avoiding those lashes…….
In the process, all the “bhekam” (frogs) and “loshtrum” (stones)
were finally confined to the dark recesses of our minds, to be invoked during
nightmares, but never to see the light of the day again….
*****
Just as a few words of French thrown casually about in
an English sentence tend to project a person as “erudite”, a few Sanskrit words
do the same job for the average Indian, irrespective of the language he or she
is speaking……. That is what I learned later in life.
The intellectuals of our society go about doing just
that… a few Sanskrit words thrown randomly into a conversation or a poetry, and
lo !! We have the perfect scholar in our midst.
……“Lyob Lopey Karmanadhikaraney Chaw”…… Haven’t the
foggiest idea what that phrase means – it is all I remember from the
Upakramanika, learned with lashes and pinches during our days under the reign
of the “BLACK 8 the Terrible”.
