December 24, 2011
I am writing this against a background score of rolling thunder and drumming rain. This kind of downpour is least expected around Christmas time. An INSAT satellite image this morning showed a shiny white patch of depression approaching the Indian peninsula. We are marching towards the wet new year.
Despite such heavy rains and swollen rivers, people like servant maid Omana have to walk half an hour carrying heavy pots of water twice every day for her domestic needs. Ironically, she stays near Aruvikkara dam which provides drinking water to the entire city. Well, I say, entire city, it should actually be termed as the fortunate parts of the city where pipes have been laid and pipes haven't burst. Kerala is bound to suffer also from load shedding and power cuts from early next year. I am sure the situation will be same five years from now just as it had been five, fifteen, twenty years ago.
I have been chugging, with open mouthed amazement, through the biography of Kunjikuttan Thampuran by Dr. K. T. Rama Varma. The open mouth part of the amazement is not a good thing considering the mosquito situation in the city. Now that garbage clearance has not been happening for five days, coupled with today's heavy rain, I will be very surprised if there isn't at least a small scale epidemic outbreak. But I digress.
Kunjikuttan Thampuran was born as the combination of the illustrious Kodungalloor royalty and Venmani Namboothiri family that was famous for its poets. Kodungalloor is derived from the original word Kodi-linga-yoor (10 million penis land, in a sense, but it is a reference to Shiva or Indra, depending on the mythology you want to follow). Kondugalloor palace operated a school (gurukula) where scholars from far and wide taught for free. Students could choose their teacher or teachers. Only restriction was that they pursue only one subject. The valid assumption was that a student who could master any one subject under the tutelage of a scholar to its highest level can teach himself any other subject. The school produced several gems not just in common subjects like Sanskrit grammar, poetry and astrology but also in music and dramatics. Though caste-based segregation ran deeply in the society at that time, the same teachers taught talented lower caste kids at the outhouse. This was the atmosphere that Kunjikuttan Thampuran grew up in.
From a young age,Thampuran began to dabble in Sanskrit and Malayalam poetry. He was ambidextrous. It is recorded that he would play chess with one hand while writing with the other. Like Socrates, he used to get completely lost in his own thoughts frequently. The late 19th century was the time when Kerala literary scene was beginning to sparkle.Frequent poetry and drama writing contests were organized.
It is while reading about his speed of composition that my lips began to part.
In 1891, at Kodungallur, the Tahasildar organizes a contest. Each competitor has to write a drama of 7 acts and at least 200 verses, beside the prose, on a given subject within 12 hours. Kunjikuttan Thampuran and his brother were the only two who managed to finish the task on Symanthakam (a gem story from the Ramayana) and Viradaparvam respectively. Kunjikuttan Thampuran's Symanthakam was published that month itself with the subtitle "composed in 9 hours".
More distance between my lips.
At a similar contest in Chalakudy, Kunjikuttan Thampuran writes the play called "Sitaswayamvaram" (Sita's wedding). The handwritten copy has survived with the Thampuran's note in the first page, "Started at 22 past noon; finished at 2 minutes past midnight"!
Mouth open!
In 1892, at Kottayam, Kandathil Varughese Mapilla, the founder of Malayala Manorama newspaper organized a three day contest. Poetry on day one. The challenge was to compose 20 verses on the topic of "Sadacharam" (Good behavior) in a particular meter in an hour. Kunjikuttan Thampuran came second.
Day 2: Drama: A play in 5 acts and at least 100 verses on the avatar of Ganga. Kunjikuttan Thampuran wins the competition hands down by finishing in 5 hours and 5 minutes.
Kocheeppan Tharakan, who went onto become a popular playwright,recounts what he saw that day, "I have never seen anything like this in my life. Kunjikuttan Thampuran was completely transformed. His face swelled up. His eyes bloodshot. He closed his eyes and stayed silent for a few seconds. Then ordered his scribe to starting taking the drama down. He recited the play nonstop while composing it as if he had it by heart. They stopped only after three and a half hours. All the other poets bowed before him."
Speechless. Breathless. Mouth wide open. Unexpected detour for mosquitoes!
Day three of the contest was on translation and essay skills. Thampuran who went on to translate not just Sanskrit classics but also Othello and Hamlet, won hands down and received the title "Sarasadruthakavikulakeeridamani"
It is a pity that this same Manorama group that used to publish works by legendary scholars like Kunjikuttan Thampuran and Kottarathil Shankunni is nowadays dedicated exclusively to pulp trash. The contests organized today by the Manorama TV channel involve husbands who can do household chores. May be it is a sign of the times!
A month after my second surgery, I have managed to shift my base upstairs. By base, I mean, the laptop. My own base, which used to lag behind me, a month ago, has now become rather lean and easily transported.
The base shifting facilitates undisturbed reading. I have been e-reading James S Miller's Examined Lives in parallel. The first life examined is Socrates. Just like Kunjikuttan Thampuran's frequent reveries, Socrates also used to be completely lost in his own thoughts. An instance reported by Plato from the siege of Potidea, a military campaign that Socrates participated in, says that the soldiers saw Socrates stand still at dawn one day, thinking over something. Since he found no solution, he continued standing past mid-day and past dinner. Since it was summer, the soldiers slept in their bedding outside and noticed him stand all night. He stood till the sun came up, then offered his prayers and left.
The superhuman stamina of Socrates seems to be the common attribute researchers can glean from the multiple contradicting records that survive about the philosopher. This is yet another similarity with Kunjikuttan Thampuran who could sit for hours together in composition of his works. He went nonstop for 874 days translating the entire Mahabharatha (125,000 verses). A stupendous, unmatched task that earned him the title of Kerala Vyasa.
The thrust of Miller's Examined Life, as he explains in the introduction, is that philosophy was entwined with the way of life of philosophers till the 17th century or so. It was not abstract and academic as it has become. Socrates strove to live in the best possible way. A seeker of wisdom was a seeker of the ideal disposition and exemplary character. Philosophers persevered to be role models. Much like teachers/gurus of India of the past.
The love and struggle between the unappealing (reportedly monstrous-looking) old, wise Socrates and the extraordinarily handsome, high-born and wavering Alcibiades, as reported by Plato, Xenophon and Diogenes Laertius, seems to be a dramatization of the battle between the sensible and the sensuous, the prudent and the prurient, conscience and corruption, restraint and temptation, the eternal and the ephemeral that goes on in every human mind that is inclined to examine itself.
Much more to be remembered about Kunjikuttan Thampuran and Socrates, but since I mentioned the "bug-eyed, big-bellied, thick & protuberent lipped, old, balding, ugly satyr" looks of Socrates, I will wind up for the day with a short description of Kunjikuttan Thampuran put down by another poet of the time: "thala niraye kuduma, ullam niraye pazhama, ochapedatha vakku, puchcham kalaratha nokku, nanutha shareeram, kanatha buddhi, nadu muzhuvan veedu, nattukarellam veettukar" (roughly translated as: full tuft of hair and cultured mind, his words never loud, never condescending his looks, tender his frame, terrific intelligence, feeling at home anywhere, everyone is his family)
Rain has lost her force, but she continues to sniffle charmingly tonight!
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