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...
“Amma, there is a black, white and red bird!” Samhith exclaimed. He had just ventured to the river , which flowed through the Club Mahindra’s property at Baiguney, Sikkim, and was excited to have seen a bird without me! Shankar, returning after a long walk, said he had seen the bird too. That left me, the only enthusiastic birder among the three of us, to have not seen the bird, during my short walk to the river bed. That had to be rectified, so off I went to the river again, and there it was, sitting on a rock, as if waiting for me. White Capped Water Redstart