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...
On my recent visit to Corbett as part of the Club Mahindra Bloggers Trip , we spent some time at Nainital. After roaming around the streets for a while, we took the ropeway to get a glimpse of the snow covered peaks of the Himalayas. The ropeway idea was just a lark, to spend some extra time at Nainital, but it turned out to be full of surprises - from the beautiful aerial view of the Naini Lake.....