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...
Deep inside the Sariska Tiger Reserve , a narrow road led us to the foothills of a mountain. There, it abruptly stopped, and we wondered how we were expected to go on. Our driver looked at me accusingly, surely blaming me for getting us all lost, in search of a temple he hadn’t heard of. Just then, a local on a bike appeared, hurtling out of nowhere. Seeing us, apparently lost, he stopped, and we asked for directions. He simply pointed to the mountain, and said the temple was up there. I was aghast, at the thought of climbing the mountain, in the heat. But then he pointed to a rough path ahead, and told us to follow it. We stared at the path, if we could call it that, in dismay. But having come this far, we didn’t want to return without trying our best. And by now, our driver had discovered his adventurous side. Metaphorically gearing up his loins, he got in, and assured us he could get us up the mountain. The next hour was a trial for our nerves, as the rocky path took us higher, an...