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...
I am not a very regular film-goer , and actually go to see a movie only when I am sufficiently enthusiastic. The one film I had been looking forward to watching on the big screen was ' Harishchandrachi Factory '. I wondered if it would actually arrive at a theatre near me (considering that most award winning films don't really make it to the suburban theatres), and when it finally did, last week, I found myself too busy to go and watch it! This afternoon , when Shankar suggested a movie, I opened the paper, only to find not a single mention of the movie anywhere! Finally I turned to the internet, my only source of information these days, and thankfully found it playing at a theatre not too far! We jumped at the chance, and booked tickets at once! As it happened, we need not have bothered - the theatre was almost empty! There were just a few families like us, most of them Maharashtrians, I may add! Samhith for once was least interested in the movie - 1. Because he had...