Learning by heart (and by ear)

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Enlightenment, when you're playing it by ear

 

By Shoba Narayan

December 20, 2007

 

I am engaged in something that I have never done before. I

am learning a Sanskrit poem simply by ear, that is, without

looking at the text. This is nothing new. Most ancient

gurukul traditions are primarily oral. For eons, students

learned holy texts simply by listening and reciting. All that

changed in 1440 with the invention of the printing press by

Johannes Gutenberg. Now, a wealth of verse and literature

is available online. One website that I visit,

http://www.celextel.org , has codified numerous Sanskrit

texts, along with their meanings, in English.

 

I am not an ardent Hindu but I am an ardent lover of

Sanskrit, or for that matter, any ancient tongue, be it

Hebrew, Persian or Latin. As the daughter of a linguist, I

find these languages beautiful. Their inherent cadences,

combined with the fact that they are a disappearing act,

make for compelling study. Sanskrit lays special claim on

my affection for all the obvious reasons: It is Indian and

therefore accessible, or rather, more accessible to my ear

than, say, Arabic-another ancient beauty among languages.

I find Sanskrit both daunting and fascinating. Until very

recently, I didn't engage with it in any meaningful fashion.

Then one day last month, I decided to learn the Shyamala

Dandakam, mostly because I loved D.K. Pattamal's lilting

rendition of it. Musicians can relate to this impulse. You

know the feeling: You listen to something so captivating, so

haunting that you decide then and there that you must

master it. It could be something as simple as a drumbeat or

as complicated as, well, a Sanskrit poem.

 

Kalidasa, arguably India's greatest poet, wrote this verse in

praise of goddess Saraswati. For the moment, forget that

this is a verse composed by the poet in a moment of

religious fervour-something that I am deeply

uncomfortable with. For the moment, forget that it is in

praise of goddess Saraswati who, in my mind, is not as

interesting a god as the conflicted Rama, volatile Shiva or

mischievous Krishna. Judged simply as one of Kalidasa's

minor compositions, this is a masterwork. It is composed in

a manner called Dandakam, which means it has more than

26 syllables per sentence. In its form, it resembles prose but

has the rhythmic gait of poetry.

 

Kalidasa is a fanciful figure. Historians are in two minds

about everything about him. I had assumed he was from

Kolkata, but apparently not. Some say he is from Ujjain;

others say that he roamed Nagpur; some say that he died in

Sri Lanka, poisoned by a courtesan. Most agree that he was

a village idiot who won the hand of Gupta princess

Vidyotama because two scheming scholars presented

Kalidasa as a learned man. They helped him defeat the

princess in a debate and she was honour-bound to marry

him. When the newly wed princess discovered that her

husband was a dunce, she threw him out. Kalidasa

meditated on goddess Kali, gained enlightenment and

returned to his wife who, in a beautiful turn of Sanskrit

phrase, asked, " Asti kashchit wagvisheshah? " (Is there

something special in your words?) The rest, as they say, is

history. Kalidasa rattled off verse after verse, decided that

his wife was his guru since it was she who had sent him on

the path of enlightenment, and wrote several books with

beautiful titles: Raghuvamsam, Kumarasambhavam,

Meghadutam. His plays about Malavika, Urvashi and

Shakuntala are all still being read by children, albeit in the

Amar Chitra Katha versions.

 

He also composed a bunch of minor strotras, one of which is

the Shyamala Dandakam that has caught my fancy. Pattamal

renders this poem beautifully. I listen to it at

Musicindiaonline.com, another portal that I often visit. Until

you decide to learn something by simply hearing it

repeatedly, you don't realize how tied we are to the written

word and our eyes. I began this endeavour more on a whim

than anything else.

As a music student, I am used to learning songs by rote, but

none so long. The whole exercise can seem tedious: listen,

pause, rewind, listen really hard to decipher the words,

pause, repeat, rewind to make sure it's right, repeat, and so

on. But I love it. In some senses, it is the same as athletes

who vary their exercise routine to flex different muscles.

Much of my work involves sitting before the computer and

looking at stuff. I wanted to try something different. So I

spend 15 minutes each day in this listening and memorizing

exercise. I close my eyes and play the song. It focuses my

mind in a way that few things do. As a high-strung person, I

need all the mental calm I can get. For years, my family has

been advising me to meditate. But that's too boring for me.

This song, on the other hand, offers glimpses of the rewards

of meditation without the hard work, or lack thereof (after

all, you are just sitting and breathing in meditation, aren't

you? It's not as if you are lifting heavy equipment).

 

I am halfway through the verse now. It rides around my

head through the day. As I run down the stairs, I sing it

loudly. My children hate it. Even my musically tolerant

husband pleads for respite, further proving my belief that

musical love is deeply personal: one person's Dandakam is

another person's poison, to mangle a cliche. I cannot sing it

nearly as well as Pattamal.

 

Like any great singer, she knows exactly when to let forth,

when to hold back, when to emphasize and when to subdue

the voice. It is remarkable to listen to her. The true measure

of her gift is apparent if you try to imitate her, what she does

so effortlessly, and it comes out horribly. That's where I am

at now. Somewhere up there, Kalidasa must be chortling at

my pronunciation. But I plod on.

 

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