I grew up listening to many stories from my uncle, most of them are imprinted in my brain, even better than if I would have read them all myself. Of all these one story in particular I recall often.
The story is of King Bhoja and the brilliant poet Kalidasa. As happens with kings and their favourite poets the king banished Kalidasa for some trivial matter. Kalidasa thus wandered without being noticed. The King grew sad with his absence and invented a plan to find out where he is. So he announced that he would reward anyone in the kingdom who could come up with the best poem. A Brahmin heard about this and wrote a poem, a Brahmin who loves his food could ask for nothing more than a good meal - The Poem that the Brahmin wrote was " Bhojanam Dehi Rajendra, Grutha supa samanvithaha" - which translates to "oh King do give me a good meal, with rice curry and ghee". He then set off to the king's palace thinking of a way to finish the poem but was stuck. So he stood under a tree and kept repeating the first half in order to find the flow to continue.
Kalidasa happened to be there and heard the Brahmin and offered to help him complete the poem. The Brahmin looked at the shabby attire of Kalidasa and laughed, but not heeding to this Kalidasa immediately thought and created the rest of the poem " Mahi Chandra, Sharath Chandra, Chandrika Davalandathi" - Which translates [ I cant do justice to it in English - yet I try ] to " Please give me a cup of curd that is white and shines like the full moon in the clear sky of the Autumn season" ... The Brahmin relates the poem to the king and as would be expected, Bhoja figures out that Kalidasa was involved in the last part of the poem and is called back to the kingdom.
There are thousands of such stories, but the beauty of this one is how a mundane eatable like curd, can be shown in such beauty - Similes were Kalidasa's biggest strength.
Parinitha Konanur
The story is of King Bhoja and the brilliant poet Kalidasa. As happens with kings and their favourite poets the king banished Kalidasa for some trivial matter. Kalidasa thus wandered without being noticed. The King grew sad with his absence and invented a plan to find out where he is. So he announced that he would reward anyone in the kingdom who could come up with the best poem. A Brahmin heard about this and wrote a poem, a Brahmin who loves his food could ask for nothing more than a good meal - The Poem that the Brahmin wrote was " Bhojanam Dehi Rajendra, Grutha supa samanvithaha" - which translates to "oh King do give me a good meal, with rice curry and ghee". He then set off to the king's palace thinking of a way to finish the poem but was stuck. So he stood under a tree and kept repeating the first half in order to find the flow to continue.
Kalidasa happened to be there and heard the Brahmin and offered to help him complete the poem. The Brahmin looked at the shabby attire of Kalidasa and laughed, but not heeding to this Kalidasa immediately thought and created the rest of the poem " Mahi Chandra, Sharath Chandra, Chandrika Davalandathi" - Which translates [ I cant do justice to it in English - yet I try ] to " Please give me a cup of curd that is white and shines like the full moon in the clear sky of the Autumn season" ... The Brahmin relates the poem to the king and as would be expected, Bhoja figures out that Kalidasa was involved in the last part of the poem and is called back to the kingdom.
There are thousands of such stories, but the beauty of this one is how a mundane eatable like curd, can be shown in such beauty - Similes were Kalidasa's biggest strength.
Parinitha Konanur
excellent - vandanam
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