I
was at the coastal temple town and backpacker tourist destination of Gokarna
last monsoon, through my window I could see the mammoth Shiva looming in the
horizon. In this grandness of world human creates it was easy to miss
White-rumped Munia nibbling earnestly in the rain soaked grass lawn beneath the
window. Occasionally taking a break on
a rock and preening itself. Engrossed that I was realized much later that I
could take god damn pictures! Life, only a few years back, was quite
uncomplicated, wherein you could stretch out next to a lake for hours, with
nothing but a binocular and that would be it. Every lake had potential to be a Walden!! Now ofcourse there are cameras, there is
business of chasing, they even have birdrace! (ah the angst of birdgroups, the
arguments and counter arguments, the Yagnavalkyas and Gargis/Maithris). I have so far steered clear of
these, Surveys though are much interesting, the leisure, the pause, the
agreeability of little things. Slowly though I have realized that the best
company on such occasions is your own. I once spent half a day watching
Siberian cranes at good old Bharathpur (by the way for the initiates they
stopped coming since 2002). Now who in the right mind would do that? The other
day I was at Sultanpur, and riveted to flock of Northern Shovelers among
Bar-headed Goose for an hour, who wouldn’t be?
White-rumped
Munia (Lonchura striata) is common throughout peninsular India.
Konkani:
the enigmatic story of a language that came back from the brink
Imagine a once
flourishing language that losses its speakers to different languages and suffers
the ignominy of being dismissed as a dialect and then, after decades of effort,
establishes itself to its rightful place and honor. It is not only the official
language of a full fledged State, Goa, but recently one of its writers is
honored with highest literary award in the country (Jnanpith award to Ravindrabab
Kelekar for the year 2006). That is the charming story of Konkani language we all
should know.
To be very frank I
wasn’t aware of Konkani, except occasionally bumping into someone in Kochi, I
used to think that Kamaths/Pais/Shenoys are malayalees. It is much later that I
gathered they are Konkanis and are spread across the western coast, even then I
took it as one of the languages around. It was while I was cycling on Konkan
coast earlier last year that I came across a man running a tea shop, just
before Goa on the Karnataka side (somewhere before Karwar), who explained about
how Marathi is different from Konkani. Till then I wasn’t aware of these
things. It really was an eye opener. I did some research and found that World
Konkani Centre is located in Mangalore, and decided will visit it on my way
back. That didn’t happen but I did visit it subsequently.
Konkani is an
Indo-Aryan language, and is argued as an ancient language, the claim has
credence as can be gathered from the reference to the coast as Konkan and that it
was the language spoken by the Aryans who moved to south of Vindhyas. Proto-Australoid
substratum is very prominent in Konkani, particularly Mundari (of Munda) who were
pre-historic inhabitants of these regions. Ancient Konkani prakrit was
confluence of Indo Aryan dialects, the Vedic Sanskrit and Dravidian. This
archaic form of Konkani is referred to as Paishachi by some linguists. The
earliest inscription in Konkani language is of Gupta period. It is found in
Arvalem in Goa, ascribed to 2nd century AD. Another indicator of its
ancient origin is the major speakers of this language are Saraswath ‘Brahmins’
(I am using the term ‘brahmin’ as a slang that has absolutely no connection
with the original idea of Brahmin as understood in evolved scriptures. This
slang is used as casteist reference in contemporary India -necessarily a
reference to ritual driven dimwits, very much acknowledged by khap media).
These are set of people who seem to have originated from the banks of, now vanished,
Saraswathi River and have strong references to ancient traditions. This set of
people settled in Gomantak, now Goa. Philologists of repute consider Konkani to
be the living form what was probably the ‘Sarasvathi language’ spoken in and
around what is now Punjab –on the bank of Sarasvathi and Drishtavathi rivers.
Like the ancient Vedic form of Sanskrit language sarasvathi balabasha has
affinities with modern derivatives of Sanskrit language, and is believed to
have best preserved in Konkani. They
thrived for centuries, the decline happened with Muslim raiders and later quite
viciously by Portuguese. They dispersed to different places and this was
beginning of travails for Konkani language.
It need be noted that their
contribution to education and commerce has been quite significant. It was Dr. T.A.Pai
who created Manipal –near Mangalore that probably is the only education town in
the country!! This community’s presence in Banking sector is nothing short than
intriguing. Canara bank, one of the leading banks in the country was started by
Ammembal Subba Rao Pai. During the year 2000 A.D, for instance, five out of
twenty government owned giant banks were headed by people from this community. They
were Andhra Bank-Shri B. Vasanthan, Bank of Baroda - Shri P. S. Shenoy, Canara
Bank - Shri R. J. Kamath, Syndicate Bank - Shri D. T. Pai and Union Bank of
India - Shri V. Leeladhar. Shri K V.Kamath, MD & CEO of ICICI, one of the
largest financial institutions of Asia.
This a compelling
paragraph from Kamat’s potpourri ….“if
one has to see the diversity of today's Konkani language, one should travel the
Indian west coast. In Bombay, they speak in Marathi accent whereas in Konkan,
they stretch the words so that no outsider can understand!. The Hindus of Goa
liberally use the Portuguese words whereas the Christians use it as if it's a
Portuguese dialect. In Karwar and Ankola, they emphasize the syllables, and in
Kumta-Honavar, they use consonants in abundance. The Konkani spoken by Nawayatis
of Bhatkal is very melodious with smearing of Persian. People of South
Kanara do not distinguish between nouns of Kannada and Konkani, and have
developed a very business practical language. They sometimes add Tulu
words also. The Konkani of Kerala is drenched with Malayalam, and the Konkanis
of north Karnataka add Kannada verbs to Konkani grammar. The city-bred use a
plenty of English. To write Konkani, Kannada, Nagari, Roman, Arabic, and
Malayalam scripts are used and this way, Konkanis declare themselves as members
of world family (Vishwakutumbi). There is no other language with a
possible exception of Sanskrit that a language is written in so many scripts”. The
fact though is that Konkani unfortunately was compelled to become a language
using multiplicity of scripts. Indeed
there is a vast literary output of considerable high standards of Konkani
authors in more than a dozen languages including English, Portuguese, Sanskrit,
Pali, Marathi, Guajarati, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Singhalese and so on. Needless to say Konkani suffered, as much as most
Indian languages now are since more people prefer English as their language of
expression.
(the blogger expresses
gratitude to Kalaangan –the Konkani Heritage
Centre in Mangalore for access to books)
Stumbling
onto vintage Ranjit Lal …and ensconcing into little worlds…
It was fortuitous to
stumble upon Ranjit Lal’s Wild City
-Nature Wonders Next Door (published in 2008) at Sunday second book mart,
Daryaganj for 50R. It couldn’t have got better
than this, ofcourse it took me about six hours of siphoning through books and pensive
bargaining on a tight budget. Ranjit Lal undoubtedly is a charming writer and a
keen observer particularly of nature. Not a single line is disappointing, but I
need point here that though Mr. Lal is critical, and rightly so, of anthropomorphic
references he himself falls into it by sometimes referring male and female
species as husband and wife, probably in jest but more than few times makes it
extremely irritating. This ofcourse in no way dilute the fact that he is one of
the most endearing contemporary writers, his heightened awareness and nuanced
expressions laced in humour is always a pleasure to read, indeed it is
difficult to keep the book down once you start. This book is precious and
strongly recommended. I am a keen observer of insects, ants and spiders topping
the list. It is an experience to watch the spider weave its web, always
difficult to put these amazing feats in writing. Ranjit Lal does it with much
dexterity, almost matching the “forgotten son of genius” (Dickenson)!!
“…and watching one do
so is always worth the half an hour so it takes. The spider will first crawl up
a suitable twig or post and let loose a light thread of silk. This hopefully
will snag on some similar post or twig a little distance away and the spider
will haul it in until the line is tight. The bridge line is done. The spider
will now crawl along this, releasing a thicker and much stronger thread which
serves as the basic scaffolding from which the web will be hung. Once this line
is in place it will crawl back along this, releasing yet another thread in a
loose loop below this scaffolding line. Now it crawls along the loop line and
drops another line vertically down from its lowest point waiting for it to
snag. Once it does, a basic Y-shaped framework for the web is complete. It
continues in similar fashion until a proper radial framework for the web is
complete. Then, starting from the centre, it begins spiraling outwards, laying
the lines which will form the ‘body’ of the web. Once this is done, it changes
direction and starts spiraling inwards along the same route it just came along,
but now eating the line it had just laid and replacing it with sticky thread. As
it reaches a radial junction, it ‘twangs’ the line so that the droplets of
sticky stuff coat the thread equally along its length. As it nears the hub, the
sticky silk is shut off for a ‘free zone’ to be formed so that the spider does
not get caught in its own web, and the spider settles itself in the centre,
awaiting guests to its parlour…”
Ranjit Lal’s has a way with humour “…many
years ago, I used to photograph the sea gulls that flock to Mumbai’s marine
drive, right opposite a hostel of women. I hung around the place for hours,
armed with binoculars, a camera with telephotos lens et al. If any police
constable had asked me what I was doing opposite a women’s college equipped
thus, I would have had to tell him the truth: ‘I’m photographing gulls’. You
can well imagine the response! ‘Photographing girls? Abbe saala, sharam nahin ata hai? Chokri dekhta hai? Chal thane!.
Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Come with me to the lock up!’
Fortunately,
havildars in Mumbai minded their own business at that time. Not like the cops
here in Delhi, where I now do my birding. Out on the ridge one winter morning
with a few friends, we were suddenly accosted by a couple of cops.
‘Kya kar rahe ho? What are you doing?’
they demanded truculently.
‘Chidiya dekh rahe hain,’ we explained
eagerly, wondering if we could convert the lathi-loving police into avid
munia-watchers. They stared at us incredulously. ‘Chidiya dekhna hain to
chidiya-ghar jaiye,’ they promptly ordered. If you want to see birds, go to
the zoo!”
That
is the charming world of Ranjit Lal that you are eminently invited.
From
the scribble pad…
The city gets a layer
of flesh
everytime it inhales
takes everything
distorts the details
and belch happiness
