BENGALURU: ‘Pranamaha Mahodaya’ (Namaste, Sir). This was how a cab driver greeted his passenger. Needless to say, the passenger, a Sanskrit scholar, was pleasantly surprised.
A few months ago, Mallappa V Pattar, a part-time app-based cab driver picked up a passenger from Samskrita Bharati, an organisation to revive Sanskrit, in Girinagar.
The minute he saw the passenger, he could make out that he was a Sanskrit scholar. That’s when Mallappa started conversing in Sanskrit and the scholar was stunned.
“Since he was coming from Aksharam, the premier institute which teaches Sanskrit, I realised he knew Sanskrit and therefore wished him ‘Pranamaha Mahodaya’, and the pandit was extremely happy and started conversing in Sanskrit. We spoke in Sanskrit till I dropped him to his destination,’’ Mallappa recalls the incident.
Mallappa was hardly 10 years old when he used to watch his grandfather reading the Bhagavad Gita. Though it was in Sanskrit, the fonts were in Kannada. “I did not understand the language, but the desire to learn the language arose,” he says.
WATCH | Bengaluru cab driver speaks fluent Sanskrit
Mallappa, from a village in Gokak taluk of Belagavi, came to Bengaluru when he was 12. He joined Brahmovidya Ashram.
Hailing from a family of agriculturists who grow sugarcane, nobody knew Sanskrit. “I started getting adjusted to this environment. At 16, I was able to speak in Sanskrit. Later, I studied Vidwath classes and also cleared MA,” he said.
Soon after his Master’s degree, he started working in schools teaching Sanskrit.
During summer vacation, Mallappa conducts spoken Sanskrit classes for 10 days. “Children are good at picking any new language. They learn Sanskrit with ease. Sanskrit is the mother of all mother tongues. It is easy to learn,’’ he said. Mallappa who also plays tabla, harmonium, keyboard, is good at vocals too. He teaches Sanskrit songs. “I show Sanskrit movies to children on YouTube,’’ he said.
An avid lover of Sanskrit, Mallappa now teaches Sanskrit at Venkat International School where he is encouraged by the principal Sulochana Balakrishna. “I teach Sanskrit to children from class 3 to 10 here. After school hours and during holidays - summer, Dasara and other government holidays- I drive the cab. Wherever I can speak or get a chance to speak this language, I converse in Sanskrit. At home, my wife and son can understand Sanskrit and they speak the language too,’’ he says.