KOZHIKODE: Aksharaslokam is not always a game of old Sanskrit lovers alone, there are enough inclusions from the current affairs in the instant creations. Listen to the lively club of Kozhikode Aksharasloka Kala Samithi near Poonthanam Junction on all Saturday evenings.
Nale naleyithu finalaanu/Footballu thante kaliyaarkku thaan jayam/Germanykku methiraayi nilppu/Argentinakkumorupole vaibhavam.
This can be translated as: Tomorrow is the final/Of the Football match/ Who will win?/ Germany and Argentina have equal chance.
Thus goes the recent sloka, coined just before the World Cup football final match between Germany and Argentina.
The sloka gave equal importance to the teams and that shows how these elderly men and women keep regular track of the trends in society and how beautifully they coin them into slokas.
The metre (vritham) should be in Sanskrit, it does not mean that all the words need to be in Sanskrit.
Even English words find a place in the slokas when we make them spontaneously, says Sankaranarayanan, a founding member of the group and its current secretary.
“Can you complete a meaningful conversation in daily life without using an English word?” asks Sankaranarayanan. Here is something that proves his statement.
Entho kanmith kollayum kolayumaay odunnu naanaa janam/Enthaapathithu, thaskarakkali, matham, rashtreeyamethaakilum/Punjaballa, hariyanayallith, Mahaa bengaalumassamumallikkaanunnoru/Keralakkarayile maaraadu beachaanupol.
This sloka was written in the backdrop of the riots on the Marad beach. For the past 46 years, the group has been continuously holding Aksharasloka sadassus and the members are aged from 12 to 87.
Started as an idea to develop and share knowledge in Sanskrit, the samithi was born along with Jyothisha Parishad under the aegis of the Sanskrit Prachar Sabha, the monthly gathering at Bairagi Madom in Palayam. Later, the Aksharasloka sadassu was shifted to the Ramakrishna printing press near second gate, as weekly gatherings.
The membership fee was 50 paise. C K B Raman was the founding president. Now, Dr K Madhavan Kutty is the president. The weekly gatherings were shifted to his house near Poonthanam Junction from 1999.
The group is not inclined to increase the members just for the sake of numbers. Those with a passion for Aksharasloka only need to approach it. There are no criteria like in-depth knowledge in Sanskrit. But politics is strictly avoided, says Sankaranarayanan.
“For school and college-level competitions, so many students seek training in Aksharaslokam. What most of them want is a capsule format. This trend cannot be accepted. Those with an interest will never go back if attend the gathering here once,” he says. They are going as judges for many school and university-level competitions. Though a short-term class was started around three years ago, in one week, most of the students left after initial interest.
As the years went by, new rules were also introduced in the competitions. Earlier, the first letter of the third line was used to continue for the next contestant. But when the same letter gets repeated for a long time, the contestants would lose their chance to introduce other letters. They found another solution, of taking lots, and using that selected letter for the next rounds.
The group includes poet N M Paloor, Dr Sarvothaman Nedungadi, P Chandrasekharan, P Balakrishnan, C K Radhakrishnan, Veeraraghavan, etc.
The samithi’s vice-president is Dr T M S Nedungadi, the joint secretary is C K Radhakrishnan and the treasurer is P Chandrasekharan. Every year, the group holds an annual gathering falling on the last Sunday of December.