BENGALURU: In school, most focus is given to a few subjects – Maths, Science, Social Studies, English. The remaining subjects like art, music and sports are given step-motherly treatment. Languages are slotted in categories of ‘First Language’ and ‘Second Language’.
When I reached the raw age of four and a half years, my parents got me admitted to a gurukul. We were taught Hindi till Class 5 and Sanskrit till Class 10. Thanks to television and cinema, I was fairly proficient in Hindi, but Sanskrit was a different ballgame altogether.
To the layman, Sanskrit might appear to be this exciting ancient language that was used in scriptures that dealt with warfare and medicine. Sanskrit is associated with the Vedas and Upanishads – the language used during our rich, vibrant past.
The Sanskrit that we learnt however, was far-removed from such exciting topics. What we got in reality was three paragraphs on ‘Butterfly’. In place of astronomical essays about the earth’s rotation around the sun, we mugged up chapters named ‘My Village’.
How much you enjoyed Sanskrit as a language depended on your memory power. If you consumed the Memory Plus tablets that Vishwanathan Anand endorsed in the ’90s, you’d probably enjoy Sanskrit. However, if like me, your memory revolved around Chacha Chaudhry’s adventures with Sabu – Sanskrit felt like an alien language. There are numerous grammatical syntaxes to remember, and unlike other languages, there are NO exceptions whatsoever.
In fact, so sound is Sanskrit grammatically, that you could place the words of a sentence in any order, and the meaning would remain intact. For eg. ‘What is your name?’ could be written as ‘What your name is?’ or ‘Your is name what?’. I hope you getting my point are!
Not only was the language extremely complex, our Sanskrit teacher also taught us Vedas and other scriptures. A firm believer in the Guru-Shishya tradition, his ideas of punishment also belonged to the Vedic ages. He reserved three canes of different varieties, and like Chris Gayle in the middle of an innings, would ask for a change of bat in the middle of a blitzkrieg.
This was an era prior to the Right to Education Act that prohibited teachers from hitting students. Aspiring wrestlers and boxers due to the lack of opportunities would join schools as teachers to fine tune their craft.
The only silver lining was that Sanskrit was considered one of those subjects that were ‘easy to score’.
While we were learning Trigonometry and the history of the planet in other subjects, we were still discussing the beauty of trees in Sanskrit. Due to which, it was easy to score high marks in the subject. I trudged through five years and never touched Sanskrit again.
Decades later, I keep seeing Sanskrit mentioned in the news. Politicians often bring up Sanskrit and vedic texts while speaking of our glorious past. I read that India had discovered concepts and invented objects and Sanskrit was the medium for these academic pursuits. I am no expert in history and cannot claim to verify the veracity of the statements.
But when I hear politicians talk about using Sanskrit as a medium of instruction, it sends imaginary shivers down my back. I admire the grammatical complexity of Sanskrit and its rich, vibrant history. But I’d be an absolute schmuck with everyday dealings.
Imagine going to a chai shop and being asked ‘Which want you chai?’. Nope. Can live without that. Much very you thank!
The author is a writer and comedian.