How a butcher schooled the short-tempered scholar

How a butcher schooled the short-tempered scholar 

By Renuka Narayanan

The old books can be so contemporary that it takes your breath away. For instance, the hugely popular Vana Parva or 'Forest Section' of the Mahabharata.The epic goes back millennia and the Vana Parva is the third of its 18 sections. It is also the longest section of 'the world's longest epic', with 21 subsections and 324 chapters. It describes the 12-year stay of the Pandavas in exile and the adventures they had. In this story that I would like to retell, Rishi Markandeya teaches Yudhishthira an enduring lesson about the nature of dharma:

There was a very learned scholar called Kausika who devoted himself for many years with utmost diligence to the study of the holy books. He sought out the best teachers and was able to flawlessly recite the scriptures in full. Once, having stationed himself in the shade of a tree, he began to recite a portion of holy verses. He had barely begun when a sarus crane, perched high above him, innocently let fall its droppings on his head. Angered by this 'disrespect', Kausika glared at the bird with such fury that the poor creature, unable to bear the scorching heat of his gaze, fell down dead.

Gratified by this evidence of his mental power, Kausika rinsed the droppings off his head and sallied forth to beg his lunch from the townsfolk. He stopped outside a small, trim house and called aloud for alms. "Coming," he heard a woman's voice say and waited expectantly, alms bowl ready. The minutes went by but nobody appeared bearing food. Kausika frowned, tutted in impatience, and decided to wait just a little longer. After at least a quarter of an hour had passed, the lady of the house appeared smiling at the door with a well-filled plate of food.

"Greetings, respected sage. I am sorry to have kept you waiting," she said in a pleasant, contrite manner. But Kausika snapped, "How dare you keep me waiting?" and glared furiously at her.

Nothing happened to the housewife. Instead she looked at him thoughtfully. "Did you think I too was a crane?" she asked in an amused voice.

Kausika was totally taken aback. "How did you know?" he said perplexedly.

"I knew, that's all. I did not mean to keep you waiting, you know. My husband is an invalid. I was attending to him when you called, which is why it took me some time."

"If that's the case…" said Kausika awkwardly, wonderstruck by her omniscience.

She nodded wisely at him. "I think you have a lot of questions but I must get back to my duties. You have studied the holy books at great length but the meaning of dharma eludes you still. If you won't take it amiss, my advice to you as a well-wisher is that you seek out the wise butcher Dharmavyadha. He will set your feet on the right path." She smiled and went away.

Kausika wondered what he could learn from a butcher. But his curiosity was fairly caught and he inquired about the butcher's whereabouts. As he approached the meat shop, the butcher glanced up and saw him.

"Welcome, O learned guest. I see that the good housewife directed you to me after you burned the bird with your gaze. Please come in."

Kausika was amazed. "This is my second big surprise," he told himself. The butcher took him home, seated him comfortably and went in to check if his elderly parents needed anything. He then asked how he could serve him. But Kausika had a question first. "If you are such a virtuous person, why do you sell meat?" he asked.

"Learned guest, my family has sold meat for generations. There is nothing improper in this. This work, too, is part of society and it is how I earn an honest living. It is not contrary to dharma or right conduct."

"Very well, my good man, please tell me what constitutes dharma," said Kausika.

"Practising dharma is a combination of two kinds of actions," said the butcher musingly. "One is to hold back on negative emotions like anger, greed, jealousy, malice, unrestrained lust and untruth. The other is to be proactive in the things that build a good atmosphere and also make you feel well, things like politeness, kindness, compassion, giving gladly to the needy, being helpful and telling the truth—the virtues that hold society together."

"Hmm. Yes, that does make sense. But I am amazed that you knew about me and so did the housewife, as if by divine instinct. How did that happen?"

"It was intuitive awareness. May I give you some personal advice if you won't be offended?"

"Please do," said Kausika somewhat warily.

"You went away to fulfil your ambitions, did you not—leaving your old parents to fend for themselves? They are lonely, sick and afraid. It is good to have personal goals but we cannot abandon our personal duties either. I advise you to go home and look after them with loving kindness, not out of an arid sense of duty. If you can do that, the nature of dharma will light you up and you will never be angry or dejected. Active kindness will take you to true spiritual happiness."

Kausika winced. He thought of his mother and father trying not to weep inauspiciously when he left home without a backward glance. His mother had cooked his favourite food for his last meal at home and his father had fetched new upper and lower cloths for the dakshina or ceremonial present that Kausika would have to give the guru who accepted him.

Great waves of regret washed over Kausika, cleansing his soul of its hauteur. Well, if the holy books taught you one thing, it was not to flinch from the truth, however unpleasant, he thought ruefully. He took leave of the butcher with genuine affection and made his way home, feeling light as a cloud.

Renuka Narayanan

Me grand dad ‘ad an elephant: Celebrating a British Professor who fell in love with Malayalam

Many credit Professor Ronald E Asher, who passed away recently, for spreading the renown of the Beypore Sultan, as Basheer was known, and Thakazhi across the world.

By Cynthia Chandran

Even in Scotland, they are yet to let Professor Ronald E Asher, the British linguist who died a day after Christmas in Edinburgh, fully go. With the long holiday season there thanks to Christmas and New Year, the coroner is yet to release the body of the good professor who passed away in his sleep at the rich old age of 96. Here in India, Malayalam literature lovers might be even more loathe to do so.

The late Edinburgh University's linguistic professor's love for the language and especially for Vaikom Muhammed Basheer and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, both of whom he translated into English, made him a much-loved and much-revered name in the literary circles of Kerala. Many credit Asher for spreading the renown of the Beypore Sultan, as Basheer was known, and Thakazhi across the world.

Professor Asher's initial involvement with Malayalam was almost accidental - only because an Honors degree in French and German did not naturally lead in that direction. 

His first Indian association, in fact, was with Tamil in 1953, after he reached Changam in Tamil Nadu's North Arcot district during his stint as an assistant lecturer in linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. It was ten years later that his love spread to encompass Malayalam too. And how it would go on to blossom!

"The spur was provided perhaps by an interest in comparative linguistics, and therefore a feeling that, having embarked on the study of Tamil, I ought to know something about other Dravidian languages. My first contact with the sounds of Malayalam was following a course on phonetics of Malayalam given by a Mrs Eileen Whitley at the School of Oriental and African Studies (where I spent the first 12 years of my academic career). My first real initiation into the language was when a friend who was a post-doctoral fellow (Dr Joseph Minattoor) at the school taught me the Malayalam script by going through some primary school readers with me. 

"This was fun, but I'd say that getting a real grip on the language was indeed tough, given that it is typologically very different from English -- or any other European language. It takes time to learn a new language. If you don't have constant practice over a long period, then you tend to forget the words. I didn't live in Kerala. My only contact with the language was through reading books -- a very passive occupation. The lack of any discourse or exchange made it very difficult," Professor Asher recalled in an interview with this journalist many years later.

And yet... And yet! 

Once conversant with the language, he went on to focus his attention on two of Malayalam's most difficult writers to translate -- Vaikom Muhammad Basheer and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai.

In 1975, he translated Thakazhi's 1947 novel Thottiyude Makan as Scavenger's Son. Reading translations of Thakazhi's own Chemmeen and Chandu Menon's Indulekha, Professor Asher once confessed, had fuelled his love for Malayalam literature. Was this his way of repaying that debt?

Then there was Basheer. 

Professor Asher had in fact met the writer in 1963, the year he came down from London to Kochi to learn spoken Malayalam "with the help of Nalina Babu and his friend, N Unnikrishnan Nair" as he told Shevlin Sebastian in an interview with The New Indian Express many years ago. Nalina Babu introduced Professor Asher to Basheer's works through Paaththummaayude Aadu. 

Soon, he would meet the great man. 

"I remember my first visit to see Basheer. After telling him the day on which I would arrive, I took a bus from Kochi to Calicut, and then another one to Beypore. When I got off the bus, he was waiting at the bus stop. I was amazed. How did he know the exact time I would arrive?!" he recounted in the same interview. Those were the days.

Asher found Basheer to be "likeable, warm-hearted, fascinating, enthralling and amusing. He was a wonderful person to talk to. His oral anecdotes were of the same quality as his published stories".

Professor Asher went on admit that Basheer's "style, his skillful use of what is superficially very simple language, his humour, his variety, his versatility and the poetic quality of his language" -- qualities that made him the truly great writer he was -- also made it difficult for the translator to capture the same shade of meaning.

But then the Professor was not one to give up. The famous story of what happened when he came across the seemingly insurmountable kuzhiyana in Entuppappekkoraananendarnnu (Me grand dad 'ad an elephant) speaks eloquently of his tenacity and also, how translating Basheer was for him love's labour. 

Asher checked with Basheer when he came down to Beypore on what the insect giving him this much trouble in translation actually was. An on-ground investigation was arranged and Basheer showed Professor Asher what soon gained life as an 'elephant ant' in English. Were discoveries of a word sweeter in those pre-WhatsApp days?

ALSO READ | A bakery which served Cochin raja, Mountbatten and Basheer

Paaththummaayude Aadu was published by Edinburgh University Press in 1979. In 1980, Entuppappekkoraananendarnnu, Balyakalasakhi and Paaththummaayude Aadu were published in a single volume by Edinburgh University Press under the title, Me grandad 'ad an elephant! 

Professor Asher admitted that he never showed the translations to an expert in Malayalam "(doubtless a mistake!), so, any faults in the translations are my responsibility alone!" 

One of his favorite films was Basheer's Mathilukal, the Mammootty starrer. He was quite familiar with Mammootty, as he had already seen him in Manivathoorile Aayiram Sivarathrikal. 

The late Professor always considered himself fortunate to have met a whole lot of Thakazhi's contemporaries during his earlier visits to Kerala.

"I remember going to Kozhikode in the late 60s or early 70s to meet a young writer who turned out to be MT Vasudevan Nair. He is one of the outstanding writers of his time," Asher had remembered.

Omana Gangadharan, an accomplished Malayalam writer, recalled her three-decade-long association with the Professor. "I lost track of the number of times we had met, but each meeting was enriching, a mutual opening of doors to not just Malayalam literature, but the world's best literary works," she said.

Professor Asher could easily pass off as a Malayali. But he was too shy to speak Malayalam in public, lest he erred.

He never used a mobile phone. Only on rare occasions did he even use a landline in the course of his illustrious life. All his communication was done through the British Royal Mail and emails.

During his leisure time, Asher found time to listen to European classical music by Joan Sutherland, one of the most remarkable female opera singers. He was a tad disappointed that the impact of globalisation on Indian languages had affected the reading habits of even the young in Kerala. 

His advice for budding translators on how to excel was illuminating.

In one interview, he spoke of how the translator "should be sensitive to shades of meaning in the source language and the language of translation. He should also have a love for the work being translated". 

While talking to me, he emphasised the need for them to have stylistic fluency and versatility in the language of translation, qualities that would help when it came to reflect the stylistic qualities of the source text.

To this he went on to add the need for having a real liking and appreciation for the work being translated. Finally, he said he had also found that, where living authors are concerned, it also helps to get to know the author personally.

Wise words from a very wise and very kind man.