A few ancedotes about poet Kalidasa

Book Review by: gurtey

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For the purposes of the present article, I dare say I am entitled to assume that there

cannot exist in the land any person to whom the name of Kalidas is unfamiliar. However, as a matter of form, I shall give a brief account of how, from a rustic and unschooled shepherd, he graduated into the greatest of poets. I shall also share with the reader some anecdotes which highlight certain special faculties the poet was endowed with.
    There was a princess whose scholarship was so matchless that, at her suggestion, her regal father agreed that she might choose her husband from among suitors who crossed swords with her in a debate which was really a question and answer session. Suitor after suitor left crest-fallen conceding by implication that, as against the sunlight of her wisdom, their knowledge was no more than the flicker of the flame of a burning matchstick. The Vizier’s son was one among those who had failed. The Vizier bestowed a lot of thought on the matter and ultimately hatched a plot to humble the proud princess. He scouted for and succeeded in finding a shepherd who exemplified what the terms ‘imbecility’ and ‘ignorance’ connote. From long experience as an observer at the debates, he could list out the questions she could ask. Then he presented the shepherd as yet another suitor, after drilling into him stock answers in cryptic monosyllables. He tricked the princess with his clever interpretation of the shepherd’s responses, into thinking that the shepherd was a suitable match.
   The princess found out in no time that she had been tricked, but she did not lose her heart. She showed her consort the utmost deference and slowly instilled in him the confidence that the tables could be turned. At her suggestion, he went to a Kali temple nearby and waited until the goddess went out on her daily round to see that everything was well with everyone in the place. He went inside the sanctum sanctorum and locked himself in. When the Goddess returned, she found herself locked out. At length, she deigned to write with her finger the mystic symbol ‘Om’ on his tongue, as requested by him as a pre-condition to her entry back into her chamber. And lo, he became a completely changed man.
    The first question he was asked by the princess on his return was ‘Asthi kaschith vagarthaha?’ Straightaway, there flowed from him three verse epics ‘Parvati parinayam’, ‘Kumara Sambhavam’ and Raghu vamsam’. The beauty of it is that the epics opened with the words ‘Asthi’, ‘vagharthaha’ and ‘Kaschith’ in that order.
    Bhavabhuthi was another poet, a contemporary of Kalidas. Bhavabhuti never made public his works until they were read to and approved by Kalidas. In this context, he loudly read out his ‘Uthararama charitham’ from the pyol of a house so that Kalidas who was known to be inside could comment. There was a particular verse describing how Ram and Sita spent a whole night talking animatedly to each other. The verse ended ‘ratrirevam vyaramseet’. Kalidas, apparently speaking to a companion who was feeding him his post-lunch pan, muttered ‘lime in excess’. It was an aside meant for Bhavabhuti who was alert to the cue and amended the ending to ‘ratrireva vyaramseet’.
    An artist was commissioned by the king to make a portrait of the queen. When the job was completed, Kalidas was also invited to say whether, in his view, the job had been well done. The enlightenment of Kalidas by the grace of Goddess Kali was not limited to poesy. For instance, he was aware of what Samudrika lakshana meant. For lack of the proper word, I have to be content with suggesting physiognomy in place of ‘samudrika lakshana’. Kalidas said in an unguarded moment that the portrait was incomplete in that it missed a mole in the right thigh of the sitter. He added that the artist could not be blamed for the omission for an obvious reason.This gave rise to a suspicion in the King’s mind that Kalidas was a paramour of the queen. He gave orders for Kalidas to be buried up to the neck and for a royal elephant to trample on the head, on an appointed date, in the gaze of the public. It so happened that a hump-backed washerman passed the site where Kalidas was so buried and awaiting his final punishment. To satisfy the washerman’s curiosity, Kalidas explained that he was himself a hump-backed person and had been advised by the Royal physician that the ‘burial’ treatment was a sovereign remedy for the affliction. The gullible washerman was taken in by the story and lost no time in changing places with Kalidas. Luckily, the whole drama ended in laughter, the poet getting time to explain the background of his comment and the king blushing over his foolishness.