Chaitra Pournima is unique for us, the Hindu's. It is centrally significant for both, the Dutt disciples and the Hanuman devotees. As the occasion is thus doubly important, and as typical interpretations are aplenty, let us try something different, distinct, distinguished.
Let us today briefly discuss "El mono gramático", a 1970 Spanish prose-poem cum reflections on literature, language, meaning making among other such issues important for creative analysis and criticism. It is written by Octavio Paz. He wrote it when he was the Mexican ambassador to India.
In a way, it has aspects of the travelogue genre. Paz describes his journey to Galta, a city near Jaipur, which has ruins of ancient temples. Thence he takes a mental flight to Hanuman's mythic leap to Lanka.
What begins as an exploration of space, time, decay and permanence/fixity, becomes a deep look at language, too. Is language a god given structure, signified in this text by Hanuman?
In this prose-poem, Hanuman is presented as the ninth grammarian, a master of language, a bridge between the "shashtras" that is, the sacred scriptures and the unprocessed, non-refined thought.
In other words, Hanuman creates order out of chaos. Yet, once upon a time, at least in his childhood days, he was a mere monkey, too, wildly jumping from branch to tree. Using this as a metaphor, Paz wonders if language is the rigid grammar or the wild, free, meaning making activity. Thus he proceeds to his core idea of how to make meaning, how to create a poem, a literary text.
Interesting ideas! Hence i thought, i would try n present them in brief. Hope your mental wheels have started whirring at the supersonic speed at which Hanuman flew and burnt everything throughout the golden Lanka, the symbol of rigid egotism. Thus let us re-turn to the religious layer of meaning making. Happy Chaitra Pournima!
Pratima@ On this Pournima day, Pune was literally pulversied by torrential rains that lasted for almost an hour. Absolutely MAD rains here! Simply unbelievable!! Just lashing the cityscape!!! Horrible thunder and lightning!!!! Many roads turned to rivers, many lowlying areas in to temporary lakes!!!!!
Aai would have been terribly frightened. She did not exactly like thunder and lightening, phenomena which i absolutely adore. She used to find monkey-ish my capers to watch the thunder and lightening.
Once, after conducting a PG lecture, I had walked back home through such a storm. When I presented to her my grand adventures of walking through the rain-dimmed vast expanse of the institute ground, she felt worried, and described the lightening in the rural areas, and was agitated by the possible dangers. Sweet sentimentality of a loving mother, much missed!
Quote of the day: "I always like walking in the rain. No one can then see me crying," states Charlie Chaplin.
Word of the day: Criticism Criticism, says the dictionary, is the act of evaluating, analyzing, or expressing judgment on the merits and faults of someone or something, ranging from constructive, improvement-oriented feedback to negative fault-finding. It is essential for artistic, literary, and intellectual discourse, focusing on providing reasoned judgment, interpretation, and analysis.
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