Ramah, Ramou, Ramah!

Last week marked the political re-inauguration and 'consecration' of the Sri Rama temple at Ayodhya. 

While I am still trying to understand the complex ways in which this event was built ground-up from the community-level across most of north India - the house-to-house campaign with the "akshath", the all-day langar (community kitchen) that was set up across housing societies with live broadcast of the events taking place in Ayodhya that day, bright orange flags fluttering everywhere...it did bring back memories.

At school Sanskrit had been a compulsory subject for a few years. I hated it - especially because it brought down my (already pathetic) grades. We had to learn by rote a table with the various usages of the name, "Rama":

It was drilled into our heads so well that we could recite it anywhere, anytime! The only thing I never understood was why we were learning this. 

A few months ago, while trying to understand my mother's fascination for Sanskrit shlokas, as well as the ease with which she memorised poetry in complicated meters (eg., Shyamala Dandakam of Kalidasa), I stumbled on this YT series from the Chinmaya Foundation - Sanskrit for Shastra Study by Ved Chaitanya. 

This turned out to be fascinating. For the first time I began to understand why I had learnt Rama-Ramou-Ramah decades ago! 

I have not even reached half-way through this 53-session series but each session is nicely paced out. While in 7th grade perhaps my Sanskrit teacher did tell us that the Rama-series represents 'nominative cases for masculine nouns'. Even if she did I would not have understood. Thanks to this series and to CIF, a new, exciting world is opening up now!

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Tricky Words (The Telegraph, 2024) - https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/tricky-words-changing-idioms-changing-meanings/cid/1997041

* Chinmaya International Foundation - CIF - https://www.chinfo.org/ 

The first session (1/53):

Ten Fe Ciega - Have Blind Faith

The past can be confusing - especially if you are learning to express yourself in Spanish.

Confusing and frustrating if you are trying to navigate through the number ways in which you express the past in Español - preterito perfecto, preterito indefinido and preterito imperfecto.

Yet the learning process has its rewards. I was trying to figure out a fill-in-the-blanks which went with the title - "¿Conoce a Horacio Quiroga? Lea su biografía y escriba los verbos entre paréntesis en pretérito indefinido." (~ Do you know HQ? Read his biography and write the correct verb forms")

I had never heard of Horacio Quiroga. So, after getting most of my answers wrong, I switched windows, to read more about this poet, author, and maverick.  

And what an amazing, crazy life! Quiroga was born in Uruguay. He once shot dead his own best friend my mistake while helping him prepare for a duel, and after spending some time in prison, he got acquitted, and left for Argentina where he spent much of his life away from cities, in remote forested areas. He managed to persuade a young lady to marry him, and join his life in the forests, brought up his two children to survive the outdoors, with a deep love for nature. Along the way he published books and poems which continue to be popular today.

English translations of this works are, unfortunately, not available at my favourite Russian online repository. So I guess I'll have to get my preterito's sorted out before I can read his works in original Spanish!

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LINKS & REFERENCES

- https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/2020/02/19/horacio-quiroga-los-amores-la-locura-y-las-tragedias-que-marcaron-su-vida/

- https://www.wikiwand.com/es/Horacio_Quiroga

- https://horacioquiroga.org/galeria-de-imagenes/

Quotes

 "Ten fe ciega no en tu capacidad para el triunfo, sino en el ardor con que lo deseas." --- Have blind faith not in your capacity for success, but in the ardor with which you desire it.

"Culpar a los otros...es patrimonio specifico de las corazones inferiores." --- Blaming others... is the specific heritage of the small hearted.