The Traveller Opens His Cupped Hands: Gaha Sattasai & Jagte Raho

I read some thing from Gaha Sattasai (गाथासप्तशती) for the first time in 2015. My friend Nikhil Bellarykar had always recommended it strongly.

I first bought Arvind Krishna Mehrotra's translation of some its verses- 'The Absent Traveller / Prakrit Love Poetry from the Gathasaptasati of Satavahana Hala', 1991. After that I bought S A Joglekar (स आ जोगळेकर) edited tri-lingual (Marathi, Prakrit, Sanskrit) version of it- there is even some English in it.

Gatha's beauty is ethereal and Prof. Mehrotra's translation perhaps enhances it. 

Here is an example, verse 161:

"As the traveller, eyes raised,

Cupped hands filled with water, spreads

His fingers and lets it run through,

She pouring it reduces the trickle."

I had never read something so simple and that beautiful. 

In my school days, drinking water away from home often meant cupping hands and adjusting the trickle. I couldn't have imagined there existed one of the most beautiful poems in (almost) my own language - Maharashtri Prakrit.

After reading it, I immediately remembered the final scene from Jagte Raho (1956), a song - "Jago Mohan Pyare" (Music: Salil Choudhury, Words: Shailendra / Prem Dhawan).

That song is no less beautiful than Hala's poem.

courtesy: Shemaroo and R.K. Films Ltd.