An anecdote
Sanskrit class
My second language was Sanskrit in my high school as well as in intermediate. 'Mudhra Rakshasa Nataka Katha' was our prose and 'Kumarasambava' of Kalidasa was our poetry prescribed for the course. Usually in all schools and colleges, Sanskrit teachers are the 'taken for granted tribes' ignored by the faculty and pooh poohed by the student community. Our Sanskrit teacher at the college was a lean figure with a tuft that would immediately create a revulsion among the students even in those days. He was handling Kumarasambhava for us. As per our syllabus we had the first three cantos i.e., "up to the birth of Kumara" for our course.
" Kumarasambhava" essentially talks about the courtship of Lord Shiva and Parvati. Devas are as usual worried about the atrocities perpetrated by the demon Taraka who had a boon that nobody could kill him except the son born of Siva and Parvathi. Devas are directed to strive for the union of Lord Siva and Parvati to decimate Taraka. Parvathi gets separated from Lord Siva in her previous birth as Dakshayani, the story of which most of you will be familiar with. In her next birth as Parvathi, meaning the daughter of parvatha that is mountain ( Himavan, i.e., Himalaya) is bent upon marrying Lord Siva, but Lord Siva has taken recourse to Sanyasa renouncing all worldly pleasures probably because of his previous unpleasant experience with Daksha. The bulk of chapters have enormous details about the love and romance between Shiva and Parvati . Devas appeal to Parvathi to somehow entice Siva and make him fall in love with her so that their union would result in the birth of Kumara. Parvati assumes the role of a sishyai and helps Siva in his Tapas. Siva goes into deep meditation, and so to help Parvathi, Devas approah Manmatha, the lord of love to excite passion in the mind of lord Siva using his Bana, i.e., arrow of flowers so that he will fall in love with Parvathi. Manmatha aims the Asthra towards Siva , lord Siva gets disturbed, irritated and opens his third eye even as devas shout 'U MA' meaning 'please don't' , but by then Manmatha gets burnt and so the story goes. After much efforts and penance, Parvathi wins the love of Lord Shiva and takes his hand in marriage. After sometime, Shiva and Parvati are blessed with a son whom they named Kumara. He grows up and slays the demon Tarakasura and re establishes peace and glory of Lord Indra and the divine world."
The first three cantos deal mainly with description of Himalayas, Devas appeal to Parvathi, penance of lord Siva, burning of Manmatha by opening the third eye of Siva, restoration of Manmatha visible to only Rathi, courtship between Parvathi and Siva, how Parvathi wins over Siva and takes his hand and the birth of Kumara. In this canto that deals with the romance of Siva and Parvathi, there comes the 'Padhathikesa" description of Parvathi running to over fifteen slokas.
Every sloka of Kalidasa is beautiful beyond words. Our Sanskrit pandit would read out the sloka first, then give word by word meaning, elaborating the overall meaning of the sloka, the grammatical peculiarities involved, vigrahavakyas of important words, the details of the tenses involved, roots of some of the words and the different forms it will assume, the similies and metaphors therein, a complete analysis of words based on Panini Sutra and so on, thus spending about thirty minutes for each sloka. So in each class he would cover at the most two slokas. No student ever cared to interrupt his lectures for asking any doubt or clarification not because they didn't have any doubt, but because of their inherent inertia and disinterest. Everything went on well till we reached the canto describing Parvathi from foot to head. He was trying to go fast to cover these slokas without spending as much time as he used to for the other slokas. Students who never stood up in the class to ask doubts started standing up and asking doubts on certain delicate points pertaining to the description of Parvathi's Angalakshanam. In literature these are all very common, but to tackle it in a class room to young students becomes very embarassing to anybody. Those who have read this part of Kumarasambhava will understand the delicacy involved in dealing with it and in teaching it to the youngsters, all being males (fortunately there were no girl students, since the college was a men's college). Every one started asking as many doubts as possible just for the fun of it and to put the teacher in an embarrassment. Pandit said that thes were not very important and that the students could read this part themselves and tried to skip it. There was huge protest from all corners of the hall with thumping of desks and floor saying that the teacher should explain them in detail as he had done so far. He paid no heed to these requests(!) and covered the description part of it in just three classes. I leave it to the imagination of the readers the rest of the thing. But students did not relent and put spokes in his lectures. Somehow he managed these few classes with great difficulty and ultimately proceeded forward. Within a week after this hullabaloo he was dealing with Cupid shooting the arrow on Lord Siva and devas from the sky were shouting at Siva requesting him to please stop and cried U MA. (Please 'Don't), but by then it was late. Manmatha was reduced to ashes. As the Sanskrit pandit was explaining the term UMA, there was a sound from some corner of the lecture room 'Maa, Maa' like the bleating of a goat. The noise started increasing and we saw a goat emanating from one corner of the hall getting trapped on all sides by unwary students not knowing the way out. Immediately there was a chorus from the entire class which grew louder and louder with every one shouting 'Maa, Maa' and the entire hall was reverberating with that sound. Sanskrit pandit was at first flabbergasted not knowing the reason for the chorus , but later when he saw the helpless goat in the corner of the hall getting cornered not knowing how to escape and go out, the pandit asked the students in that part of the hall to give way and allow the goat to go away. Bleating Maa,Maa, the goat ran out of the hall with the entire hall reverberating with that sound. This drama lasted for more than thirty minutes. Nobody knew till date how the goat managed to come to the hall in the first floor of the building. The class was over by then and everybody vacated the hall shouting Maa, Maa and a few shouting U Maa, U Maa. Whether this was the climax in Kumarasambhava of Kalidasa or not, this was the climax for the entire class which I couldn't forget till date!