Author: shivam

“More you give, more you get”. What is it?

‘Help’

‘No, abuses’

”More you fill up, more you have space’ . What is it?

‘Cotton wool bag’

‘No. Desire’

“More you gift ; more she asks for?’ Who is that?

‘Your wife’

‘No, Chethal, wood worms’

‘More wrongs ; more pinches ‘. Who is that?

‘Your class teacher’

‘No. Your conscious’

Head to toe, sorry, head to toe nails, need our care, attention. God created indicators like, pain, sweeping, itching, burning etc to draw our attention to the weak points.

‘Only the baby who cries get milk,’ say others, not the mother.

Yes, our body parts need our close watch; Our family too.

Our activities and our thought inputs and outputs too, need a close watch. Our word output too. Even on the words flowing into us, we should have a check. The source could be many including the Facebook. I observe ‘madi’, keeping my distance, with a few in the FB. Many reciprocate warmly. Good for them. Friends should be happy!

Why am I towing you towards the toes ?

For the past two months, my left toe was paining, no swelling, no shrinking, no colour change for the nails which retain the god given milky white.

Our hair may change its colour but nails and toes, never.

Toe after all, I thought first. When pain became intense, consulted two physicians and they gave different opinions.
Then, I landed on the consulting room of a foot specialist, recommended by my Asthana physician, after a waiting period of one month. He is my insurance -approved physician who directs me to specialists, prescribes medicines, acts as a nodal agency for my health care.

The podiatrist, foot specialist, tested the sensitivity of my feet as I’m a diabetic and blood circulation to the lowest parts of the body is likely to be affected. ‘Good, you can open the eyes’, she said, when I told her correctly the parts where she pricked with a thin needle.
Then she scrubbed and pruned the nail, made it thin and gave me a cotton cap to wear on the toe, inside the socks.

The hormone injections had upset my blood sugar values, which showed a trend upwards, despite increasing the dosage of medicines. ‘The toe pain should come when your blood sugar lever comes down’, she said, ‘anyway , let us keep a watch’

The pain has come down in three days!
How? Effect of her scrubbing and pruning the nail or the magic of the cotton cover ?

‘Why should you tell us this story, after all, toe?’ you ask.

Just to bring to your attention the necessity of consulting specialists. And also to tell you the importance of toes and nails. Keep a watch on those too.

You are not impressed, right?

Wait a minute, please.

‘Nakha -deethithi samjanna namajjana thamoguna –
(LalithasahasranAmam )

Jagadjanani removes the thamas, darkness in the mind of her devotees by the sparkle of her nails!

How pitch dark is thamogunam, imbedded deep in our minds! How dazzling will be Ambal’s nails, Powerful enough to annihilate the anthakaraasura, the demon of darkness!

Another quote from LalithasahasranAmam:

‘KarAnguli nagholpanna Narayana dasAkrithi’

The ten forms of Mahavishnu came out of the nails of the Jagadjanani.

As a child, while learning LalithasahasranAmam, I used to imagine the amazing scene of emerging forms Malsya, koorma, varaaha, Narasimha and other avatharams from the finger nails, one by one, as the Goddess, opens up her fingers, one, two, three–

Great!

So, from where did we start and where do we end?
We started with toe nail and ended at deivachintha, thought on divinity.
Our elders constructed a temple or a pond or a peepul tree at the street corner, so that from whereever your start, you reach at a Devine space. Puthiya Kalpathy, Pazhaya Kalpathy, Chathapuram, Perinkulam, the list goes on.

Starting point may be anywhere, try to reach a Devine destination.

There was a war like situation in the Malayalam literary world on dwitheeyAkshra prAsam in poetry. It was about using the same letter in the second place on all the four lines of a stanza, for better rhyming.

Keralavarma Valiyakoyil thampuran (1845- 1914), a great scholar and elucidated writer in Sanskrit, Malayalam and English and a poet of repute from a royal family, ably supported by Ulloor S Parameswara Iyer, another great scholar and poet and many others were unambiguous in their conviction that dwitheeyAkshra prAsam was a must for Manipravalam compositions, which was the prevailing format of poetry then. In the Manipravalam style Samskritham and Malayalam were artistically combined just as diamond and pearl are used in making jewels. Keralavarma Thampuran ‘s Mayoora sandesam, acclaimed as his best poetic work following the footsteps of Kalidasa’s Meghsandesam earned him the title of Keralakalidasan. The dwitheeyAkshra prAsam was religiously and beautifully used in that unique composition.

One verse from memory:
പാലിക്കാനായ് ഭുവനമഖിലം ഭൂതലേ ജാതനായ –
ക്കാലിക്കൂട്ടം കലിതകുതുകം കാത്ത കണ്ണന്നു ഭക്ത്യാ
പീലിക്കൊലോന്നടിമാലരിൽ നീ കാഴ്ചയായ് വച്ചിടെണം
മൌലിക്കെട്ടിൽ തിരുകും അതിനെ തീർചയായ് ഭക്തദാസൻ.

General meaning- Kannan, Sreekrishna, was born to govern the universe. പാലിക്കാനായ്..He herded and protected the cattle ക്കാലിക്കൂട്ടം with joy- കലിതകുതുകം.
You should (reverently) place a feather at his lotus feet. പീലിക്കൊലോന്നടിമാലരിൽ.

On his മൌലിക്കെട്ടിൽ tuft of hairs, crown, He will certainly place it.

Kalidasa’s marooned Yaksha used the services of a cloud to send message to his wife, whereas Keralavarma Thampuran sent a peacock to his wife, from whom he was separated following a diktat from the Raja of Thiruvananthapuram, as his messenger.

While explaining the routes the peacock would be following, the poet mentions about a Sreekrishna temple on its path and requests the bird to place a feather at the feet of the Lord, which He would accept gladly and place on his crown.

Please note the letter ‘li’ is used in the second place on all the four lines, forming ‘dwitheeyAkshra prAsam.

Keralavarma’s nephew Raja Raja Varma, also a scholar and a great grammarian in the Malayalam literature lead the team of poets who were not insistent on prAsam, rhyming letters and the war went on for long.

The happy product of the literary fight was, there was a big harvest of poems with or without prAsam.

Mahakavi Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer’s Umakeralam was the richest crop of the above war. Strictly following the stipulations for a Mahakavyam, Ulloor successfully incorporated the dwitheeyAkshra prAsam in every stanza of that great epic.

One stanza from memory, from a chapter on Uma Amma Rani’s moaning when her children were treacherously kidnapped and murdered by the enemies of the Palace.

അടിക്കടിക്കടിയനിൽ ആധിവീചിവന്നു
അടിക്കുമാരരുളും അജന്ടെ ശാസനം
അടിക്കുതൊട്ടു ഒഴിയണം ആയതിന്നുനിന്
അടിക്കു താണു ജഗദംഭ കൂപ്പുവൻ

(Ordered by Destiny, often the waves of sorrows are engulfing me.
Amba, Devine Mother, uproot all my worries, I fall at your feet)

The letter ‘di’ is used on all the four lines in the second place.
Perhaps unintentionally, the first word too rhymes. Not only that the word, ‘adi’ is used in different contexts, in different places.

‘Adi’ means stick, beating, foot etc.

and above all, there is a super effect of the clever usage of the word, ‘adi’ repeatedly – it gives a verbal effect of the beatings received from the Destiny, by the mother who lost her lovely kids.

The poet would have had in mind, only prAsam, will composing that stanza, but when it took shape, it blossomed fully projecting the emotions of a bereaved mother.

That is called Devi Kataksham, Devine blessings and grace .

Poets just start writing ; words follow.