Students can Download Sanskrit Shevadhi Lesson 7 सा शान्तिः Questions and Answers, Notes Pdf, Summary, 2nd PUC Sanskrit Textbook Answers, helps you to revise complete Karnataka State Board Syllabus and score more marks in your examinations.
Karnataka 2nd PUC Sanskrit Textbook Answers Shevadhi Chapter 7 सा शान्तिः
सा शान्तिः Questions and Answers, Notes, Summary
सा शान्तिः Summary in Kannada
सा शान्तिः Summary in English
Introduction: Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages of the world. In Sanskrit, just like poetic compositions, there are many literary compositions in prose also. There are many poets like Subanthu, Banabhatta, Dandi etc. Even in modern times, prose compositions continue to be written in an unbroken tradition. Among such modern writers, the late Dr. B.S. Ramakrishna Rao is well known. This lesson is taken from his compilation of translations called “संस्कुत गद्य लेखावली”. This story was originally written by Dr. Shivaramakrishna. The original story was composed in English.
Summary:
Well crafted eyebrows, long plaited hair, beautiful teeth, and fair complexion. She was good to look at. To sum up in brief, she was beautiful, with each of her limbs something to be cherished. She was youthful, resplendent, in her twenties, capturing everybody’s heart and was desirable. By her sweet demeanour, by her befitting attires, by her pleasant character, with her pleasant smile, by her cultured conduct, she was uniquely and in an unparalleled way attractive. She worked in a garment shop. While coming down the stairs or in the room, I would stretch my neck to see her with no specific reason at times or I would look continuously at her lotus face and only then would I go to my office.
Somehow, the garment shop in which she worked, had triggered my curiosity. Standing outside, nobody could see what was going on inside the shop. However, now and then, for some time, some pretty sales girl behind the curtains, looking like the painted damsel of heaven, would come into the range of my gaze, engrossed in discharging her duties or engaged in arranging the unique collection of clothes. At the entrance of this shop was placed a big glass case in which a lifeless mannequin would wear, daily, new special clothes, as if alive, which enthralled the minds of connoisseurs and attracted buyers. It stood independently in a regal way despite being bound in an electric cage, and intoxicating particularly people like me. This mannequin, with wonderful, appropriately attired body appeared to resemble her, wearing a Japanese saree, available only in duty-free shops in national and international airports.
It became my daily routine to reach my office through this route via the garment shop. My mind would feel dejected if I did not get at least a glimpse of her. On such days when I did not get to see her, I felt the whole day a waste. Even in my office, when I was at work, my mind would still be engrossed in her. When I had some respite she would appear in the dancing hall of my mind and would be dancing. Now and then these streams of thought would flow out-‘Who is this beautiful young lady? Is she married or not? Does she have children? Who could her lucky husband be?’
For these questions, even if the answers were to be available, it would have made no difference to my feeling.
Every day her sight would bring to my mind romantic satisfaction with which I would be happy till the next morning. One day, when I saw her conversing with a young man, I instantaneously seethed in anger. I could not withstand that sight for too long. Could he be her husband or brother? But he was a well-built handsome young man. I looked at that young man with jealousy, without batting an eyelid as if I was turning him down. Never in the past had I acted this way. Indeed, I am not Lord Shiva, neither was she Rathi, nor that youth Manmatha, to be burnt into ashes by the fire of my anger. When I looked at her secretly from a close angle, I observed there was neither a vermilion mark on the forehead nor sindhura in the parting of the hairs on her forehead. Is she not fit to be chosen as a bride? Oh! You cruel destiny! How does this feeling of owning her come in me?
People say that in this world miracles do occur. But I don’t have faith in it. Yet, somehow, once although I had never propitiated the Gods, yet such a miracle happened on a certain day. Indeed the same lady who works at the garment shop, the beauty of my dreams, once came to my office to meet me. When the attender at the door ushered her into my office, no words of welcome came within the path of my memory. It was as if I was struck by total ignorance as to what I should do. I could not even look at her sitting in front of me. I do not know whether she knew that I had preserved her in my heart. Who can know the pain in the heart?
Somehow, having found my voice in order, I extended greetings to her and asked gently-‘Any news?’ I did not intend to hurt her. To speak the truth, I desired to be pleasant to her.
I am Shanthi, Sundar’s wife, she replied. The name Sundar sounded familiar to me. Sundar was a nice gentleman of our village. He had left for Mumbai, a long time ago. I was the first to meet him. His father Govinda was a well-known farmer in the village. We had known that Govinda had many children, was rich and owned tracts of land. But socially we had no great bonding. We were lanelords and he was an agriculturist.
When Sundar met me, he requested me to help him get a job; ‘Any kind of job would do for me’, he had said then. I asked him, ‘Why did you leave the village?’ He replied, ‘We are six brothers and two sisters. With father no more, we faced great difficulty eking out a living in the house with the meagre income. Luckily, during his own lifetime, my father had performed my sister’s marriages. Two brothers wished to continue in the village, the remaining four of us left the village one by one. I was the last to come out of the house!
‘You were studying in school, is it not?’
‘Yes, I have studied till the tenth standard!
‘Indeed, jobs will not be waiting for us. Yet I shall search for a suitable job. Your father Govinda had served us in many ways. You may meet me after two days’, I ordered him.
By destiny, by my mere mentioning, my friend, who had hired many, agreed to take him as attender. Later, when Sundar met me, I directed him to my friend.
I understood that Sundar had taken up that job. Thereafter I had no opportunity to meet him. In reality I too did not have any inclination to meet him again, lest he would come up with more requests.
Shanthi, Sundar’s wife, was sitting in front of me. In a moment, I recollected all these incidents about Sundar. Henceforth, she was no longer the damsel who worked in the garment shop so well entrenched in the mansion of my mind, she was the wife of Sundar, from my own village!
‘What do you expect from me?’ asked her with a tinge of restlessness but with no anger.
‘My husband had told me about you. As you had helped him with a job, he had a lot of respect and devotion towards you. With that job, in this big city, you had given him a new life. He had wished to call you, along with me, on a few occasions, and express his gratitude to you. But that day, did not dawn ….
‘What? What? What happened to Sundar?’ ‘Last…. last year, he passed away!’
‘Passed away? Do you have any children?’
‘No. None!’
I was engulfed by grief. Single … widowed at such a young age! (silence)
‘Tomorrow’, Shanthi spoke, breaking the silence.
‘Tomorrow is my husband’s first death anniversary. I came here to seek your blessings. You are a landlord from the same village and a gentleman!
Blessings? Of the landlord with a cruel heart?
A high-ranking official, not just landlord, this super-imposition, which I had carried everywhere, exploded in a single moment. I thought to myself – ‘This is indeed Shanthi, the real representative of our culture! I cannot indeed approach that ideal anywhere. She indeed lives as the embodiment of culture!
I took out a hundred-rupee note and handed it over to Shanthi – ‘Please accept this for the expenses of the death anniversary. Sundar was indeed a young man of good character!
‘I came to seek your blessings, and indeed not with a desire to get money’ she said.
Shanthi did not accept the money. She bowed respectfully and went out of my office. I desired to know more about her. But, she did not give me an opportunity.
In reality I am indeed indebted to her! She destroyed the poison in my heart. Now this ‘She’ is not ‘SHE’!.
