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How `Ujjaini' came about

Staff Reporter

KOCHI: Can it get any better than this? A poet in search of a bard of ancient times.

This year's Parikshith Memorial Lecture at the Government Sanskrit College here on Wednesday had O.N.V. Kurup, poet, talking about a "poet's inner conflict" with reference to his work Ujjaini.

The long poem is his attempt to analyse and "see with heart's eye" the real Kalidasa. "I did not verify facts with historical texts. Instead, I used references that Kalidasa left in his works," Prof. Kurup told the audience.

His first interaction with Kalidasa was when, as a boy, he was introduced to the opening sloka of Raghuvamsa by an aged Sanskrit teacher. "It described Lord Siva and Parvathy, or man and woman in a broader sense, as being similar to word and meaning. That was the first taste of poetic experience that can never be explained explicitly."

Kalidasa followed Prof. Kurup since then, like a silent presence. He recollected wondering, as student and then as teacher, why a master poet like Kalidasa had so many myths around his personal life, almost all of them portraying him in negative tones. The halo was always dark. One reason could be Kalidasa's unparalleled poetic talent in the court, despite his rural background, Prof. Kurup was to find out. Returning to Kalidasa's works, it also dawned on him that whereas all characters in these could be traced to history or the Puranas, only Malavika of Malavikagnimitram had no such lineage. To Prof. Kurup, it pointed to the possibility of the character being based on the ladylove of the poet, who was selected by the king as another representative of the beauty of his land to be present in his harem.

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